Cultural Strategies and Urban Regeneration

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CULTURAL STRATEGIES AND URBAN-REGIONAL
REGENERATION
John Lovering School of City and Regional
Planning Cardiff University
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The prehistory of cultural regeneration

• C20th Urbanism- the tradition of exploring the
  connections
• Benjamin
• Gramsci
• Munford
• Peter Hall
• The C21st notion of urban culture as something
  that policy makers can and should - induce
• Richard Florida The Creative Class

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The academic background the rediscovery of
culture

• The cultural turn in the social sciences
• Culture/civil society as the medium of economic
  interdependencies (Granovetter, etc.
  A.J.Scott/UCLA school..)
• Cultural specificity and the varieties of
  capitalism (Albrecht, David Coates)
• The idea of a late C20th new phase of
  capitalist development centred on the
  commodification of space (H.Lefebvre) and of
  signs (F.Jameson)

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The new policy orthodoxy favouring the cultural
industries

• The early 1990s
• the notion that advanced (western) economies are
  driven by symbolic analysts (Robert Reich),
  i.e. the cultural industries broadly
  interpreted
• The idea of global cities as post-industrial
  (Sassen, Castells, Tony Travers London)
• The mid 1990s
• the fashion for the weightless economy (Geoff
  Mulgan, Tony Giddens)
• The early 2000s
• the idea that cultural industries in particular
  are particularly important and should receive
  special favours from policy makers (taken up by
  Blair government, CEC, and theorised by R.Florida)

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The Consultants move in on the act..

• The new policy formula
• Culture Cultural Industries the new Creative
  Class Innovation, dynamics, pluralism
• So urban regeneration should mean measures
  that include promoting Cultural Industries

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The new cultural instrumentalism

• the use of culture as an instrument for
  achieving wider social and economic goals is
  nowhere more apparent than in cities
• R.Griffiths (2006) Evidence from the competition
  to select the European Capital of Culture 2008
  European Planning Studies 14

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The new global urban policy discursive orthodoxy

• The rhetoric of urban renaissance cities are
  back (Michael Parkinson)
• Cool, relaxed, creative, prosperous, competitive
  (Richard Florida)

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The British Government agrees
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The new culturalist sophistry (the world
according to Richard Florida.
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The governance dimension proliferation of urban
policy makers

• The New Regionalism blurs into the new
  City-regionalism
• Scott, Storper, Soja, etc there are 300 city
  regions
• And the related rise of the Urban-Regional
  Service Class
• Together give rise to a a fashion for global
  benchmarking comparison of simple statistics
  for urban policy

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Consultants, and their clients, love making up
lists
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Culture-led regeneration and symbolic policy
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The economic effects

• Experience has been ambivalent e.g.
• Promotion of arts festivals short term tourist
  boom
• Promotion of arts districts main effect a
  real estate boom (Barcelona, London, Dublin..)
• Many displacement effects (from indigenous to
  imported/commodified culture, and from local to
  imported artists/performers) (the Galata project?

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The labour market effects

• Culture-led development is not automatically
  beneficial
• cultural industries tend to be even more
  elitist in employment terms than industries in
  general
• e.g. London ethnic minority pop 40,
• E.Ms in cultural industries 11

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The social effects

• Encouraging cultural industries can often
  merely accelerate Gentrification
• Globalisation of modes of consumption
• The Starbucks phenomenon
• Exacerbating social divisions?
• (A paticularly hideous example April 2006 The
  Rolling Stones play China rock n roll for the
  rich

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The paradoxical cultural effects

• The ambivalence of instrumentalist policies for
  culture
• Who chooses them?
• What groups are involved in networks?
• Where does the investment come from?
• Common hazards
• Creation of identikit portable indicators of
  culture (festivals, modern art galleries,
  promotional advertising etc what the other
  cities have got we must have too

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Some other aspects of the emphasis on urban
cultural strategy

• A fetish for the Visual
• Neoliberalism and The Spectacle (Debord inverted)
• Remaking Cities for the Gaze
• (Daniel Bahrenbohms 2006 Reith Lectures)
• A magnet for municipal politicians, marketers,
  the articulate arts/culture community,
  convergence with tourism and real estate
  interests
• boosterism

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Nevertheless, its' global
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Famous (UK) successes.. Manchester
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Cultural icons of urban regeneration - London
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Much exaggerated - Bilbao
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Dubious - Cardiff
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Where becoming European Capital of Culture
encourages property-development driven
regeneration Liverpool
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The central dilemma

• City planners have few real economic powers
• Yet they increasingly have to act as if they do
  urban-regional policy autonomy (a central
  component of the global neo-liberal policy
  orthodoxy)
• So they are under pressure to focus efforts of
  high-visibility activities
• Policy is influenced by the Urban Service Class
  including many cultural layers
• Nothing is more high visibility than culture
• hence the slippage towards boosterism

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Common consequences

• Diversion of public resources , esp. via
  planning, to activities which in reality have
• Minor economic significance
• Limited and uneven employment effects
• Unclear sustainability
• Ambivalent impact in terms of social inclusion
• (equality of respect - Richard Sennett)
• BUT
• Have high visibility
• Are supported by and satisfy the most articulate
  and media-savvy elites (the Begolu
  Bourgeoisie?)
• And converge with real estate interests the key
  drivers of C21st urban regeneration

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An alternative conceptualisation of the Cultural
Industries

• Layer 1 everyday commodified popular culture
  (the play economy)
• Determinants Private corporations, market
  regulation
• Layer 2 Formal arts and culture
• Determinants Publicly subsidised facilities and
  organisation
• Layer 3 Related to Boosterism/Property
  development (typical examples new sports stadia,
  casinos, galleries, conference centres)
• Determinants Speculators assessments, boosterist
  coalitions
• (J.Lovering (2006) Capital City University of
  Wales Press)

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So, cultural strategies and urban regeneration,
rethinking the theory

• Much hype causal directions ambiguous
• E.g. Florida do tolerant cities attract
  creative people and cultural industries or is
  it the other way round? Floridas theory begs
  the real questions
• The economics of urban cultural strategies in
  reality is mostly about enabling real estate
  development
• (e.g. London-Olympics 2012)
• The politics of urban cultural strategies in
  reality tend to be mainly symbolic
• to demonstrate visibly that the authorities are
  performing regeneration

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The cultural ironies of culture-led regeneration

• Much (most?) culture-led urban regeneration is
  neither cultural nor about regeneration
• But it is a globally convenient title for the
  (partisan) commodification of space and place
• The Starbuckisation of the planet?
• E.g. Londons Canary Wharf a US-style office
  paradise but very suburban at street level..

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The new culturalist economic analysis an
American bias?

• . ..few have doubted that the fundamentals of
  the US model its enterprise culture, lightly
  regulated labour market competition between
  states and regions, world class science
  openness to migrants .. provide the best
  strongest position for competitiveness over the
  next generation
• Florida and Tingali (2004) Europe in the
  Creative Age
• actually, many doubt it
• The analysis also often exaggerates the
  importance of private Service Sector industries
  in cities

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What the consultants never tell you most of the
new jobs in UK cities have come from the public
sector
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In reality its not so simple even London still
has nearly 300,000 in manufacturing
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Concluding thoughts The European Capital of
Culture

• 1 How to win it
• Emphasise social inclusion, and the expression
  of local identity
• E.g. Liverpool magnet for transatlantic
  migration
• Bristol the world in one city
• ( same as Londons Olympic bid discourse)
• Promise to build bridges between communities
• Produce much publicity displaying happy diversity
  (ethnic, gender, age etc)

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2 but dont expect too much from it

• I Culture here is narrowly defined (by whom?)
• There is little sign.. of culture being viewed
  as a medium for collective emanciptaion, of
  culture s a file oppositional of struggle and
  resistance, of culture as a source of identities
  (Griffiths 2006)
• II little recognition that the main economic
  impact of culture-led regeneration is usually
  from
• (1) commodifying place (e.g. image and tourism)
• (2) real estate - gentrification

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Worrying signs in Istanbul

• Becoming European Capital of Culture 2010 will
  (according to www.istanbul2010.org)
• Boost urban renewal and create jobs (2/14)
• Boost tourist visitors and the brand (6/14)
• Make Istanbullis more art conscious and proud
  of their city (2/14)
• Demonstrate Istanbul's European significance
  (2/14)
• Implications? Dont hope for too much (unless
  you are a hotelier or real estate agent)

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Summary not culture-led regeneration but an
explicit cultural strategy

• Panglossian claims (a la Richard Florida) are
  usually based on
• Little evidence
• Muddled causalities
• US-centric visions of urbanism
• Neo-liberal assumptions about urban development
• 2 A cultural strategy should be just that have
  explicit cultural goals, not be a disguised real
  estate/tourism strategy