OECD Culture and Local Development.pdf - PACA

3. PROMOTING LOCAL DEVELOPMENT BY CREATING CULTURAL PRODUCTS
or personality of great cities: Paris is “the City of Light”, New York “the city that never
sleeps”, Los Angeles is “Tinseltown” and so on. These images have above all a
metaphorical dimension that colours all activities, in a manner somewhat reminiscent
of Alfred Marshall’s concept of the “industrial atmosphere”. Above all, this means that,
beyond the tangible factors of production that are often substitutable and mobile,
there are intangible factors that are rooted in the territory, beginning with its specific
human and social capital. The character of a place, which itself is a legacy of its
tradition, thus produces what some have called “co-development webs” 79 .
The example of Los Angeles
More precisely, place acts upon the essence of products by offering an atmosphere
and an image to the creators of artistic practices and markets. This can be illustrated
with the example of Los Angeles.
• Locally recognised artistic practices feed into thinking and experimentation with
products. At the beginning of the last century, the Eucalyptus School, which saw
itself as a version of Impressionism, used a palette of rose, ochre and grey in
the external and internal decoration of houses. During the Depression of the
1930s, oil paint became too expensive and new schools of painting took its place,
changing the approach to decoration. The museums also influenced the way
in which products were made. The Pasadena Museum mounted a series of
exhibits with objects celebrating creativity in such fields as furniture and
sporting equipment (surfboards, snowboards). Architecture, itself a cultural
industry, benefited from its cooperation with artists. Frank Gehry borrowed from
local artists, notably Stella, in their use of unconventional and even “vulgar”
materials of the time to reduce the costs of houses and office buildings. These
borrowings were to play a major role later in his great architectural works in
Minneapolis and Bilbao. A third transfer mechanism lies in the multifaceted
activity of artists. In the United States, only 15% of registered and unionised
artists work full-time at their art. The rest of them are obliged to find supplementary
work, or even their main livelihood, in other sectors of society. Thus we see artists
decorating restaurants or public spaces, painters setting up audiovisual sites,
and decorators or dressers developing new lines of clothing. And even when
they are not working, their personal lifestyles and their way of dressing help
to spread new fashion standards through the territory where they live.
• Another element to be considered is the market offered by these places. In
many cases, products can attain high quality because they are tested in
knowledgeable consumer markets after the experts have pass judgment on them.
One of the great advantages that Los Angeles has over New York in the production
of leisure and sportswear is that its industry long ago minimised seams and other
rigid elements to meet the local population’s demands for comfort and easy
CULTURE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT - ISBN 92-64-00990-6 - © OECD 2005 101