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Cultural Policy and European Cities: Towards a Europen Union Policy Response by Michael Parkinson

This paper attempts to link two of the concerns of this seminar - the growing importance of cultural policy in European cities and the growing need for a wider European Commission response to urban change in Europe. It draws upon my recent experience of conducting research on cities and urban policy for DG XVI of the European Commission and my work with Franco Bianchini on cultural policy and regeneration in west European Cities. (1) It is not meant to be a final argument but a context for the discussion in our group. This note briefly identifies two key trends that characterise urban Europe in the 1990s: the search for economic competitiveness and increased urban competition and the associated increase in social exclusion. It discusses how different countries and cities have used and could use cultural policy to address those two issues. It identifies some tensions that have to be addressed if we wish to use cultural policy to achieve urban regeneration. It ends with a discussion of the potential policy implications for the European Union. It suggests why the Union should play a larger role in urban Europe. It identifies a series of issues that an increased Union policy would have to consider.

Cities in a European context

In the last decade there has been a transformation in the perceptions of the role cities play within the European Union. They are now high on the European agenda for a variety of reasons:

The precise forms these developments take vary by country, region and city. But they pose similar challenges to decision-makers at urban, national and European level. They raise important questions for different levels of government but especially for the European Union. What contribution does and should the European Union make to the development of European cities? And what its urban policy should be? At present the Union does not have an explicit urban policy. But many of its actions directly and indirectly have impact upon cities. Do they need refining and developing? If so, in what ways? And where does culture and cultural policy fit in?

Economic competitiveness and urban competition.

The European Union has as a primary goal the wish to increase the economic competitiveness and well-being of the Union in the face of increased external competition from, amongst other, North America and South East Asia. Cities are playing a part in this ambition since they are increasingly recognised as a major source of economic competitiveness at regional, national and European level. In the period after the Second World War, economic and demographic growth of European cities in virtually all member states made them the dynamo of development on the continent. But, from the early 1970s to the early 1980s economic decline, growing social problems and loss of population led to the view that large cities were becoming only a concentration of social, environmental and fiscal problems and had lost their economic rationale. However, since the late 1980s, the successful economic and physical restructuring of many older cities, and the stabilisation of population loss or growth in some cases, has led to a recognition of the continuing economic contribution cities make.

The concentration within cities of economic, intellectual and physical capital ensures that they are the source of many economic and social innovations as well as the command and control centres of the European economy and the key to increasing economic competitiveness at regional, national and European level. Cities are increasingly playing a part as important economic actors in the emerging European-wide system. The emergence of proactive cities has been encouraged by a variety of forces: the impact of global economic restructuring; political and administrative decentralisation within many nation states; the failure of traditional regional policies; growing awareness of economic competition between cities in an increasingly integrated Europe and changing cultural attitudes which led to a renaissance of interest in urban living. Many member states have recognised this contribution to national economic well-being and reflected it in changes in their regional and spatial policies. It can be argued that policies designed to strengthen the intellectual, social and physical capital of cities would make a major contribution to the performance of the European economy and hence are a legitimate and crucial responsibility for the Union. It requires a more integrated response from the Union.

Growth in social exclusion

Many, if not all, urban areas have shown evidence of increased economic dynamism and growth in recent years. But the fruits of that prosperity have not been equally shared by all groups within those cities. Growth has been good for some but not for all. Indeed, throughout many of the most economically successful cities during the past decade, a process of economic marginalisation, social exclusion and physical segregation has taken place. Modern labour markets are different from those of the post-war boom when jobs were broadly shared between male workers with different skill levels. Recent labour shake-out in manufacturing has meant the disappearance of huge numbers of manual jobs while what growth there was in manufacturing was exploited by specialised, highly qualified, non-manual labour. The result has been a strong polarisation in incomes, employment standards and job security between different groups within urban labour markets.

The creation of a dual labour market has been a major factor in the development of divided cities. Structural unemployment is no longer a feature of traditionally depressed areas. Many potential workers in the most successful cities - either young labour market entrants or older workers displaced from declining sectors, lack the skills needed in modern services. As incomes have become polarised, social segregation has widened. Households able to command good salaries have experienced improved standards of living while those excluded from the economic mainstream have suffered relatively and absolutely. They have become concentrated in the poorest accommodation in both the public and private housing markets. The growing trend towards inner city gentrification, while bringing more affluent groups back to the city, has been paralleled by the growing geographical as well as economic marginalisation of the most dependent groups, especially when national social welfare programmes have been reduced. This process is particularly marked amongst the growing ethnic minority communities in urban Europe, who often face discrimination in housing and labour markets as well as problems caused by language barriers. Even in our more economically successful cities, during the past decade we have seen evidence of economic marginalisation, social exclusion and physical segregation.

What role could cultural policy play in urban policy?

The debate in the 1990s on cultural policy and the future of cities as public realms is linked to the wider debate on the future of citizenship and local democracy in western Europe. The key problems facing us are the increasing social, spatial and cultural segregation of low-income groups in west European cities and the need to make ethnic and racial minorities an integral part of the civic network. Cultural policy in the widest sense could play an important part in reconciling these two trends. For example, my book with Franco Bianchini mapped the way in which different European cities and governments responded to these challenges. It identified the way in which cultural policy has become an increasingly significant component of economic and physical regeneration strategies in many European cities. It also charted the shift in emphasis upon the role of cultural policy in addressing the related themes of economic competitiveness and social exclusion.

It is important to recognise the diversity of the way in which different European countries define and use the term cultural policy. The widest definition of culture and cultural policy include not only the pre-electronic performing and visual arts (theatre, music, painting and sculpture) but also contemporary cultural industries like film, video, broadcasting, advertising, electronic music, publishing design and fashion. At the outer reaches, the phrase includes also tourism, heritage and leisure industries. It is also important to remember that city governments' abilities to make cultural interventions are affected by a variety of forces including: national attitudes to culture and local policy; the ideologies of political parties in power locally and nationally; the commitment of the investor class to provincial cities; the configuration of the geography of national cultural economies; the size and nature of the local market for cultural activities.

Cultural strategies 1970-1990s: the shift from social to economic priorities

Despite considerable national variation, however, it is possible to identify in the past twenty years a common trajectory in the development of cultural policy in west European cities. The cultural renaissance of many European cities in the past 20 years was encouraged by a variety of different factors: the decentralisation of powers from central to regional and local government, the emergence of grassroots and social movements raising new kinds of cultural demands and the need to adapt to the new social and economic transformations caused by the process of economic restructuring and uneven development described earlier. Economic change affected different cities in different ways. But many city decision-makers saw the development of cultural policies as a valuable tool in diversifying the local economic base and achieving greater social cohesion. They paid new attention to expanding economic sectors like leisure, tourism, the media and other cultural industries including fashion and design in an attempt to compensate for jobs lost in traditional industrial sectors. A lively, cosmopolitan city was increasingly seen as a crucial ingredient of city marketing and internationalisation strategies, designed to attract mobile international capital and specialised personnel, particularly in the high tech industrial and advanced services sector. Participation in cultural activities was also promoted as a way of integrating unemployed young people, new residents, immigrants and social groups displaced by economic restructuring into the local community.

In terms of the strategic objectives of cultural policy the most important historical trend is the shift from the social and political concerns of the 1970s to the economic development and urban regeneration priorities of the 1980s and 90s. During the last decade, a shift to the right in European countries and growing pressures on the finances of local governments helped downgrade the earlier emphasis upon the importance of access to culture, especially for the disadvantaged groups. It also undermined the view of culture as a contested political issue and of cultural policy as an alternative strategy for political communication and mobilisation. The strategies of the 1980s and 90s emphasised political consensus, the importance of partnerships between business and public sector agencies, the value of 'flagship' cultural projects in promoting a city's image and the contribution of culture to economic development. In fact, the direct impact of cultural policies on the generation of employment and wealth creation has been modest, in comparison with the role of culture in constructing positive images, developing the tourism industry, attracting inward investment and strengthening the competitive position of cities.

The shift from social to economic justifications was marked by efforts to encourage private sector sponsorship of cultural events and activities, to monitor more effectively local cultural resources and to improve administration, management and marketing of cultural services. The 1970s emphasis upon personal and community development, participation, egalitarianism and democratisation of urban space and the revitalisation of public social life was gradually replaced by the language of 'investment'. Community access, popular creativity and grassroots participation became less important, for example, than the role of prestigious flagship cultural projects in promoting a city's positive image or the development of strategies aimed at maximising the economic potential of local cultural industries.

However, the consolidation of cultural policy's function as a strategy for economic development, city marketing and physical regeneration does not mean that older arguments for intervention in this area should be abandoned. The basic aim of 1950s cultural policies of promoting high-quality art and widening access to it remains one of the reasons for cultural funding at municipal level. Equally, the 1970s objective of endowing community and marginalised social groups with an independent cultural voice retains much of its validity. But old and new, social and economic, community and elite oriented, arguments co-exist, often uneasily within the agenda of city governments. This cohabitation gives rise to contradictions and tensions.

Tensions within urban cultural policy

Cultural policy is marked by a series of tensions. There are, for example, conflicts between the goal of maintaining prestigious facilities for high culture marketed to wealthy visitors which emphasise exclusiveness and of opening up access to them. Even more problematic is reconciling the need to develop elite flagship schemes to enhance urban competitiveness with decentralised, community based provision of more popular cultural activities, targeted in particular at low income and marginalised social groups. In the attempt to attract financial support from national governments and the private sector, city decision-makers have often concentrated their resources on the former at the expense of the latter. There are policy tensions between city centres and peripheries. Investment in the city centre can be at the expense of investment in the socially excluded peripheries.

There can be tensions between consumption and production. Consumption strategies promote urban cultural attractions and activities as magnets for tourism, retailing, hotels and catering. Production oriented strategies provide strategic support for publishing, film, TV, electronic music, design, fashion and other cultural industries which require specialised skills and infrastructure. It can be risky for cities to depend upon consumption strategies in the long term. Cities have little control over the demand for such services and in addition the jobs it creates are frequently low-skilled, insecure and low paid. Production strategies have the potential to create jobs in the high value added sectors. Finally there are tensions between the use of cultural policy as an ingredient of internationalisation strategies and the need to protect and develop indigenous local and regional identities and the culture of often socially and economically disadvantaged immigrant communities. A proposal from this seminar to extend the intervention of the Union in cultural policy will have to address such dilemmas.

Urban and Cultural Policy: Why should the European Union accept greater responsibility?

Inevitably, the doctrine of subsidiarity requires that member states will continue to exercise major policy responsibility for their cities within their own borders. Nevertheless, there are a variety of reasons for arguing that, since the European Union currently accepts that urban change requires a European level response, it might increase its responsibilities in future. Not only do some of the trends have major implications for the wider ambitions of the European Union. In part they can only be addressed at a European level.

Social Justice or political expediency?

The related issues of increasing competition and growing social exclusion identified would justify a European wide response for two reasons. In the first case, the processes are international - not local - and common to all European cities. Like the major economic institutions and actors whose decisions shape European cities, they are inter-connected processes which cross national boundaries and require cross-national responses. Second, the Commission has the goal of increasing social cohesion within the Union. Clearly, that has not been achieved and urban change has contributed to growing social exclusion. Addressing the problem systematically at an urban level would help eliminate this. This is desirable not solely on moral grounds. Social exclusion presents a potential long term threat to the economic and possibly the political stability of European cities and European integration. The linked phenomenon of growing exclusion, intolerance, racism, revolt and repression has been experienced, if in different degrees, in a growing number of European cities during the past decade. These trends mark a clear threat to the European project and demand a coherent response at a European wide level.

A consequence of union policy

There are other reasons why these issues require a European as well as national and local responses. The fact is that growing social exclusion is not solely a consequence of market led economic change. Since its creation, Union strategy has been to increase the free movement of goods, capital and people to improve economic efficiency throughout Europe. Its efforts to stimulate labour market mobility has encouraged the flow of migrants from within and without the Union. These migrants, frequently ethnic minorities, are often the groups who experience the greatest degree of exclusion in our cities. Their current circumstances are in important respects the consequence of a conscious Union policy during the past decade. This in turn legitimates a Union response. If the Union now accepts the need for a common policy to regulate the flow of migrants within national boundaries, it should accept responsibility for the circumstances of those migrants it encouraged to move in the first instance.

The scale of the problem

Many of the forces causing urban change in Europe are on a scale which require a response beyond that which is possible for urban or national governments to mount. For example, the threats to the urban environment, the limitations of transport policy, the scale of infrastructure projects, the extent of environmental dereliction require responses, co-operation and resources at a European wide level.

Rationalising existing policies

A further justification for a more explicit urban policy is that the Commission already pursues a wide range of policies which have important effects upon cities. Between 1988-93 8bn ECU was spent on structural funds. The urban impact was most clearly marked in Objective 1 regions where 22 large cities of over 500,000 population directly benefited from structural funds. However, cities in Objective 2 regions also benefited, if to lesser degree. Cities have benefited from a range of Community Initiatives and Article 10 has broadened the coverage of EU actions to cities outside Objective 1 and 2 regions. However, at the moment there is patchwork quilt of programmes and initiatives under the structural funds and the scale and impact of such programmes upon different urban areas is not clearly understood. It is desirable to introduce more coherence and consistency into such actions.

WHAT SHOULD A EUROPEAN POLICY LOOK LIKE?

A European urban policy would need to be integrated, treating economic and social problems in a holistic way.

Implicit versus explicit urban policies

The Commission must recognise the distinction between an implicit and explicit urban policy. Like all governments, the Commission takes action which have a direct effect upon urban areas. But they also take many which have an indirect effect. Those actions which are targeted at regional and urban areas under the structural funds might be called the EU's explicit urban and regional policy. Such funds take a growing proportion of EU expenditure and now constitute 30%. Nevertheless, many actions undertaken by other Directorates have an impact upon urban areas. For example, industrial, competition, environmental, transport, energy R&D and agricultural policy have a clear impact upon the shape and nature of urban development. Indeed their combined impact is probably greater than the structural funds. The nature, scale and impact of these implicit policies need to be understood and integrated into the specific urban actions of the EU.

Competition versus cohesion

An urban policy should address the contradictions between competition, cohesion and inequality inherent in current EU philosophy and strategy. At present the Union is facing two different directions. The bulk of EU programmes and expenditure is designed to increase competition and competitiveness. Far fewer resources are invested in programmes designed to encourage social cohesion. An urban policy would need to address and unravel the bias of those existing policies.

Beyond initiatives to comprehensiveness

Thus far, EU explicit policy beyond the structural funds has been confined to two kinds of intervention. The first is to encourage best practise at an urban level and support innovative policy responses to urban problems, not attempting to resolve all problems but to encourage the raising of European standards. The second approach is to encourage networks between urban areas, hence strengthening the urban tissue at European level. Both recognise the limits upon the Commission's capacity and attempt to address the uniquely European dimension of urban problems. These two types of initiative can play a valuable role. But equally clearly they do not constitute a comprehensive approach to urban issues. An urban policy should aim for comprehensiveness rather than confining itself to best practice and networks.

The recently announced Community Urban Initiative will be valuable. But a wider strategy should aim for a broad based policy across a range of sectors. This would include housing, education, labour markets and training, environment, planning, ethnic minorities, R&D. Most important for this seminar it should also include culture, tourism, and leisure. At present the European Union's cultural policy pays relatively little attention to the potential contribution of cultural resources to urban and regional development. It should be developed.

Future Urban and Cultural Policy Issues

This paper has argued there are several important reasons why it is necessary and legitimate for the EU to increase its role in urban policy and the role that cultural policy might play in it. Nevertheless, there remain many questions about the precise form that policy should take - its objectives, strategies, priorities, resources, mechanisms. Inevitably, many of those questions are matters of political judgement.

For example,

However, we could give better answers to those questions if we had better information about current and potential policy problems and responses at urban, national and European level. There are three steps which the Union could support which would contribute to a more effective urban policy at European level. Two are general. One applies more specifically to cultural policy.

We can then refine and develop such initiatives. To encourage this the Commission could, for example, create a clearing house for research, encourage a network for sharing the information on west European urban cultural policy issues and create an urban cultural co-operation fund.

Footnote:

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