IV.A.
The Morning After: Cultural City Development after the ‘Creative Hype’
by Gottfried Wagner and Philipp Dietachmair
in:
AGENDA 21
Cities, cultures and developments
A report that marks the fifth anniversary
of Agenda 21 for culture
Nr 5, Oct. 2009
Gottfried Wagner
Director of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF)
Philipp Dietachmair
Senior Policy Development Officer at the European
Cultural Foundation (ECF)
Cutting Wings...
Shat at Verwaltungsakademie des Bundes, Schl0ß Laudon, bei Wien
Abstract
Massive challenges accompany Europe’s increasing urbanisation, argue Gottfried Wagner
and Philipp Dietachmair (European Cultural Foundation). Urban planning must take greater
account of local cultural policies and how they are developed. Development solutions will
have to go beyond the fashionable hype surrounding the role played by the ‘creative class’.
There is no size-fits-all urban cultural policy: regard must always be paid to the specificities
that make up a city’s unique DNA. Joint thinking by a diversity of professionals is essential.
Experimental projects in (local) cultural policymaking and arts management training are currently
being carried out by the European Cultural Foundation in (often post socialist) transition countries.
Indications are that success depends on the creation of an open, interactive, collegial and
trust-based learning environment – one that involves interaction between civic, public and
policymaking stakeholders.
Introduction
Today, approximately 75% of the European population lives in urban contexts. Forecasts suggest
the figure will go up to 80% or higher by 2020.1
Massive cultural alterations and challenges accompany these developments and have an
impact on all sectors of public life in Europe’s cities. It was therefore suggested that local
cultural policy development might have to develop progressively into an indispensable, if
not key feature of socio-economic urban planning and management.
The following text looks first at a few fundamental positions in this respect - provocatively,
yet also stemming from comparative practice. Secondly, it discusses cultural policy
development in the context of cities in the EU neighbourhood.
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1 www.eea.europa.eu
I. Some Positions
EXCHANGE BETWEEN GOTTFRIED WAGNER (GW) AND PHILIPP DIETACHMAIR (PD)
FETISH CREATIVITY? Creativity is a competitive advantage, but it also has become a fetish; it
can be used against others (‘elimination’ of competitors - a simplistic approach) or with others
(progress that serves all, which is a more complex approach). The latter is a challenge that
pays off in the longer run. Creativity related to culture and arts has always aimed at sharing,
as a human ‘win-win’ game (indeed, fun!) that enriches our common global heritage.
Sharing/having their share made cities famous and attractive sustainably. GW
FACTS – NOT ASSUMPTIONS. Indeed, recent years have seen a tremendous hype regarding
the role of the ‘creative class’ in urban development contexts worldwide. Some books
have turned into proper ‘bibles’ for city developers tapping into the ‘creative capital’ as
a central urban resource. Fine, if we take that as an indicator of substantially greater attention
being paid to the role of the arts and the cultural field in tackling pending urban dilemmas.
However, many of these assumptions, which were probably quite workable at first, have
not been tested in (hard!) practice. Such thorough reality-checks in East and West, North
and South have demystified ‘creative simplifications’ in complex urban contexts. It is time
to refine the analytical and methodological framework; and maybe also the inherent political
assumptions that stem from a Darwinist model of competition. PD
QUICK AND DIRTY? Of course, cities must forcefully develop their creative potential - without
fooling themselves. There is more needed for growth than creativity, and more than creativity
prescribed by the fashion doctor. Cities must be generous and patient with their creative
assets; gains can flow from the sources of the seemingly useless, unexpectedly and often
late. Feverish instrumental overkill dries up these sources. Art, science, need humble
generosity. Don’t invest in quick returns only. GW
Cities must be generous and patient with their
creative assets; gains can flow from the sources of
the seemingly useless, unexpectedly and often late.
GENUINE PARTICIPATION. Any functioning change needs real participation (and time) by the
key stakeholders across the board, as well as a genuinely felt sense of shared interests
by the citizenry at large. Individual citizens living in our cities are the carriers and
beneficiaries of vibrant cultural community life. Hence the starting point and central
subject of inclusive urban cultural development and policymaking are the various
communities interacting within the urban space, comprising a wide range of citizens.
Developing a viable urban cultural life which harvests creativity requires strong, supportive
and long-term policies. By the way, the conditions for that are still utterly uneven across
the wider continent of Europe. PD
Developing a viable urban cultural life which
harvests creativity requires strong, supportive
and long-term policies.
RISK-TAKING VS. ENGINEERING.2 Social engineering failed in many systems, and cultural
engineering fails too. Cultural development is a mix of ‘change towards the expected’ at very
different societal levels; and yes, participation, but also risk-taking on a larger scale, allowing
for the ‘luxury’ of thinking, breeding and experimenting: the city as a laboratory of future
excellence. Aristocracy did it; bourgeois Maecenas did it. How can modern governance
allow for it, without suffocating creative revolutions with participatory, democratic or
authoritarian bureaucracy? Without a deep tolerance for the as yet ‘intolerable’, it is hard
to conceive of not being ‘killed in the middle of the road’. GW
HOWEVER AVANT-GARDE YOU MAY BE, MAKE SENSE TO THE CITY’S INHABITANTS! Many
cities and towns had to ‘reinvent’ themselves and replace the classical local economies
of a declining industrial age. As inspiring as new international hotspots for arts and
culture may be, the risk of failure is high. Failing can mean: creating mere copies of such
success stories – being detached from local realities. Failing can mean: investing
substantial amounts of taxpayers’ money for short-term effects and ultimately sterile ‘cultural
theme parks’ in an attempt to replace a city’s battered image with that of a fashionable
creative hub. Failing can mean: missing out on citizens’ real aspirations, lacking authenticity
and rootedness in the local fabric. Any cultural urban development project (e.g. a bid to
the European Cultural Capital scheme or a new spectacular art museum) must make sense
to the people who live there! PD
SPACE AND TIME. The appropriation of difference in public spaces is an issue of struggling
for the right balance between confrontation and hospitality.3 Cities need to re appropriate
public spaces and fight the paradigm of citizens being charged, under surveillance, for
every free move they make. Intimacy, which is essential for cultural encounter, cannot be
secured by privatisation; and public space, which is essential for ‘sharing’ communities, cannot
be reduced to shopping malls, celebratory domes or cyberspace financed by ads. Making
space available is costly. Understanding difference is a sine qua non for capitalising on
diversity. There is no fast track to cultural integration. GW
There is no fast track to cultural integration.
SPACE FOR PEOPLE AND SPACE BETWEEN DISCIPLINES: NO PILLARS! Urban life gets more
and more complex. Viable urban development solutions need to be found for cities
growing speedily and diversely as well as for dangerously shrinking cities. There is no
size-fits-all general urban cultural policy. Yet there is the one ‘no silos!’ rule that has proven
comparably vital: No urban policy field can act detached from its neighbouring disciplines
any more. This is particularly true of cultural policies, which became more and more
indispensable for other urban policy areas, such as economy, housing, social policy and
equality policies. They all flow together in the concept of a true sharing of urban space,
and shared public spaces. PD
There is no size-fits-all general urban cultural policy.
RESTLESS AUTHENTICITY. To be or not to be isn’t normally the alternative for cities in ‘creative’
competition. Instead, the demand is to be specific within the cultural mainstream. Futile everycity
aspirations all too often overcast the specificities that make up a city’s non-interchangeable
DNA – which will have been harshly tested by history and economics. Scars can sharpen
minds, and dust can enrich the prism’s colours. Restlessness (often of incomparable historic
impact) grows in peculiar places, and needs encouragement as opposed to standardisation.
Cities of that kind make the absolute majority of the hinterland. It all depends on whether
they play their role rebelliously authentically or as if flattened out to indistinctiveness. GW
GENIUS LOCI - REVISITED. Not every city in Europe can be a second Bilbao. Not every midsized
or small town can become an internationally praised centre of the global art circus.
However, for its inhabitants every urban settlement has a distinct feel and identity
influencing their life and creating their locally genuine lifestyle. Every town has a particular
past and present, the ‘soul’ for citizens’ quality of life there (good or bad). As in many
of the transitional urban contexts (across the EU neighbourhood) in which the European
Cultural Foundation is working, local specificities might still be hidden, forgotten, destroyed,
taboo or even painful at first sight. Nevertheless, to truly engage a city’s cultural actors
in tapping into locally ingrained cultural resources, ideas and potential (probably less focused
on immediate return) will always deliver more sustainable solutions, a stronger sense
of distinctiveness than cost-intensive models imported from somewhere else. PD
AGENDA 21 FOR CULTURE is well placed to move on towards recuperated ‘quality parameters’
on new levels vs. parameters of quantity and fashion. GW
PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITIES – SHARED RESPONSIBILITIES. Joint thinking by a diversity
of professionals (artists, art organisations, related infrastructure, experts, universities,
etc.) is essential in urban cultural policies. Where the development of such communities
of professionals has been delayed or disrupted (e.g. in the transition countries of the EU
neighbourhood) decision makers will sometimes fail to find counterparts in the practising
cultural field whom they can invite to participate in policymaking. An unorganised,
dispersed professional field lacks sufficient weight, thrust and coherence to genuinely
question, debate and inform the making of real participatory urban cultural policies. At
the same time, local cultural administrations and political decision-makers in the field
of urban culture need cutting-edge knowledge, skills and working methods to be taken
seriously and really share responsibility for successful cultural planning processes with
the professional field. PD
II. Some Predicaments from Practice in
the EU Neighbourhood (PD)
by Philipp Dietachmair
See: http://www.cities-localgovernments.org and http://www.agenda21culture.net