Wednesday I got up much too early and went downtown for the [tag]Washington DC Economic Partnership[/tag]’s event, [tag]Creative DC[/tag]: The District’s Summit on the Creative Economy. The event marked the launch of Mayor Fenty’s initiative to explore ways to strengthen the local creative economy. Saw old friends and made new ones, heard some interesting ideas, and nearly frozen half to death in the [tag]Lansburgh Theatre[/tag].

[tag]CEOs for Cities[/tag] President and CEO Carol Coletta gave the keynote, and the text of her speech is available for download here.

As engaging as the local voices were, I have to admit that what I really wanted to do was spend a lot more time listening to Jed Walentas of Two Trees Management talk about the revitilization of [tag]DUMBO[/tag] in New York and Stacey Mickelson and Heide Kurtze from [tag]Artspace[/tag] because I’m less familiar with the nuances of their work. At the same time, the voices of local organizations are vital, and I’m glad that individuals like Mary Brown of Life Pieces to Masterpieces were part of the main program and not shunted off to a hastily planned panel devoted to localism, as sometimes happens at events like this when the focus slips from ideas and becomes about names on a press release.