Halifax? Creative?

Whether you are new to the city of Halifax or a long-time resident, the city offers plenty of creative outlets to people who strive everyday in their music, art, and culture.

Jill Grant, a professor in Dalhousie’s School of Planning, and her team of researchers conducted a multi-year study that looked at how welcoming Halifax is to newcomers, and what factors affect whether talented and creative people stay, as well as which factors influence innovation in the region.

Compared to other Canadian cities, Halifax has a higher proportion of talented people. The city provides a beautiful and inspiring environment with a slow pace of life, and a small town/ big city feel. Universities (especially here at Dalhousie) contribute to the music and art culture of this city, and play an important role in making Halifax attractive to the talented and creative workers who bring their drive to the region. Halifax’s lively music scene and its very appreciative audiences attracts artists from all over the county; In contrast with Toronto’s music scene, it isn’t as competitive, which has musicians placing Halifax on their lists.

“The vitality of the music scene depends on the availability of live music venues and affordable housing – by 2013, those were threatened by economic downturn and gentrification,” said Grant.

Immigrants play an important role in bringing diversity to creative cities, but Halifax recruits very small numbers.

“Some interesting examples of innovative partnerships to generate community development is based around culture and creativity,” said Grant.

Halifax has its challenges. It is known as friendly and welcoming, yet on a deeper level is in fact not so. The city has ways to go in embracing diversity and welcoming more immigrants. With a high concentration of students, many label the city a “party town”. “…Halifax has many of the aspects of a creative city. Unfortunately, the government does not focus on creative aspects as much as they do on other things. More can be done to facilitate the creative parts of the city,” said Grant.