An Analysis of Tehran's Capabilities and Position in terms of Realization of the Concept of Creative City Compared with Other Cities of the World

The philosophy of creative city is that there is always a capacity much greater thanit seems (Saeidi, 2011).Creative city is a new approach to urban planning that explains how to make people think, plan and act creatively in their cities and it demonstrates how we can make our cities livable, dynamic and sustainable throughusingtheideas and talents of people (Landry, 2012).Given the importance of the creative city in economic, social, cultural and urban renewal, the main researchquestionis to what degree has Tehrantaken astep towards the application of the concept of the creative city? It is a fact that Tehran has a very high capacity andpotentialof thecreative citybecause of its diverse cultural and historical background, political and administrative centralization and industrial centers, cultural and educational and administrative land use and services that have accumulated in it.According to the mentioned subjects above, the main objective of this study is to assess Tehran's status and capability in accessibility to indicators of the creative city.It has used the Creative City Index (CCI) to achieve this goal and to measure creativity in Tehran.Then, the state of this city was compared with that of other cities of the world to determine its relative position to better understand the situation of creativity in Tehran.
The current studyin terms ofthe categoriesis and applied - developmental research and its methodology is descriptive - analytic.Fordatacollection, there have beentwodocumentaries and the libraryandthe required data was collected from affiliate organizationsin Tehran,the statisticsagency as wellas some data from theinternational organization and resources.To collect statisticsof thestudyinsix international cities, surveys of Beijing AcademyofScience and Technology Research Center inabout creative cities were used.CCI has proposed in 2010 by the Academy of Beijing Science and Technology Research Center.Also in this study, VIKOR was used in order to rank the studied cities and Shannon entropy forweights ofthe index.
Due to the use of VIKOR to rank the cities, the city of Cardiff and London (in the UK), respectively, ranked first and second. Brisbane, Berlin, Melbourne, Bremen have the ranks of third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh place is the city of Tehran, respectively. Tehran has a high distance from other cities in most indexes of the creative city, even though in some of them it has a moderate state. To understand the issue better, we are going to mention each of the five criteria and indicators related to them that are studied separately to determinate the position of cities, especially Tehran's position on each of the criteria and indicators.
Among cultural and art indicators, Tehran has a good status in some of them like, the numberof charitableorganizationsper 10,000 people, the number of peopleentering the cinema and partly on the index of a number of peopleentering libraries.The best place of this city among 15 indicators in this part is the index of a numberof charitableorganizationsper 10,000people that has the second position after London. Tehran has to work very much in some indicators such asaccommodations for foreign tourists, the number of hotels, cinemas, cinema seats, concert hall and theater, museum, library, tourist facilities and a number of festivals.
Tehran has a better situation in the number of Arts and Cultural University for higher education per 10,000people, and partly in the index of the number of higher education institutions per 10,000 people. Themost importantofthese factors can be because of a centralized system and centralization facilities and services in the capital city.Furthermore, it has not a good rank in comparison with other cities in some other indexes like the percent of people whoare activeinthe research and developmentof the activitiesof the total population, the percentageofgraduated students fromuniversities.
Tehran does not have a good status in indicators of globalization. Geographer John Rennin Short in his article justified some causes of this low rank. He called "black holes" for some cities. Black holes are cities where they have a good capacity and position for having a good geographic location, human resources but they could not have an active role in the global system. He believed Tehran is a city which has a potential of a global city but because of the challenge with the political system, it could not be able to enter into global cities network yet and the global economy as well.
In terms of technology indicators, Tehran does not have a good status either. With regard to the role of information technology andespeciallythe Internet in providing innovative and creative areas of the city residents, some reasons have created this problem like the Internet being expensive, and poor quality and lack of width among the most importantbroadband of Internet in the country.
Among diversity and resilience indicators, its position is not bad totally. Among 39 indexes studied in this research, Tehran has the best rank only in the index of the percentage of the population aged 15-24 from the total population.
Tehran with all its potential has the substrates for the formation of the creative city, but it has deficiencies in many of the creative city indicators. The result, especially in the field of diversity and tolerance shows that if Tehran wants to go toward the creative city through the Florida theory (the attraction of international creative class), it will be unsuccessful, however Tehran is likely to be successful in attracting the creative class inside Iran, but in fact, according to the results of research and specific ideological confrontation with the global economic system, Tehran does not have the ability of competition with American and European cities in attracting the international creative class. In other words, while Tehran has fundamental deficiencies in maintaining its creative class, it cannot be successful in the attraction of international creative class. However, according to the finding Tehran has two solutions for the realization of the creative city. Firstly, improving the creative urban environment, and then maintaining creative citizens and creative class through providing decent living conditions and fulfilling their expectations.