PIM2 2004.indd - Malmö stad

Cultural Planning
Lia is a cultural planner and ur-
In recent years, there has been an increased recognition
of the importance of the cultural industries
to the economy of cities and the many direct and
indirect ways in which the presence of cultural institutions
and activities carry widespread benefits,
especially in enhancing the image of cities.
This is because, under global conditions of
growing competition and the freeing of market
forces for investment and capital flows, cities have
become more entrepreneurial and conscious that
projecting a positive image to the outside world
can translate into more jobs for the local economy.
What we see nowadays is that some cities remain
important nodes in the global economy, and are
experiencing a new and rediscovered economic
importance, while others seem merely to react to
the economy. Furthermore, some cities appear to
be more innovative than others, can think fast,
can predict trends and act in order to harness
their innovative capability.
However, sociologist Saskia Sassen argues that
those metropolitan areas that have emerged as
strategic territories in the new economic order
tend to display serious symptoms of social and urban
malfunction.
In particular, she argues that the more a city
grows in importance, the more it concentrates
within itself economic, social and cultural diversity.
For example, the cities which are most shaped
and defined by the culture of the dominant global
corporations are also the most characterised by a
multiplicity of marginalized and disadvantaged
cultures and identities, mostly as a result of immigration.
These types of cities have become fertile
ground for a host of conflicts and contradictions,
which often explode in violent forms in the very
neighbourhoods where the most marginalized people
live.
So, I suppose the question here is what role can
local governments play in this complex scenario?
Can local governments tackle some of these issues
through culture projects?
Sociologist Manuel Castells is convinced that
local, s opposed to national, governments can play
an important role in this new context because
of their potentially greater flexibility and deeper
knowledge of the problems and resources of local
civil society. What Castells is suggesting is
that there needs to be a re-examination of policy
delivery mechanisms because national and supranational
institutions still tend to operate through
hierarchical departments, which are too detached
8 Planering i Malmö 2004
– The Way Ahead for Malmö?
ban sociologist living in London.
She advises cities on branding and
social and cultural development
strategies.
from local territorial dynamics and from democratic
practices.
One of the central tasks for local governments,
according to Castells, could be that of helping
their communities to gain the necessary skills to
cope with economic and social change. This, however,
cannot be done just through isolated measures
using culture simply to cosmetically enhance
a city’s capacity to compete, but it needs to be part
of an integrated strategy capable of delivering real
opportunities for all, irrespective of their cultural
affiliations, lifestyle and social background.
The Notion of Cultural Planning
I have, over the past decade, worked at the implementation
of such integrated approaches through
a method called Cultural Planning.
This method derives from a tradition of radical
planning and humanistic management of cities
championed in the early 1960s, chiefly by Jane
Jacobs. Particularly stimulating is her idea of a
territory as a living ecosystem, made up of diverse
resources which need to be surveyed and acknowledged
by the local community at large before
policy can intervene.
The central characteristics of cultural planning
are a very broad, anthropological definition of
‘culture’ as ‘a way of life’, along with the integration
of all aspects of local culture into the texture
and routines of daily life in the city.
The culture of a place is here understood in a
pragmatic way to include not only the arts and heritage
of a place, but also local traditions, dialects,
festivals and rituals; the diversity and quality of
leisure; cultural, drinking and eating and entertainment
facilities; the cultures of youth, ethnic
minorities and communities of interest; and the
repertoire of local products and skills in the crafts,
manufacturing and service sectors.
In this way, Cultural Planning can help policy
makers to identify the distinctive cultural resources
of a city or locality and to apply them in a
strategic way to achieve key objectives in areas
such as community development, place marketing
or economic development. Cultural Planning has
a much wider remit than cultural policy, focusing
as it does on questions of what, for whom, and
why.
Historically, the notion of cultural planning
has been applied in the USA since the 1970s and
in Australia since the mid-1980s. It is, however,
in the USA that the concept has been applied
with the most rewarding results, and especially at
neighbourhood level.
For example, the work of Partners for Livable
Communities across the USA addresses issues of
access, equity and participation within the framework
of more general objectives for social and
economic development. Since the early 1990s,
Partners has developed a series of initiatives that
address how amenities – arts and cultural institutions,
neighbourhood-based arts and cultural centres,
and individual artists and artisans – can be
valuable resources and agents of change in solving
economic and social problems.
Cultural planning applications demand a
concerted effort supported by partnerships, and
Partners have chosen to work on small-scale initiatives
rooted in geographically contained urban
zones. Partners’ approach is based on the assumption
that in urban areas of great cultural diversity
which also display some deprivation symptoms,
the need to show immediate improvements is such
that there is often no time to set up large partnerships,
capable of operating outside the boundaries
of the local.
In Europe, cultural planning has had, so far,
little application even though for more than a decade
– as a result of an overall reduction in public
expenditure on culture – cultural research has
consistently emphasised the economic and social
importance of the arts and cultural activity. However,
here too there are interesting examples of
neighbourhood-based arts and cultural initiatives
developed through joined-up thinking.
The Gate project developed in Turin, Italy, originated
from the European Urban Pilot Projects
Programme. From the start, the project focused
on interventions aimed at the revitalisation of the
run-down district of San Salvario through initiatives
directly managed by immigrants, youth and
women resident in the area. Issues of crime, safety,
housing and community empowerment have been
tackled under the umbrella of community renewal,
but the improved access of the immigrant
communities to the economic life of the city was
a priority for the project from the beginning. As a
result, among other things, there is now a regular
weekly market in the area, which allows traders
with a licence to sell not only original craft artefacts,
but also new types of products, such as ‘fusion
music’ records.
Social, economic and cultural integration has