Guidelines for Egyptian Cities Towards Achieving Sustainable Creative Cities (Aswan as a Case Study)

The concept of the creative city is considered one of the most important contemporary trends for achieving development plans, although it arose from the beginning of the formation of human settlements since the beginning of human civilization, but the creative discourse has been developed since the end of the last century. UNESCO established the Creative Cities Network in 2005, and the classification included two Egyptian cities In the scope of crafts and folk arts - Aswan in 2005 and Cairo in 2017 - then the United Nations organization put forward the goals of sustainable development, which created a research question about the ability of cities to be sustainable. The research tended to formulate a guide to study the creative capacity of the city based on its components to achieve sustainability, and the axes and criterias of the guide were put forward and discussed with specialists and the community, Aswan was chosen because it is the city with the most momentum in the heritage components, and the guide, axes, and criteria were applied, and the results were analysed. The study concluded that Aswan has the elements that distinguish it to achieve sustainability, and it is possible to focus on positive points that help achieve the goals towards society, the economy and the environment.


Introduction
The concept of the creative city has been become now a common concept among the urban policy makers all over the world because successive crises have created the need to provide an incubating climate for creativity and innovation, although creativity is linked to the emergence of human settlements since the beginning of human civilization, recently the theory of Richard Florida (2002) has been highlighted in a way a special push for the idea, while Florida wasn't the only one, or even the first, to embark on the creative discourse of the city, his version has proven to be motivating to civic leaders in cities around the world who have a desire to hear the new creed of creativity, to learn how to attract and nurture creative workers as promised.Creative cities are among the main entrances to development plans as a result of the changes of globalization, the digital age, and the recent economic, social and environmental challenges.Creativity, innovation, and sustainability in urban areas are inseparable dimensions of those cities that, when in tune with the networks that emerged from them, can foretell improvement of its performance.Although there is a global and local trend towards addressing environmental challenges in heritage cities and supporting sustainable creative cities, there is a clear gap in achieving sustainability for cities.UNESCO established the Creative Cities Network in 2005, the classification included two Egyptian cities in the scope of crafts and folk arts -Aswan in 2005 and Cairo in 2017 -Historically, Aswan was considered one of the most important heritage cities in the south of Egypt and its southern gate located on the eastern bank of the Nile.But then the sustainable development goals emerged globally in 2016, so, the research problem emerged in the main question about the relationship between creative cities and sustainable development by showing the research aims to design a guide to assess the elements of creative cities to achieve sustainability in Aswan city with alternatives and plans to achieve sustainability if the hypothesis is not proven.
Through the research, the concept of creative cities has been attained and the study of evaluating creative cities towards achieving the goals of sustainable development 2030 coming up with eight axes, and each axis represents a specific aspect of creative cities, the researcher extracted the main axes through a review of theoretical frameworks and previous studies which contain a set of principles and get a set of indicators to measure the ability of Aswan as a creative city to keep pace with transformation as a sustainable city.

Research Problem:-
Although there is a global and local trend towards achieving sustainability in heritage cities and supporting the creative cities model, there is a clear gap that is reflected in the study of achieving a model for the creative city for sustainability, and UNESCO has been classified for two Egyptian cities -Aswan in 2005 and Cairo in 2017 in the field of crafts and artswithin the Creative Cities Network Aswan was historically considered one of the most important cities in southern Egypt and its southern gate, located on the eastern bank of the Nile River, and the research problem can be formulated in the following main question: What is the relationship between creative cities and achieving sustainable development in Egypt?
Research Objective :-Study significant relationship between creative cities and sustainable development in Aswan.

Research Methodology:-
The research methodology is divided into: a theoretical study that contains a study of theories, an exploratory study to investigate the extent to which the relationship between creative cities and sustainability

Creation of the Creative City
The creative city is not a modern concept initiated by the researcher David Yankin in his article "The Creative City" because global cities in the historical periods of ancient civilization until the Middle Ages are equal to this meaning in terms of functions, social structure and security strategy, It can be said that the concept of creative cities in ancient history is similar to the model of cities that are based on cultural and ethnic diversity, and then this idea moved from a diverse society to another, such as the idea of creativity in one aspect of the economy or technology, Thus, ancient civilizations had primacy in this idea.[ 1 ] The concept of creative cities is one of the ancient historical terms that have developed over time, as these cities played an important role as colonies for human civilization, and transformed the world to a small village, as a result of globalization, it has contributed to the ease of communication at all levels, whether through the Internet, ease of travel, or ease of transportation of goods.These elements have developed the classic concept of creative cities, their economics and their ability to meet the challenges of the future in order to achieve their goals.]2[Peter Hall in 1998 identified three creative patterns for the city: productive technological innovation, intellectual cultural innovation, and technological cultural innovation.The first deals with industry and its revolutions that changed cities, the second deals with cultural industries that reformed some cities and allowed them to acquire iconic names such as Los Angeles and Hollywood, and the third deals with a mixture of technology and art.To create an advanced innovative experience IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1283/1/0120133 The concept of the creative city has become a new form of strategic planning; This new thinking affects the economy and society greatly, as it uses human creativity in planning ]3[

Definitions of the Creative City
The concept of creative cities is relatively recent.Creative City was first introduced in the late 1980s by Australian David Yenken D. (1988); It was seen as an invitation to open minds to new innovations Since the mid-nineties.
Hospers believes that the creative city is a phenomenon belonging to all historical eras, but there is no single city that has always expressed creativity throughout history, but has been the impetus and engine of regional development.
John Hartley defines it as advocacy spaces in which manifestations of the creative environment appear, and it has many features, including the presence of a vibrant arts and culture sector, the ability to generate employment and production opportunities in cultural industries, services and planning initiatives concerned with the distribution of resources according to global needs and local.Creative cities are characterized by how local urban spaces are reimagined, renewed, and modified within a competitive global framework.
The creative city demonstrates the importance of the cultural and artistic aspect in planning the urban context, as they contribute to every detail in the city; Street life, public sphere, diversity, quality of life, and other aspects.]4[Landry refers to the creative city as the place that contains the factorsboth hard and soft infrastructurethat allow ideas to flow and facilitate; The interaction of creative people in an openminded context that leads to the generation of new ideas, products, tools, products and services; thus, leads to economic success.Rodriguez and Franco define creative cities as those cities that require social, cultural, economic, and political changes, and are characterized by diversity, openness, tolerance, the presence of a creative class, and high cultural dynamism.
The creative city is the city in the post-4d era, and the creative city can be understood as a theoretical model that focuses on shifting from an economy based on manufacturing to an urban economy based on intangible production, it is also a brand used to sell and promote the city's image on the international stage.]6[ Richard Florida refers to the Creative City through his 3T theory (talent, technology and tolerance) , as it represents a comprehensive strategy for organizations, cities, regions, and countries to compete and thrive in the era of creativity.]7[

Figure 2. Richard Florida 3T theory
Through the previous definitions, the researcher defines sustainable creative cities in the current study as: "cities that adopt the empowerment of creativity in its various forms to target social, cultural and environmental development, based on its creative components, and depend mainly on tangible characteristics such as construction and infrastructure, aesthetic quality, spatial diversity, originality and heritage cultural and recreational facilities, interaction spaces, cinemas and facilities, as well as intangible characteristics such as values, openness to diversity, urban noise, livable cultural scenes, street life, dynamism, participation in cultural activities, identity, sense of place, tolerance, quality of life, mix social"

Procedures for designing and building the Creative Cities Guide:
The design and construction of the Creative Cities Guide went through the following steps: In determining the content of the Creative Cities Guide, the researcher benefited from theoretical and applied considerations, which are represented in the theoretical framework and literature, and access to previous books, studies and research related to creative cities, and their evaluation and development of their performance.]8[The following table illustrates the principles of evaluating creative cities Where a set of principles was extracted, which the researcher reached after the readings, that there are eight axes, each axis includes a set of principles and criteria for evaluating creative cities Table 1.Themes and criteria for evaluating creative cities to achieve sustainable development.

Axis
Phrases taken as text or as an idea 1 The construction environment and infrastructure -The city has different street patterns.
-The city targets buildings with different creative styles.
-The city's buildings are designed with creative engineering that express the city's distinction.-The city streets are walkable -Buildings target creativity based on heritage standards -City streets are usable.
-The city develops mixed use of land to keep it lively throughout the day.

Cultural Environment
-Cultural venues help add to the city's fossil buzz -The city cares about cultural places and works to develop them.
-The people of the city are familiar with its cultural activities.
-The city has cultural places to go to.
-The city encourages informal education through cultural clubs, forums or cultural competitions.-Schools in the city promote artistic and creative education for students.-Cultural venues offer a variety of cultural activities.-There are laws and values that smoothly protect intellectual property.-City institutions look to the future -There are laws and regulations that accommodate and attract creativity.-There is a connection between the citizen and the creator and the series of international cultural organizations.

4
Social environment The city is open and characterized by acceptance of difference..
-The city people contribute to every decision related to their city.
-The city enables its people to reach a solution to their problems.
-The people of the city feel proud of its distinction.
-Citizens feel a sense of belonging -The people of the city are connected to each other.
-The people of the city are in good contact with each other.-The city works to protect heritage crafts and the ability to mix heritage with creativity freely.-Technology uses the Internet to promote the city.-People's income sources vary within the city.
-The city's economy depends on the production of ideas and creative industries and represents an economic resource.-The city's products compete with international products.

7
Technology and innovation -City dwellers are competent to handle technological methods.
-Technology is used in the cultural and creative industries.
-A private digital government is available in the city, which saves time and effort for the city's residents.-The city has a basic base for technological progress in the creative milieu.-The city adopts creative and innovative methods -In creating new patterns of technological interaction within the city

8
Quality of life -The people of the city enjoy good health services.
-Pollution rates and ecological diversity decrease -In the city about international averages.
-The people of the city feel happy with their families.
-The people of the city have good looks and reasonable services.
-The people of the city are in good contact with each other.
-. Arbitration Guide (Annex 1) The researcher presented the Creative Cities Guide in its initial form to (43) arbitrators from faculty members at the Faculties of Engineering, Planning, Fine Arts, Literature, Education and some artists.
The researcher asked the arbitrators to express their opinions about the evidence, then the researcher emptied the arbitrators' notes and responses while adhering to the terms agreed upon by ( 12) arbitrators or more.as well as amending the criteria that the majority of the arbitrators agreed to amend (Appendix 1), in addition to calculating the coefficient of veracity of the arbitrators through the (Lawshe) equation, and no criteria was deleted, and thus the Creative Cities Guide became in its final form consisting of (102 ) standard, and the percentage of total agreement on the scale was (97%), and the values of the Lushy coefficients for the scale expressions ranged between (0.846 to 1).
-Estimating the scores of the Creative Cities Index: • The specialist in the evaluation process chooses one of three alternatives (applies to a large extentapplies to some extentdoes not apply).This is for each of the statements of the guide.
• The researcher determined the degree of the specialist conducting the evaluation process on the evidence by obtaining three degrees for each item in the case of the alternative (applicable to a large extent), two degrees for the alternative (applicable to some extent), and one degree in the case of the alternative (not applicable)..]9[ • The guide in its final form consists of (102) criteria distributed on eight axes, which are answered by one of the three alternatives (applies to a large extentapplies to some extentdoes not apply) and the three grades are assessed in the following order (3-2-1), knowing that the evidence is all positive, so the maximum score is (306) and the minimum score is (102).
• The researcher specified that if the city gets a rating of 75% or more, it is considered a creative city.

Aswan as a creative city model
Aswan   The Benban solar energy project is the largest project in the world, and the High Dam (renewable energy) is located in Aswan.]12[ Eco-tourism is also flourishing in Aswan, and hotels are shifting towards a sustainable policy.(Herzallah, et al., 2018) The city of Aswan plays a major role in revitalizing cultural and archaeological tourism, as the Nubian landmarks from Abu Simbel to Philae in Aswan have been included in the list of World Heritage Sites for Egypt by UNESCO.]13[ There is one of the most important agricultural reclamation projects in Egypt, which is the Toshka project for the reclamation and cultivation of 485 thousand feddans in Toshka.]14[

4.Method:-
The researcher made a questionnaire for specialists in the fields of creativity, architecture, local administration and politicians, and the questionnaire was sent to 218 specialists, and the survey was answered and responded to by 19% and the survey was divided into a set of questions from the construction environment and the infrastructure of the creative city, and the cultural environment of the creative city and, the institutional environment of the creative city and, the social environment of the creative city, and the openness, diversity and tolerance of the creative city and, Capital and economy of the creative city and, technology and innovation of the creative city, and the quality of life of the creative city The survey was paper from 21/6/2023 to 17/7/2023 The arrangement of the eight axes related to the responses of residents and workers in Aswan Creative City towards the availability of sustainable development indicators can be clarified as follows:

Arranging the vocabulary of the first axis (construction environment and infrastructure), as shown in the following table:
Table 2.The arithmetic means and standard deviations for the first axis are arranged in descending order according to the arithmetic mean (n = 729)

Arranging the vocabulary of the second axis (the cultural environment) of the creative city and its impact towards achieving the goals of sustainable development, as shown in the following table.
Table 3.The arithmetic means and standard deviations of the second axis are arranged in descending order according to the arithmetic mean (n = 729).The arithmetic mean of the axis as a whole was (30.17) and the standard deviation (±0.89)Table 5.The arithmetic means and standard deviations of the fourth axis are arranged in descending order according to the arithmetic mean (n = 729).Table 6.The arithmetic means and standard deviations of the fifth axis are arranged in descending order according to the arithmetic mean (n = 729).

Conclusions
Through the previous presentation and based on the statistical study, Aswan city obtained an approval rate of 77.66% of the respondents from the items of the Creative Cities Assessment Guide to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, that is, it exceeded the previously set percentage of 75%.Which is of great importance in achieving sustainability goals.

Recommendations : -
At the legal and political level: -it is necessary that the sustainable creative city is subject to a law of a special nature, such as the city of Luxor, and through creative management also the establishment of a free industrial zone focused on heritage creative industries .
Universities and private sector institutions: -we recommend creating a valley for science, technology and entrepreneurship because innovation and creativity are the gateway to meeting the challenges of sustainable development, and we need to focus on the technology component to a greater extent in the Aswan case study.
Civil society organizations: -spreading the culture of heritage preservation, relying on the local culture and integrating the community in the continuous development in a creative process helped to achieve a unique combination and did not constitute an obstacle, but a major supporter of sustainable development, contrary to prevailing ideas, youth and women are also important elements in creativity and innovation through achieving social equality and attracting creative people without discrimination.
Economic environment: -local culture and heritage have created the identity of the city that has achieved economic goals to a high degree.Therefore, it is advisable to focus on investing and maximizing the brand of the city .

Figure 1 .
Figure 1. the concepts of the creative city identified by Landry

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Shows the guide for evaluating creative cities

-
Enterprises attract entrepreneurs.-Institutions are concerned with creative employment and its development.-City institutions have a special budget for international experiences.-The city's institutions are characterized by flexibility and noncompliance with regulations.-Organizations help innovators turn their ideas into reality.-City institutions encourage creative businesses, whether through individuals or organizations.-Institutions allow creators to communicate with all governorates.
Aswan was classified as a creative city in 2005 in the field of crafts and folk arts, because of the creative heritage that affected the history of human civilization, as the number of Islamic, Coptic and Pharaonic archaeological areas (15) and visitors (1105 visitors) in 2019 , it also has one theatre with 425 seats and the number of its visitors (54 thousand).] 10[ Aswan University ranked first in Egypt and ninety-fifth in the world in the global universities' sustainability index indicators.]11[Its importance for research: Nubian culture, heritage value, economic value

1 -
The streets of the city are amenable to hiking and exercise.(M) 32.82 (p) ±0.98 7-The streets of the city are prepared for the movement of all means of collective and individual green transportation.(M) 30.73 (p) ±0.85 2-The city has different street styles.(M) 32.64 (p) ±0.97 8-Streets, buildings and related buildings are maintained periodically.(M) 30.57(p) ±0.92 3-The city has public green spaces.(M)31.61(P) ±0.95 9-The city has an appropriate infrastructure.city's buildings are designed with creative engineering standards that express the city's excellence.city develops mixed land use to maintain vitality throughout the day.(M) 29.19 (p) ±0.91The arithmetic mean of the axis as a whole was (31.25) and the standard deviation (±0.95) 9

1 -
The city contains authentic cultural places with historical heritage evidence.city cares about cultural places and works to develop them in a sustainable manner.(M) 31.56 (p) ±0.94 8-Cultural places offer a variety of cultural activities, the most important of which is sustainable development.(M) 29.47 (p) ±0.83 3-The city is interested in holding festivals, cultural events and green initiatives.(M) 31.38 (p) ±0.89 9-Cultural places help to increase the urban city buzz.M29.31 (P) ±0.86 4-The city has cultural places to go.(M) 30.35 (p) ±0.91 10-The city encourages artists to participate in the details of everyday life.(M)29.03(P) ±0.87 5-The city promotes interaction between audiences, cultural products and ecological culture.(M) 30.18 (p) ±0.84 11-Schools in the city promote art and creative education and the Sustainable Development Goals for students.(M) 28.58 (p) ±0.86 6-The people of the city are familiar with its cultural activities.

Table 4 . 8 -
The arithmetic means and standard deviations of the third axis are arranged in descending order according to the arithmetic mean (n = 729) Organizations support creativity, creators and environmental leaders.(M) 35.46 (p)±0.98 16-Institutions help creators turn their ideas into reality.(M) 33.31 (p) ±0.92The arithmetic mean of the axis as a whole was (33.17) and the standard deviation (±0.93) 4.4.Arranging the vocabulary of the fourth axis (the social environment of the creative city), as shown in the following table

1 -
City individuals are connected to each other.city helps its people improve their creative skills.(M) 36.27(p)±0.944-The people of the city are connected by the power of the place.people of the city feel proud of its excellence.city is open and is characterized by acceptance of difference.(M) 37.84 (p)±0.8715-There is flexibility in creative dealing with heritage and sustainability issues. .(M) 35.07 (p)±0.978-The people of the city are well connected to each other.the vocabulary of the fifth axis (openness, diversity, and tolerance in the Creative City), as shown in the following table:

1 -
City arrivals melt easily (M).25.99 (p)±0.897-Expats feel at home despite the differences.(M)22.95(P)±0.91 2-Intercultural exchange occurs easily and easily.city is characterized by low rates of discrimination by race, sex or color. of the axis as a whole was (20.19) and the standard deviation (±0.89) 4.6.Arranging the vocabulary of the sixth axis (capital and economy in the creative city), as shown in the following table

1 -Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Graphic representation of the axes of the Creative Cities Evaluation Guide city is the capital of the Aswan Governorate in Egypt.Historically, Aswan was considered one of the most important cities in the south of Egypt and its southern gate, as the first waterfall of the Nile is located to the south, which represented a natural boundary between Upper Egypt and Nubia.The city is located on the eastern bank of the Nile River.It is connected to Cairo by a railway, desert and agricultural roads, Nile boats and local flights, and its Coordinates: 24°05′20″N 32°53′59″E and its population is approximately 900 thousand people.and Its importance for research: Nubian culture, heritage value, economic value

Table 7 .
The arithmetic means and standard deviations of the fifth axis are arranged in descending order according to the arithmetic mean (n = 729).

18.69(p)±0.94 The arithmetic mean of the axis as a whole was (20.07) and the standard deviation (±0.91) 4
.7.Arranging the vocabulary of the seventh axis (technology and innovation in the creative city), as shown in the following table:

Table 8 .
The arithmetic means and standard deviations of the fifth axis are arranged in descending order according to the arithmetic mean (n = 729).