The diary of young film-maker on a recent afternoon went something like this: meet with her agent and manager, in separate offices; go to approve her new video promoting a French fashion accessory; check uploads to YouTube; look in at the opening of her new exhibition; dinner; and a party. Seven appointments in seven different locations. Compare this to a conventional office manager whose routine is the same day after day: turn up, have meetings, go home. Some people would find the film-maker’s diary horribly chaotic while others would find the manager’s dull. Fortunately the world is full of people happy to do both jobs (and both are jobs).

I’m often asked whether a particular city is a ‘creative city’. There are two kinds of answers. One is based on hard data: the number of creative workers and creative companies, or the proportion of the city’s output that is attributable to creative industries. But these figures don’t always match my feelings about whether a city has a creative buzz. Statistics cannot pick up future trends.

For that, I prefer to get out on the streets and poke around. How many people are working like the film-maker and like her agent and manager and the dozens of other people she works with? Even more revealing, how many people want to work that way? I’m looking especially for young people who are alive to trends in art, digital media, fashion or media. These people tend to congregate where they can meet and work with people they can learn from. That means an open society where diversity and learning are valued.

These people are looking to make the most of however many hours of the day they can call their own. This shift to always-on networking, or what I call Pop-Up Knowledge, is often blamed on the invention of the Blackberry. But it predated smart phones and goes deeper.

It’s an outgrowth of what I call a creative ecology. Most creative workers work alone or in small companies with fewer than 10 people. In America and Europe, the numbers of such people working in the creative industries is over 95%. Many of them work at home and lodge temporarily in cafes and clubs, visiting clients and colleagues when needed. Even some who can afford an office don’t have one because they know they would seldom be there.

It’s a hallmark of a creative ecology that we need to meet up with a wide and constantly changing range of people. We need to meet people whom we often don’t know well, whom we have no formal connection with, and who likewise don’t have their own offices.

You find such an example in Karl and Christopher Chong, two brothers who returned to their native Singapore to set up Beeconomic, a pioneering group buying website that offers huge discounts on products and services for subscribers but only if a minimum number of people sign up within 24 hours. The site proved so popular that within eight months it was bought by Groupon, the leading “deal of the day” online business in the US.

The result is what Elizabeth Currid cleverly calls the Warhol economy. She mapped what Andy Warhol started in the arts, music and club scene in New York to show that creative people use a large network of interlocking relationships. Some of these are professional like the deals between artists and galleries, film-maker and film lab, but many more are social, whether it is the artist going to the same party as other creative people or using the same grocery store to buy milk. When Leonardo DiCaprio or Jay-Z visits a city their presence generates work for a vast range of people, from fashion designers to florists. So when I look around to gauge whether a city is creative or not I pay as much attention to the general feel on the street as to the celebrities.

When I am in Singapore I like to discover new people and new shops and get a sense of what is happening. I check the business pages but I spend more time on the event and entertainment listings. The changes in the last five years have been remarkable. The new downtown Marina Bay area, for example, is now a hive of activity, with The Esplanade, the country’s bustling performing arts centre, the casino at Marina Bay Sands, modern office buildings and residential apartments and a myriad funky restaurants and shops – all catering to the new breed of people that populate this creative economy.

One of my first questions is, can I get around easily? Nobody likes sitting in a car or hiking to a distant metro stop. A creative economy needs a city where we can move around and get to all those meetings on time (this alone rules out many Asian cities). Singapore scores high on this liveability. The funky ‘Monocle’ magazine, which knows more about creativity than most compilers of such lists, puts Singapore at 18^th place worldwide, one of only two Asian cities on the list (the other is Fukuoka).

My own criterion for a creative ecology is based on three principles which follow on from each other sequentially: everyone is creative; creativity needs freedom; and freedom needs markets. The first principle means everyone is born with an imagination and the desire to use it. The second implies, amongst other things, that we can go and meet whoever we like and talk about whatever we want to talk about.

So, next time you want to check whether a city has a creative buzz, do what I do and go see what’s happening on the streets and in the galleries, clubs and coffee shops. If you see funky young people rushing to their next appointment don’t sympathise too much. They could be latching on to the next trend in what makes the city tick. Show me lots of them and I’ll show you a creative city.

What do you think is the key benefit of fostering creative ecologies within cities?

• Fuel economic growth
• Attract like-minded individuals
• Drive innovative breakthroughs
• No, it does not benefit cities

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