Culture-Led Urban Regeneration

Ronan Paddison,R. Steven Miles

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781317997672
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arquitectura
• Subtopic: Planificación urbana y paisajismo

The idea that culture can be employed as a driver for urban economic growth has become part of the new orthodoxy by which cities seek to enhance their competitive position. Such developments reflect not only the rise to prominence of the cultural sphere in the contemporary (urban) economy, but how the meaning of culture has been redefined to include new uses in order to meet social, economic and political objectives.

This significant book focuses on the ability of cultural investment to meet the rhetoric of social inclusion and the extent to which it offers sustainable solutions to the problems of the city. To this end it focuses on the meanings and practice of culture-led policy within the city and its evaluation is proposed. Paddison and Miles have edited an innovative book which presents a series of diverse case studies to challenge the 'one size fits all' model of culture-led urban regeneration - a key concern being the extent to which culture-led regeneration can genuinely fulfil the expectations that policy-makers and urban commentators have of it.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Urban Studies.

Deconstructing the City of Culture: The Long-term Cultural Legacies of Glasgow 1990

Beatriz García

Introduction

The phrase ‘culture-led urban regeneration’ has grown from an interesting alternative to urban development policy into a core strategy in an increasing number of cities and regions world-wide. From the US-based ‘festival marketplace’, “a formula for redeveloping derelict waterfront sites which pivots on consumption, entertainment and spectacle” (Stevenson, 2003, p. 141) to the increasingly adopted ‘cultural planning’ approach, aiming at “nurtur[ing] and promot[ing] local cultural activity in the city” (p. 141), culture-led regeneration is a core priority in urban centres as diverse as Barcelona, Montreal and Singapore.

This paper discusses a particular instance of such developments in Europe: the European City/Capital of Culture programme (ECOC). The ECOC started as a rather sanguine EU initiative but has been transformed into what is perceived as an attractive catalyst for cultural regeneration, generating enormous expectations in cities from countries as diverse as the UK, the Netherlands and Greece. The programme is an interesting case study because it has evolved over the past couple of decades in parallel with the growing debate around definitions and uses of culture-led regeneration and has touched all EU countries in turn. It is a programme that did not originate from clearly structured guidelines as to what would constitute a ‘European City/Capital of Culture’. Indeed, its history has been one of adapting to the needs and demands of those cities hosting it rather than imposing a prefigured model of urban cultural policy. In this context, the issue at stake is whether this programme has managed to address successfully the expected outcomes of culture-led regeneration.

A recent report by Evans and Shaw (2004) reviews the current state of evidence on culture’s contribution to regeneration in the UK in which, they note, culture-led regeneration is one of three models.¹ The report establishes that there is a wealth of approaches to ‘impact’ measurement (the most common term used to study the contribution of cultural activity to other objectives), with tests particularly developed in the areas of environmental (or physical) and economic impact assessment (Evans and Shaw, 2004, p. 6).² However, they note important weaknesses due to the lack of evidence about long-term legacies and the limited understanding of social and, particularly, cultural impacts as opposed to economic and physical impacts (pp. 31–32, 57–59). Contrasting with the poor state of longitudinal evaluation techniques, the notion of long-term impact and ‘sustainability’—understood as beneficial inputs for the city and its inhabitants that are able to survive and develop beyond five years—is increasingly seen as a key measure of success within urban regeneration programmes (Bianchini, 1999; Egan, 2004; Frey, 1999; Urban Task Force, 1999). This is because, as argued by Evans and Shaw, “regeneration is a fragmented process that takes place over several years, perhaps a generation or more” (p. 57) and “the complexity of the process of regeneration makes it hard to attribute an effect to a cause, particularly in the short term” (p. 29; original emphasis).

Cultural impacts are also increasingly valued as a desired effect in their own terms

[Beyond physical, economic and social impacts,] researchers ... have begun to look ... at a fourth type of impact—cultural impact. This term is already being used to describe two rather different effects. One is the impact on the cultural life of a place. For example, the opening of a gallery where there was none before ... The other use refers to the impact of cultural activity on the culture of a place or community, meaning its codes of conduct, its identity, its heritage and what is termed ‘cultural governance’ (i.e. citizenship, participation, representation, diversity) (Evans and Shaw, 2004, p. 6; original emphasis).

It is thus through assessing the long-term cultural impacts—or sustainable cultural legacies—of the ECOC that this paper aims to evaluate the success of the programme as a model of culture-led regeneration. The paper focuses on the experience of Glasgow in 1990, the first city to be widely acclaimed for showing how the designation might be appropriated to underpin the wider project of regeneration. The analysis of this experience 15 years on will provide a basis to argue the core benefits of culture-led regeneration and will help to assess whether the experience led to cultural legacies that were sustainable in the long term.

The paper reflects on the findings of a three-year project conducted by the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (CCPR) at the University of Glasgow. The project takes a similar stance to that reported by Bailey et al. (2004, p. 47) when arguing the importance of longitudinal studies in providing “an in-depth understanding of geographical and historical specificities” which is in turn the only way to “understand the way in which cultural regeneration potentially strengthens existing sources of identity rather than imposing new ones”. In this paper, the effect of regeneration on local identities, including citizens’ self-perception and the perception of the place they live in, is seen as a key cultural impact and one with the potential to be sustained in the long term.

The CCPR project is based on retrospective methods of study, tracing the progression of media and personal discourses on the city’s approach to regeneration, event hosting and urban cultural policy in the two decades that separate Glasgow’s 1986 ECOC nomination from the 2003 nomination of Liverpool as the next UK Capital of Culture in 2008. The paper aims to show the value of assessing soft indicators such as media and personal discourses as an approach to measuring cultural impacts and legacies and a means of complementing the analysis of other more visible and commonly assessed impacts such as the event’s effect on the city’s infrastructure, levels of employment and visitor attraction (see Myerscough, 1991, 1994). The paper argues that the most sustainable legacies of Glasgow 1990 have been cultural rather than physical or economic but that they have not been properly assessed over time and are often dismissed as purely anecdotal, partly due to their subjective nature. This situation leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to keep developing longitudinal and qualitative impact and legacy evaluation techniques. In Glasgow’s case, understanding the key to its successful experience as an ECOC and the reason why it is still considered a key referent 15 years on will not result from a purely economic and environmental analysis but rather from investigating the formal and informal narratives created around such an event. This paper aims to demonstrate that these are the most important sources of current pride and belief in the city’s potential as a creative centre and are thus its more sustainable legacy.

The City/Capital of Culture Programme and Culture-led Regeneration

The ECOC programme was conceived in 1983 by Melina Mercouri, then Greek Minister for Culture. The purpose of the programme was to give a cultural dimension to the work of the European Community (now the European Union) at a time when it did not have a defined remit for cultural action and to celebrate European culture as a means of drawing the community closer. As argued by Evans (2003, p. 425), the ECOC is an example of the European Union’s progressive shift from an almost-exclusive focus on the creation of common market (free trade) instruments and regional development, into more localised city-based initiatives.

Evans suggests that a defining characteristic of the ECOC is that it

has acted as an effective ‘Trojan horse’ by which structural economic adjustment policies and funding have been diverted into arts-led regeneration ... generally bypassing national and even city cultural and economic development policy. ... The use of culture as a conduit for the branding of the ‘European Project’ has added fuel to culture city competition, whilst at the same time celebrating an official version of the European urban renaissance (Evans, 2003, p. 426).

The ability of such a programme to surpass local cultural policies has been contested by some (Myerscough, 1994, p. 24). However, there is little question of the programme’s effect on increasing city competitiveness and promoting culture-led regeneration agendas in an expanding Europe and within the UK in particular (see Cogliandro, 2001; Davies and Russell, 2001; Gulliver, 2002; Palmer/Rae Associates, 2004).

The selection of Glasgow in 1990 marked the start of the ECOC as a catalyst for urban regeneration. Initially used as an opportunity to reinforce the status of prestigious European cultural centres—such as Athens (1985), Florence (1986), Amsterdam (1987), West Berlin (1988) and Paris (1989)—after Glasgow, the title has been integrated within medium-to-large regeneration projects and used to promote emerging cultural assets in capital, second and third cities alike (see García, 2004a, p. 319). Copenhagen, Thessalonica, Stockholm, Weimar, Porto, Graz, Genoa and Lille are some examples of cities that have linked the ECOC to ambitious urban and regional regeneration strategies, with recent studies showing these cities’ dedication to above-average levels of funding to operate specially designed programmes of activity for up to one year (€50–73 million as opposed to €40 million on average by ECOC hosts between 1995 and 2004) and/or fund capital projects (€150–230 million as opposed to €105 million in the same period) (Palmer/Rae Associates, 2004, pp. 85–89).

However, overall, the ECOC programme reveals a series of weaknesses that mirror many of the still unsolved tensions in European approaches to culture-led regeneration. One important problem is the extremely low level of European funding allocated to the programme. Although the EU has increased its budget from an initial average of €120 000 per city to the current allocation of €500 000 since 2001, these amounts are clearly insufficient to support a full programme of activities, especially in the face of growing public expectations and ever-tougher interurban competition. A recent assessment of ECOC sources of funding from 1995 to 2004 reveals that EU support accounts for barely 1.53 per cent of total income while national governments cover up to 56.84 per cent of all costs and city and regional authorities up to 31 per cent (Palmer/Rae Associates, 2004). A further problem has been the lack of any systematic monitoring of the ECOC programme as it has unfolded, limiting the extent to which cities have been able to learn from one another. As noted by García

Despite attempts at creating platforms to share know-how ... there is no formal monitoring mechanism in place. As such, the information available about ECOC experiences relies entirely on the willingness of host cities to produce final reports. ... Comprehensive reports are ... scarce and mostly restricted to the assessment of immediate impacts, without a follow-up study in the medium to long term. The resulting effect is the creation of virtually unquestioned ‘myths’ about the value of hosting the title that cover up the lack of serious attempts to learn lessons from the experience and establish replicable models of successful and ... sustainable cultureled regeneration. (García, 2004a, p. 321).

A detailed study of one of the most celebrated ECOC experiences will help to uncover the limitations as well as the successes of the programme in creating long-term cultural legacies.

The Experience from Glasgow 1990 to Liverpool 2008

To understand the influence of the ECOC on approaches to culture-led regeneration, the experience of the UK is particularly revealing. Beyond the claim that Glasgow was the first city clearly to associate the EC...