OECD Culture and Local Development.pdf - PACA

4. THE CULTURAL FABRIC OF CITIES
• Pittsburgh, which undertook massive urban renewal as its traditional heavy
industries disappeared, has completely redeveloped its downtown and
established a central goal of attracting people to the Fifth-Forbes corridor. A
Cultural Trust was set up in 1984 to purchase properties, some of which were
devoted to housing and others to cultural activities (theatres, concert halls,
galleries) and these were extended by a pedestrian walkway to the new Andy
Warhol Museum;
• Far from resting on its laurels as a cultural centre, Philadelphia has sought to
renew its base: the new Kimmel Center will house the Philadelphia Orchestra
and the city theatre, and a section of Broad Street has been renamed Avenue
of the Arts.
Another example comes from the city of Milwaukee, in Wisconsin. A one-time
fur trading post not far from Chicago, Milwaukee suffered the fate of many major
American “Rust Belt” cities during the 1980s. Civic and business leaders agreed to
pool their efforts and to make the city a focal point of the northern United States
by building on its mechanical engineering and brewing industries. At the same
time they agreed to set up a number of cultural facilities. The city’s cultural life is
now enlivened by five theatres offering varying types of fare, a major museum,
concert halls, and many amateur production associations. Even outsiders agree
that this dimension, pursued in parallel with other activities, has played a key role
in making Milwaukee economically attractive, as evidenced by the arrival of General
Electric, which has highlighted this cultural potential as a factor in its decision to
make the move.
Such strategies can also be applied in smaller portions of major metropolitan areas,
where they can have important fallout. The City of Pantin, which is adjacent to Paris
and only a few hundred meters from the Parc de la Villette, one of the capital’s most
important cultural resources, was home to processing industries and warehouses
that had been crowded out of Paris. Faced with the gradual disappearance of many
of its businesses, Pantin adopted a strategy, as did other cities surrounding Paris, of
promoting the services sector and attracting middle-class residents who could no longer
afford Paris housing prices. Yet the decline of the working-class city was so steep that
its lifestyle image changed completely. In particular, local residents took no interest
in the many cultural activities at the Parc de la Villette.
An opportunity came along when the French government decided in 1990 to
create a National Dance Centre, devoted to the promotion of creative modern dance.
Initially, this was a national project with clear goals: to develop the choreographic culture
by providing artists with rehearsal and performance studios and the possibility of hosting
resident companies; to organise training, to provide counselling services to help
dance professionals in their careers; to create an audiovisual library (médiathèque)
CULTURE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT - ISBN 92-64-00990-6 - © OECD 2005 137