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Cultural planning for urban sustainability

door Franco Bianchini

Franco Bianchini is directeur van de Cultural Planning Research Unit van de Engelse De Montfort University in Leicester en is over heel Europa actief als adviseur en onderzoeker omtrent strategien voor cultural planning. Cultural planning betekent zoveel als het op elkaar afstemmen van enerzijds cultuurbeleid en anderzijds sociaal-stedelijk beleid. In het kader van het Culture and Neighbourhoods project van het Council of Europe, maakte Bianchini een vergelijkend rapport van 24 casestudies over culturele projecten in wijken van 11 Europese steden. Voorts publiceerde hij onder meer Cultural Policy and Urban Regeneration: The West European Experience (met M. Parkinson, 1993) en The Creative City (met C. Landry, 1995). In deze bijdrage geeft Bianchini een overzicht van het stedelijk cultuurbeleid in West-Europa doorheen de afgelopen decennia en illustreert hij vervolgens het begrip cultural planning als middel voor duurzame ontwikkeling in steden. Dit artikel verscheen in: Nystrm, L. (ed.) City and Culture. Cultural processes and urban Sustainability, Karlskrona, Swedish Urban Environment Council, 1999. Contact: Dr Franco Bianchini

International Cultural Planning and Policy Unit, Faculty of Humanities, De Montfort University Gateway House, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, England Tel. +44 116 2577391 / Fax +44 116 2577199 E-mail: [email protected]

Introduction The central aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the actual and potential role of cultural policy in furthering sustainable urban development. The definition of "sustainable development" adopted here is based on that used by the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as the Brundtland Report): a type of development which "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (quoted in Bianchini and Landry, 1995, p.2). In applying the concept of sustainable development to the urban sphere, it is important to remember that any city is a complex and multi-faceted entity, which consists of at least five dimensions. A city is:

a) an area defined by clear geographical boundaries, and endowed with certain natural characteristics; b) an environment shaped by human intervention, comprising infrastructures, buildings, and a designed layout of streets, squares, public and open spaces; c) a community of people, with particular social networks and dynamics (a society); d) a system of economic activities and relationships (an economy); e) a natural environment, a built form, a society and an economy governed by a set of principles and regulations resulting from the interaction between different political actors (a polity).



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Given that a city is all these five things, it would be reductive to look only at the environmental aspects of sustainable urban development. This is why the paper strives to consider also the questions of the contribution of cultural policy to the economic, social and cultural aspects, and the inter-relationships between all four dimensions of sustainability. In this sense, sustainable urban development is closely related to the concept of "human development", which the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in their Human Development Report define as "a process of enlarging people's choices". UNDP stress as the goals of the process of human development people's rights "to lead a long and healthy life, to acquire knowledge and to have access to resources needed for a decent standard of living", and conclude that the two key dimensions of human development are "the formation of human capabilities...and the use people make of their acquired capabilities - for leisure, productive purposes or being active in cultural, social and political affairs" (quoted in Bianchini and Landry, 1995, p. 2). The paper makes a series of assumptions concerning the existing and potential contribution of cultural policies to sustainable urban development. An important contribution to formulating such assumptions is given by Darlow, Brown and Carter (1995), who identify a range of "bridging policies" to illustrate areas where policies for urban environmental sustainability and cultural policies overlap. These include:

a) the promotion of city centre living and of urban public social life (especially in the evenings and at weekends), to which cultural policies contribute through animation programmes, and which could make cities more sustainable by reducing demand for travel, making public transport more viable, reducing the need for new housing on greenfield sites, and encouraging the reuse of existing buildings and brownfield areas; b) the promotion of civic pride - through both 'flagship' and community-based cultural projects - which could engender greater awareness of, and care for, the local environment, and could encourage the public to spend more leisure time in their locality; c) the promotion of high quality design of the built environment - also through 'exemplary' architectural projects, including exhibitions and education programmes - which could provide opportunities to improve environmental standards, as well as again enhancing the citizens' environmental awareness (Darlow, Brown and Carter, 1995, pp. 18-21; see also Rogers, 1997 and Worpole and Greenhalgh, 1999).

Especially during the last twenty years policies aimed at celebrating and maximising the potential of the arts, sports, the media, the heritage and other cultural resources have played an increasingly significant role in urban development strategies, especially in Europe, North America and Australia. The paper, having outlined the historical evolution of urban cultural policy-making in Western Europe from the end of the Second World War to present day, acknowledges the growing recognition of the potential of cultural resources by urban policy-makers, but also highlights the main problematic implications of the 'mainstream' approach to the use of cultural policy in urban regeneration, emerged from the mid-'80s and still very influential today. This approach in many cases produced serious imbalances in the spatial distribution of cultural provision, and in the relationship between consumption-oriented policies and support for local cultural production, as well as between investment in buildings and support for cultural events and activities. In short, the



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'cultural policy and urban regeneration' perspective of the '80s and '90s is too narrowly conceived to provide a sound basis for strategies which aspire to achieve sustainable urban development. The paper then proposes a wider definition of 'cultural resources' than that normally adopted in the last two decades, and reflects on the main lessons from debates in Europe, the US and Australia on the notion of 'cultural planning' and how it differs from traditional urban cultural policies. The concluding section of the paper argues that a 'cultural planning' perspective could be an important component of strategies for urban (social, cultural, economic and environmental) sustainability. It also takes up the challenge of the pioneering City&Culture conference, and identifies a range of issues for debate for policy-makers and researchers. I. The historical trajectory of urban cultural policies in Western Europe It is extremely difficult to generalise about the evolution of urban cultural policies in Western Europe, because of the scarcity of comparative research and standardised data, the great diversity in the definitions of 'culture' adopted by policy-makers, and other important variations in different national contexts - for instance, in the levels of local political and fiscal autonomy, the size and nature of local markets for cultural activity, and the involvement of the private sector in the policy-making process. Despite these differences both between and within countries, it is possible to outline a common trajectory in the evolution of the arguments used to justify expenditure on urban cultural policies from the end of the Second World War to the 1990s. There are some differences also in terms of periodization between different countries, but three broad phases can be identified: from the late 1940s to the late 1960s; the 1970s and early '80s, and from the mid-'80s to present day. It is important to emphasize, however, that a policy rationale does not neatly replace the previous one with the passage from one historical period to the next. The process is more one of accumulation, with the -often uneasy- coexistence of old and new rationales. I.1 The 'age of reconstruction': from the late '40s to the late '60s The public policy debate in West European cities in this period was dominated by a focus on economic growth, welfarist planning, physical and civic reconstruction, and by a belief in instrumental rationality. In many respects, 19th century definitions of 'culture' shaped the policy-making process in our field. The main rationale for implementing urban cultural policies was their perceived value in (re-)educating and civilizing people after the horrors of the war, with a strong bias against the uncomfortable forces of commercial popular culture, and towards the well-established canons of pre-electronic (19th century) 'high' culture. More generally, the attitude towards 'culture' prevailing in urban cultural policies during this period was a continuation of the 19th century tradition, which largely viewed appreciation of the classics in the arts as an antidote to the spiritual and even environmental damage wrought by industrialization. As a result, city cultural policies were primarily focused on creating or expanding an infrastructure of traditional, building-based arts institutions located in city centres, such as opera houses, museums, and civic theatres, and on widening access to them through the provision of public subsidy. The prevailing attitude among politicians and policy-makers was to "define culture as a realm separate from, and actively opposed to, the realm of material production and economic activity"



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(Garnham, 1983, p.1), and, I would add, somewhat disconnected from other spheres of life and of public policy-making. Urban cultural policies were centred on the ennobling and spiritually uplifting, humanistic values of high culture, but there was very little connection between such values and the mainstream of urban policy, which tended to be dominated by 'scientific' approaches, heavily influenced by technological determinism. This was evident, for example, in functionalist approaches to physical planning, characterised by zoning, greater attention to the needs of motorists than to those of pedestrians, the priority of rapidly providing mass housing at affordable costs, and austere, orthogonal Modernist architecture making much use of concrete, glass and steel. I.2 The 'age of participation': the 1970s and early '80s The model of urban cultural policy-making which had emerged in the first two decades after the war went through a period of crisis from the late '60s, as a product of the interaction of changes in the social, political, administrative, technological and intellectual spheres. During this historical phase the status of cultural policy as an area of local government activity increased considerably. The decline in working time and the increase in the proportion of disposable income spent on leisure activities led city governments to expand their expenditure on cultural services, to cater for growing, more sophisticated and differentiated public demand. Urban cultural policy-making bodies were either newly created or separated from larger units, within which cultural affairs had traditionally occupied a minor position. The quality of the political personnel in charge of cultural policy improved, and the profile of cultural policy issues grew, as witnessed by increasing media coverage and growing interest among politicians and academics. One factor in the growing importance of municipal cultural policies was the post-1968 emergence of grassroots and social movements such as feminism, community action, environmentalism, youth revolts, gay and ethnic minority activism. These movements were critical of post-war functionalist city planning, and were often closely associated with 'alternative' cultural production and distribution circuits comprising experimental theatre groups, rock bands, independent film-makers and cinemas, free radio stations, free festivals, recording studios, independent record labels, small publishing houses, radical bookshops, newspaper and magazines, and visual arts exhibitions in non-traditional venues. This cultural universe challenged traditional distinctions between 'high' and 'low' cultural forms -for example, between classical and popular music- and adopted a very broad definition of 'culture' combining in imaginative ways old and new, highbrow and lowbrow elements. As Frith suggests (1991) the growing availability of the relatively low cost new technologies of cultural production used by the new urban social movements increasingly blurred distinctions between commercial and non-commercial, amateur and professional, consumer and producer. These trends were accompanied by the rise of a postmodern aesthetics, in the fields of both cultural criticism and artistic production, questioning traditional notions of cultural value and hierarchy. The new urban social movements influenced many local politicians, mostly of the Left, who expanded the remit of their interventions to include popular and commercial forms of culture, and recognized that cultural policy could act as a vehicle both for mobilising people for purposes of party legitimation and ideological contestation, and to construct forms of city identity which could be shared by people from different neighbourhoods and belonging to different communities of interest. Importantly, these politicians began to link cultural policy with what we would now identify as an integrated approach to respond to the emerging urban crisis (following the recession of the early '70s and the growth in unemployment, especially among young people) and promote sustainable



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development. Especially in Italy in the 1970s, and in France and Spain in the early '80s, this new breed of local politicians benefited from the process of decentralisation of powers from central to regional and local government, and developed often high profile cultural policies. They radicalised the traditional welfarist objective of widening access to city centre-based traditional arts institutions and activities. These new political elites encouraged individual and group self-expression - and grassroots, community-based cultural participation - through both the decentralization of cultural provision at neighbourhood level and initiatives aimed at reasserting the role of city centres as catalysts for public life, sociability and civic identity, in response to growing social differentiation and inequalities within cities, and to the increasing domesticisation of cultural consumption. Cultural policies were often combined with urban design strategies to create more public spaces and make the city more attractive and 'legible', pedestrianisation and traffic calming measures, and improvements in lighting and public transport. Arts festivals and other forms of cultural animation were used to encourage participation in the city centre's public life for people of different ages, social classes, genders, lifestyles, and ethnic origins. Cultural animation initiatives were also used to give life and meaning back to the 'dead' time of the elderly and the unemployed, and to 'dead' space, such as industrial buildings made redundant by economic change. Although urban cultural policies during this phase were primarily focused on social and political objectives, there were interesting experiments in developing 'cultural industries' strategies for economic sustainability, aimed at reintegrating into the local economy marginalized young people (mostly from disadvantaged ethnic and/or racial backgrounds) whose skills and potential had been overlooked by both the professional cultural sector and by formal training and educational institutions. One innovative and - in the British context - very influential example was that of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until its abolition in 1986. The main impetus behind the GLC's involvement in the cultural industries came from one of the Council's advisers, Nicholas Garnham. He influenced the GLC's philosophy of intervention in this field, summarized in the 1984 document Cultural Industries Strategy. The document argued that "public sector involvement in cultural activities...has tended to be directed towards those activities which can rarely be commercially viable...while most people's cultural needs have continued to be met through the market". The document concluded: "for the public sector to have an influence both on economic and employment patterns and on 'culture' in its broadest sense, intervention must be directed through and not against the market" (quoted in Bianchini, 1987, p. 112). A Cultural Industries Unit was set up in 1984 within the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB), an agency established by the GLC for intervention into London's industry. According to Cultural Industries Strategy , the task of the Unit was "to screen out unviable projects, to make recommendations on investment decisions and to develop projects in such a way that they can be supported as viable enterprises" (quoted in Bianchini, 1987, p. 112). The Unit helped set up community recording studios, black publishing houses and radical book distribution co-operatives, and provided other London-based, independent cultural enterprises in the fields of recorded music, publishing, film and video with financial assistance as well as with access to services such as management consultancy, marketing and advice on the introduction of new technology (for more



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details on the GLC experience see Bianchini, 1987). After the abolition of the GLC, other cities in Britain pursued cultural industries strategies, the best example being perhaps that of Sheffield, whose city council established a 'Cultural Industries Quarter' in a previously underused section of the city centre (see Bianchini, 1990). Similar strategies were developed by the city councils of Hamburg and Bologna, where decentralised forms of high quality, self-managed training were successful in capitalising on the informal skills and passions of (mostly unemployed) young cultural producers, and in building bridges between amateurism and professionalism. I.3 The 'age of city marketing': from the mid-'80s to present day From the mid-'80s there was a clear shift away from the socio-political concerns prevailing during the 1970s and early '80s, and towards economic development priorities. A shift to the right in the political climate in most West European countries and growing pressures on the financial resources of local government helped downgrade the earlier emphasis on the importance of access to culture, particularly for disadvantaged groups. In an attempt to respond to the structural crisis of West European urban economies, most visible in the decline of traditional forms of 'heavy' manufacturing industry and related distributive services, many city politicians and policy-makers gradually replaced the 1970s emphasis on personal and community development, participation, egalitarianism, neighbourhood decentralisation, the democratisation of urban space and the revitalisation of public social life with arguments highlighting the potential contribution of culture to economic and physical regeneration. Cultural policies were increasingly seen as valuable tools to diversify the local economic base and attempt to compensate for jobs lost in traditional industrial and services sectors. A lively, cosmopolitan cultural life more and more became a crucial ingredient of city and regional marketing and internationalisation strategies, designed to attract mobile international capital and specialized personnel. The focus of cultural policy-making shifted once again to city centres, which were used as showcases for the local economy in the emerging inter-urban and inter-regional competition games. II. An assessment of the contribution of contemporary urban cultural policies to sustainable development In terms of economic sustainability, it is possible to conclude that the direct impact of urban cultural policies in the 1980s and 1990s on the creation of wealth and employment was relatively small. Their main contribution was in the construction of urban images able to attract visitors. As a complementary factor in the competition between cities and regions possessing similar advantages, the quality of local cultural life was also important to appeal to investors and skilled personnel. The use of cultural policy for urban and regional economic development, however, gave rise to policy dilemmas such as those between cultural provision in the city centre and in disadvantaged, peripheral neighbourhoods, between consumption-oriented strategies and support for local cultural production and innovation, and between investment in buildings and expenditure on events and activities.



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II.1 Policy dilemmas Economic inequities have clear spatial manifestations in many major European cities. New conflicts emerged in the '80s and '90s between affluent city centre and suburban residents, and low income citizens living in run-down inner city areas and outer housing estates, whose opportunities for participation in the city centre's cultural renaissance were seriously undermined by difficulties in physical and economic access. These problems applied even to those cities, which had most imaginatively and successfully used cultural policy as a strategy for urban regeneration. The quality of life of the residents in the Glasgow's peripheral and severely deprived housing estates of Pollok, Drumchapel, Easterhouse and Castlemilk, for example, continued to deteriorate at the same time as the city centre was being regenerated and revitalised through a variety of cultural initiatives. This fuelled frustration with, and instances of protest against, the 1990 'European City of Culture' celebrations, by groups such as "Workers' City" (Boyle and Hughes, 1991). A second type of spatial dilemma produced by economic development-oriented urban cultural policy-making is linked to the fact that, as one graffiti in Montreal proclaimed, in many cases "artists are the storm-troopers of gentrification" (Toronto Arts Council, 1988). The establishment of certain areas of cities as 'cultural districts' in some cases - as in Frankfurt's new Museum Quarter (Simor, 1988) - generated gentrification, displaced local residents and facilities, and increased land values, rents, and the local cost of living. These processes ironically drove out many cultural producers, who had been instrumental in the district's designation as 'cultural' but could no longer afford to be based there. Most city governments prioritised, and concentrated resources on, consumption-oriented policies aimed at developing and promoting urban cultural attractions and activities as magnets for tourism, conventions, retailing, hotel and catering. Where they existed at all, policies to support publishing, film, TV, electronic music, design, fashion and, more generally, production skills and infrastructures for the local cultural industries had a relatively minor role in terms of both budgets and status. Such strategic orientation is problematic because the success of consumption-oriented strategies often depends on factors over which cities have very limited control, ranging from airfare prices to changes in the level of the residents' and visitors' disposable income. A related problem concerns the quality of the jobs generated by this type of cultural policies, which are frequently low-paid, part-time, and characterized by deskilling and poor levels of employee satisfaction, legal rights and working conditions. It would therefore important for city governments to combine consumption-oriented policies with local cultural industries strategies, which have the potential of creating skilled jobs in high value-added sectors of the economy. One of the legacies of consumption-oriented urban cultural policies is the fact that maintenance costs and loan charges on 'flagship' cultural buildings such as museums, art galleries, libraries, concert halls, opera houses and theatres are often so high that they absorb most of the resources available. In times of financial stringency city and regional administrations are more likely to curtail revenue funding for those activities which are seen as 'marginal', often aimed at disadvantaged social groups or innovative and experimental in character, than to withdraw money invested in theatres, concert halls and other building-based, traditional arts institutions. Greater use of public and open spaces, temporary structures and buildings combining culture with other types of activities could have freed up resources to fund more innovative, participatory and decentralised cultural activities and projects.



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III. Towards new strategies linking cultural policy with sustainable urban development III.1 The idea of 'cultural planning' as an alternative to both traditional cultural policies and cultural policy-led urban regeneration strategies The recognition of the strategic dilemmas raised by the experience of the last two decades should inform the process of urban cultural policy-making in Europe today. There is no doubt that the emphasis on the impact of cultural activities on consumer service industries, property development and place marketing was an important addition to the battery of arguments for urban cultural policy-making. The 1980s and early '90s perspective, however, is too narrow to provide a sound basis for sustainable urban development. The idea of 'cultural planning', which has been discussed since the early '90s in North America, Australia and Europe (McNulty, 1991; Mercer, 1991; Bianchini, 1993 and 1996) is a possible alternative to both cultural policy-led urban regeneration strategies and traditional cultural policies. Unlike traditional cultural policies - which are still mainly based on aesthetic definitions of 'culture' as 'art' - cultural planning adopts as its basis a broad definition of 'cultural resources', which consists of the following elements:

> arts and media activities and institutions; > the cultures of youth, ethnic minorities and other 'communities of interest'; > the heritage, including archaeology, gastronomy, local dialects and rituals; > local and external perceptions of a place, as expressed in jokes, songs, literature, myths, tourist guides, media coverage and conventional wisdom; > the natural and built environment, including public and open spaces; > the diversity and quality of leisure, cultural, eating, drinking and entertainment facilities and activities; > the repertoire of local products and skills in the crafts, manufacturing and services.

Secondly, while traditional cultural policies tend to take a sectoral focus - e.g. policies for the development of theatre, dance, literature, the crafts and other cultural forms - cultural planning adopts a territorial remit. Its purpose is to see how the pool of cultural resources identified above can contribute to the integrated development of a place, whether a neighbourhood, a city or a region. By placing cultural resources at the centre of the table of policy-making, two-way relationships can be established between these resources and any type of public policy - in fields ranging from economic development to housing, health, education, social services, tourism, urban planning, architecture, townscape design, and cultural policy itself. Cultural planning cuts across the divides between the public, private and voluntary sectors, different institutional concerns, types of knowledge and professional disciplines. In addition, cultural planning would encourage innovation in cultural production, for example through interculturalism, co-operation between artists and scientists and crossovers between different cultural forms. It is also important to clarify that cultural



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planning is not intended as 'the planning of culture' - an impossible, undesirable and dangerous undertaking - but rather as a cultural approach to urban planning and policy. Every period in the history of the development of cities seems to need its own forms of creativity. Urban planners and policy-makers have traditionally been influenced especially by the creativity of engineers and scientists. In Victorian Britain, for example, scientists and engineers responded to the problems of overcrowding, mobility and public health generated by the Industrial Revolution by building terraced housing, railways and sewage systems. Such focus on 'hard infrastructures' was taken up and developed by planners in the 20th century, for instance with the construction of inner ring roads to ease access to central city areas for motorists and, more recently, with the installation of CCTV systems as part of attempts to reduce crime in town centres. Today there is an increasing awareness that such physical and 'scientific' approaches can only be part of the solution to urban problems. Crime, for instance, cannot be tackled simply through physical controls, without reinforcing pride in the locality and mutual responsibilities, both in city centres and in residential neighbourhoods. It is also clear that cities will not become more ecologically sustainable if we do not address how people mix and connect, their motivations, and whether they 'own' where they live and change their lifestyles appropriately. In short, what urban planners and policy-makers also need today is perhaps the creativity of artists, and more specifically of artists working in social contexts, like the British 'community artists' and the French cultural animateurs . This is the creativity of being able to synthesise; to see the connections between the natural, social, cultural, political and economic environments, and to grasp the importance not only of 'hard' but also of 'soft' infrastructures. The latter are the social and cultural networks and dynamics of a place, which include the daily routines of working and playing, local rituals, traditions, ambiences and atmospheres, as well as people's sense of belonging and of 'ownership' of particular localities, buildings, institutions and activities. Knowledge of how to use soft infrastructures is crucial for successful policy implementation. Advocates of cultural planning argue that policy-makers in all fields should not simply be making an instrumental use of cultural resources as tools for achieving non-cultural goals, but should let their own mindsets and assumptions be transformed by contact with the soft infrastructures which make up local culture. This can happen if policy-makers learn from the six key sets of attributes of the types of thinking characterising processes of cultural production. This thinking tends to be:

> holistic, flexible, lateral, networking, and interdisciplinary; > innovation-oriented, original and experimental; > critical, inquiring, challenging and questioning; > people-centred, humanistic, and non-deterministic; > 'cultured', and informed by critical knowledge of traditions of cultural expression; > open-ended and non-instrumental.



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In cultural planning, the cultural policy-maker, the artist and/or the cultural manager can become the gatekeeper between the sphere of cultural production - the world of ideas and of production of meaning - and any area of policy-making, also in order to improve the cultural skills of politicians and decision-makers more generally. However, in order to do this, it is imperative to move beyond narrow economistic thinking in policy-making. Such need was most eloquently stressed by the Irish Minister of Culture, Michael D. Higgins, in a speech to the conference The Economy of the Arts (Dublin, December 1994): "For too long...financial institutions have used their hegemony to set limits to policy in other areas, constantly diminishing the cultural space in which so much radical or innovative thinking is possible. One result has been a dire impoverishment of social philosophy: we no longer seem to be living in countries, but in economies...Homo economicus feels justified by his products, whereas play is concerned with means rather than ends, with the quality of an action rather than its results. Hence the major contradiction of our economic arrangements: that a society based on the negation of the play-element presents itself as uniquely able to deliver play - but only as an experience of consumption... This degradation is only possible in a society which has lost an ancient wisdom which taught us that play, far from being a deviation from the workaday norm, is the basis of all culture...We need to recover that wisdom...to show that as soon as people assume their own freedom and seize it, their work takes on the aspect of play. Such an infusion of creativity into the economic space could not just transform the meaning of work, but also help to renovate the conduct of economics, restoring its humanist dimension". III.2 Towards cultural planning strategies for urban sustainability: issues of implementation In order to adopt a cultural planning approach, cultural policy-makers would need to be retrained, to expand their knowledge basis from arts administration and cultural management to political economy, urban sociology, physical planning, urban history and other disciplines, which are essential for an understanding of how cities develop. There appears to be a need also for more integrated and overarching structures for policy-making, bringing together different departments and liasing much more with civil society. The work of policy-makers could be organized more around cross-cutting issues and problems, and could be less shaped by the rigidities of departmental concerns. Innovative thinking in policy-making institutions could be encouraged through an extensive use of ideas competitions - not just for architectural, urban design and public art projects, but also for the design of cultural policies themselves. In other words, a culture of creativity and of acceptance of risk could be encouraged in policy-making - a culture where policy-makers are not afraid of failure, or at least are able to distinguish between "competent" and "incompetent" failure, and see that the former may contain the seeds of future success. Three issues deserve special consideration in the process of re-orientation of urban cultural policies brought about by the adoption of a cultural planning perspective: i) the development of 'open minded' public spaces for social interaction in cities, and of 'permeable borders' between different neighbourhoods; ii) the importance of encouraging multiculturalism and intercultural exchange; ii) the need to evaluate and give recognition to the potential of participatory cultural projects within sustainable urban development strategies.



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III.3 Developing 'open minded' public spaces and permeable borders Social cohesion may prove difficult to achieve in our cities, which are increasingly marked by economic and lifestyle differences. Precisely for this reason, it is important that policy-makers promote social interaction between different groups. Social interaction can be based on the simple but powerful fact that different social groups inhabit the same territory. Cultural activities can play a key role in transforming this territory into a shared public space, and in counteracting trends towards conducting our public life within increasingly homogeneous social circles (Brill, 1989, p. 30). However, to maximise the potential of cultural policies it is important that they are co-ordinated with architecture and urban planning initiatives aimed at producing space which - in Michael Walzer's definition (1986) - is not designed with one particular type of usage in mind ('single minded space') but is 'open minded': i.e. it is designed for "a variety of uses, including unforeseen and unforeseeable uses, and is used by citizens who do different things and are prepared to tolerate, even to take an interest in, things they do not do". A notion of 'public space' linked with strategies to recreate a local public sphere should make the most of the opportunities provided by the new information technologies, which are - according to Manuel Castells - "fundamental means by which places may continue to exist as such" (1991; quoted in Mercer, 1996, pp. 64-65). Castells argues that neighbourhood-based media strategies can contribute to counteracting the standardizing forces unleashed by the 'spaces of flows' of the increasingly globalized urban economies and to asserting some local control over the external images of the neighbourhood and of the city as a whole. In order to promote "the symbolic marking of places, the preservation of symbols of recognition, the expression of collective memory in actual practices of communication", Castells proposes to establish "citizens' data banks, interactive communication systems, community-based multimedia centres, (which) are powerful tools to enhance citizen participation on the basis of grassroots organization and local government's political will" (ibidem). The location of cultural facilities is also vital for social interaction, for example to attract audiences from two or three different and possibly socially segregated neighbourhoods. This is more significant than proximity in the sense of simple closeness, because increasingly there is social segregation within neighbourhoods which will not be overcome by placing facilities for social and cultural life centrally within that territorially bounded space. It is important to identify the overlap between two or more neighbourhoods - the permeable border which blurs the boundary between them, so that people in both neighbourhoods think of the facility as being local, as 'theirs'. Borders between neighbourhoods can be more or less rigidly demarcated, but a public space like a park can make the transition between one neighbourhood and another softer and, in a sense, transcend the border. This is important because so many segregated and deprived neighbourhoods are separated from the rest of the city by rigid, impassable borders - inner ring roads, railways, canals. The approach to neighbourhood regeneration outlined here is at odds with urban policies predicated on the twin objectives of cohesion and control, which tend to discourage openness, permeability and interaction (e.g. by 'decanting' poorer people from dense, socially and functionally diverse inner city areas to monocultural, cut off housing estates, or by closing down access routes to deprived inner city areas to enable police control).



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III. 4 Encouraging multiculturalism and intercultural exchange Multiculturalism and interculturalism is a relatively common experience at the level of individual consumption (food, music, crafts objects etc...), but it is much more difficult to encourage groups of people to participate in multicultural and intercultural projects, which are essential to achieve social and cultural sustainability. It is important here to understand the difference between the terms 'multiculturalism' and 'interculturalism'. Urban cultural policies have traditionally aimed at multiculturalism, which generally means the strengthening of the distinctive cultural identities of different ethnic communities, by enabling them to have their own cultural voices. This is a valuable objective, but multiculturalism does not necessarily encourage communication between cultures. On the contrary, multicultural policies can contribute to entrenching particularisms and vested interests. If the aim is to counteract racism, then perhaps more resources could be directed to intercultural projects, aimed at building bridges between different communities and at producing innovative cultural hybrids. One example of good practice is the promotion by Turin City Council of the production of the film Piazza Saluzzo siamo noi ('We are Piazza Saluzzo'), to illustrate the richness of the physical, social and cultural environments of the city's San Salvario neighbourhood, and to counteract the very negative images of this urban area in the mainstream media. The film was made by local young people - including some belonging to ethnic minorities - under the guidance of a professional director. The participants in the project later established a cultural association named after the film itself, with the purpose of organizing concerts, parties, courses, music and film workshops. The Berlin Senate Commission for Foreign Affairs provides interesting and innovative examples of how city government can develop intercultural projects for civic spaces and foster an intercultural mentality in the city. The Berlin policy-makers in 1993 launched poster campaigns playing on the multifarious definitions, solicited from the public, of being German and a resident of Berlin. In the same year, they opened the Werkstatt der Kulturen ('Workshop of Cultures'), a complex including a concert hall, an auditorium, laboratories and studios, run jointly by representatives of German and migrant organizations for young people to meet and engage in intercultural exchange and production projects, and from 1994 they supported Radio Multikulti, a local public radio station run mainly by non-German DJs, broadcasting world music and debate in sixteen languages (Vertovec, 1995; Soysal, 1996). III.5 Evaluating and giving recognition to the benefits of participatory cultural activities The 1980s saw a flourishing of studies on the economic importance of the cultural sector in different cities, and of the direct and indirect economic impacts of cultural activities and policies on employment and wealth creation (Behr et al., 1989; Hummel and Berger, 1988; Myerscough, 1988). This tradition of studies was undoubtedly important to raise the profile of cultural policies and to advocate for increased public and private sector investment in culture. However, today new methodologies and indicators are required to evaluate the impacts of cultural policies and activities in terms of quality of life, skills enhancement, the development of a creative milieu, economic innovation, and social inclusion. Recent developments in economic theory could help make a strong case for investment in



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participatory, human development and innovation-oriented cultural policies and projects. According to Ekins, Hillman and Hutchison (1992), five types of capital are needed for successful wealth creation: ecological, human, social, organizational and manufacturing capital. The authors suggest that this should replace the land-labour-capital model of traditional economics. Urban cultural policies which encourage people to be makers, rather than simply consumers, of art and culture can have a significant role to play in the development of three key components of human capital (knowledge, skills and motivation) as well as of social and organizational capital. Speaking at a recent conference on urban regeneration (1), Jude Kelly (the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds) lamented the focus of so much public policy on "post-trauma solutions", and the fact that the argument for the benefits of creativity at grassroots level has not yet been won in the same way as the argument for a healthy diet and lifestyle. In Kelly's own words: "so many times I see examples of people of all ages becoming healthier, more secure and more enterprising individuals through active participation in informal arts training" (2). Recent studies of participatory cultural activities point to similar conclusions. In 1992 Phyllida Shaw wrote Changing Places, a report commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council in association with the Industry Department of the Scottish Office, which described the impacts of participatory arts projects in urban areas in Scotland that qualify for special funding because of their levels of deprivation. The social, environmental and economic benefits of these projects included the following: enhancing community identity; improving the image of a place both within and outwith an area; improving communication within a community; creating opportunities for team work; increasing self confidence; improving the physical appearance of a place; creating a safer environment; improving health by reducing stress, and providing training for employment. In 1995 the Community Arts Network of South Australia published a study by Deirdre Williams which surveyed the social, educational, artistic and economic benefits of a national sample of "organisers" and "observers" of community-based arts projects funded by the Australia Council. According to the respondents to Williams' questionnaires, arts activities had significant long-term value in relation to the following objectives: "communicating ideas and information" (71% of organisers, and 64% of observers); increasing "appreciation of community arts projects" (67% and 59%); developing "creative talents" (56% and 50%); developing "community identity" (52% and 52%); establishing "networks of ongoing value" (54% and 45%); developing "further work of artistic merit" (57% and 41%); "planning and organising activities" (45% and 48%); raising "public awareness of an issue" (46% and 49%); lessening "social isolation" (45% and 39%); "collecting, analysing and organising information" (40% and 42%); improving "understanding of different cultures or lifestyles" (42% and 37%); developing "arts groups or activities" (38% and 37%), and "solving problems" (31% and 28%). Interestingly, for the respondents arts activities had much less significant long-term value in relation to economic objectives, such as the following: producing "cost savings in public expenditure through improved crime prevention" (8% of organisers and 15% of observers); leading to employment (13% and 7%); and developing local enterprise (7% and 11%) (Williams, 1995). Lastly, in Britain a study aimed at developing a methodology for evaluating the social impact of arts programmes reached similar conclusions to those of Williams' Australian research project (Matarasso, 1997).



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IV. Conclusions A cultural planning perspective rooted in an understanding of local cultural resources and of cities as cultural entities - as places where people meet, talk, share ideas, and where identities and lifestyles are formed - could help policy-makers understand local needs and desires, ensure cultural pluralism and conceptualize essential strategic questions about the future. According to this perspective, an explicit commitment to revitalise the cultural, social and political life of local residents should precede and sustain the formulation of physical and economic regeneration strategies. It will also be essential for local politicians and policy-makers to recognise more openly the often controversial implications of their actions. The relative depoliticisation of the debate about urban cultural policies over the last decade has led in many cases to a loss of political imagination. Innovative strategies for sustainable urban development are more likely to emerge if cultural policies can contribute to revitalising an inclusive, local sphere of democratic debate, by opening up the local media, encouraging innovation through intercultural dialogue, and exploring the potential of cultural projects to visualize the sustainable city of the future. Footnotes (1) 'How can we regenerate our cities? A sustainable approach', a conference organized by the journal City and held at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 18th October 1996. (2) From an article in Activate, the journal of the West Yorkshire Playhouse Arts Development Unit, n. 1, autumn-winter 1996. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is based in part on Bianchini and Parkinson (1993), Landry and Bianchini (1995), and Bianchini and Bloomfield (1996; 1997). Some material contained in the paper is taken also from Bianchini and Ghilardi Santacatterina (1997), one of the outcomes of the Council of Europe's "Culture and Neighbourhoods research project, which ran from 1993 to 1996 and consisted of 24 case-studies of neighbourhoods in 11 European cities: Copenhagen, Liverpool, Munich, Vienna, Turin, Marseille, Bilbao, Prague, Budapest, Sofia and Athens . REFERENCES Behr, V. Gnad, F. and Kunzmann, K. (eds.) (1989) 'Kultur, Wirtschaft, Stadtenwicklung' Dortmunder Beitrge zur Raumplanung, 51, Dortmund, IRPUD. Bianchini, F. (1987) 'GLC R.I.P. Cultural policies in London, 1981-1986', New Formations, 1. (1990) 'Urban renaissance? The arts and the urban regeneration process' in MacGregor, S. and Pimlott, B. (eds.) Tackling the Inner Cities, Oxford, Clarendon.



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