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A DYNAMIC CREATIVE HUB WORKS AS A CATALYST FOR REGENERATION IN URBAN AREAS

The creative class has a great potential to set areas that suffered from chronic processes of divestment and economic decline in motion again. A coalition of civil society, public and private sectors can achieve a lot more than isolated actors.

The Creative Class: Pioneers of Urban Regeneration

The chronic crisis most Western cities have experienced during the late twentieth century were the corollary of gradual deindustrialization, depopulation, ghettoisation and economic decline. The inner city, in its industrial configuration, started to go through another process of transformation in the transition from a Fordist to a post-Fordist economy. Firstly characterized by substantial degradation of both its physical infrastructure and social organization, followed by a recent urban renaissance of the city centre, the modifications suffered by such cities define their inherent character as living organisms in constant metamorphosis. The elements responsible for producing, or precipitating, these metamorphoses are varied in quantity, quality and intensity. Nevertheless, we could probably name capital, markets, people and agency, at both global and local levels, coming together to form networks with strong centres of activity as being mostly responsible for these transformations. This Castellian line of argument is, in my opinion, extremely useful to understanding the significant changes taking place in inner cities, which have the so-called ‘creative class’ (Landry, 2000), (Lloyd, 2006), (Florida, 2002), (Scott, 2000), as one of its main protagonists

The term and its applications are still quite ambiguous, considering it is synonymous with an increasing number of varied demographics and activities – which produced subjectivities are often translated as ‘creative’. Regardless of the way in which it manifests itself in different situations, and among different groups of individuals, what is important for us now is how it informs the values and preferences of persons considered to be part of this typically post-modern class. Furthermore, it is evident in the Loft Living example mentioned before that these persons are not only creative in the sense of working life but, above all, in their ‘style of life’ (Irwin, 0000) as a whole, highlighting their necessity of complex symbolic structures to support and legitimize practices among peering groups connected by shared values. Robert E. Park, from the Chicago School of sociology offers a valuable insight on cultural innovation engendered by creative individuals and its correlation to the urban context:

‘The metropolis exerts particular attraction on individuals for among the various manifestations of city life one finds an environment where it is possible to find a ‘Moral Climate’ in which “his/her peculiar nature obtains the stimulations that brings his/her innate dispositions to full and free expression.’ (1925, 32)

This is not to say cultural innovation only happens in an urban setting, however, individuals do find in cities a fertile ground like nowhere else – a space within which social production, and the value surpluses generated from it, develop with unrivalled intensity. That can also be attested by the types of sentiment and emotional investment the creative class put into specific places and/or neighbourhoods, which typify the assumed notion of the “scene” (Irwin, 1997), (Lloyd, 2006). It is of utmost importance to understand the practices that engender the scene (at least vaguely) in order to comprehend how certain kinds of urban regeneration, as well as gentrification, processes have been intrinsically connected to the cultural praxes of neo-bohemians. If we look at the example of Shoreditch, and its surrounds in London, we can easily identify a pattern characterized by the transformation of derelict inner-city areas with the migration and settlement of groups of creative individuals in those places. This trend finds its equal (in a greater or lesser degree) in several other global cities like New York’s Downtown and Brooklyn, or Belin Mitte and Prenzalauerberg. In Hoxton and Shoreditch’s particular context, as I described before, artists and creative types in general, were in great part responsible for triggering a process of substantial transformation of the neighbourhood’s landscape. That is due to, among other factors, the resourcefulness and entrepreneurship found within these groups which, among other things, are manifested in the opening of independent galleries, bars, clubs, shops, and even (art-driven) squats. The emotional investment these spaces receive – in terms of both work to put them into operational mode and social production as they become authentic platforms of social interaction – are precisely what characterize the vital practice of regeneration through place-making, that is, 3rd spaces (REF). That elementary infrastructure that is put in place lays the foundations for the scene to thrive. It gradually attracts an increasing number of (often creative) people who will contribute to the intensification of social activity, night-time economies, followed by low-capital and knowledge-intensive businesses – design studios, production companies, advertising agencies, architecture practices, etc – in what Scott (2000) describes as the ‘clustering of cultural economies’ in urban areas, maintaining that ‘the cultural geography of place and the geography of production are intertwined’ (Ibid.: 14).

This tendency of creative businesses to organize themselves around the same areas – also known as ‘Cultural Quarters’ (Evans, 2004) – not only contradicts the belief that in informational capitalism workers would be irremediably dispersed as a result of acute labour specialism and advanced communication technologies but also confirms the fact that interpersonal contact, face-to-face interactions and socialities are as valid practices as ever. In fact, one’s chance of social/professional success in this milieu is fundamentally predicated on his/her social capital accumulated over time in places where those interactions occur (the club, the pub, the café, the restaurant, the gallery and so on). Therefore, the work involved in place-making and the emotional, as well as economic, value conferred to these environments as a whole are at once appropriated, marketed and sold for consumption in many different ways. The first symptom of this commodification of place is the increased land-value and the closing of rent gap, as we saw earlier.

The areas that acquire the status of creative villages start to experience an almost automatic increase in real-estate prices as it continuously attracts more and more people with higher incomes – who are either intending to live in a fashionable, bohemian neighbourhood or simply seeking to make a profit – thus, pressurizing the housing market. If on the one hand the neo-bohemians – as Lloyd (2000) accurately described – are seen as ‘urban innovators’ (Landry, 2000) for they initiate the process of regeneration through culturally innovative practices, the real gentrifiers, on the other hand, are the ones whose disposable income, combined with a desire for adopting a lifestyle largely based on consumption (visual and material), work as magnets for private investment in upscale services like restaurants, grocery shops and all sorts of retail. This way, gentrification is, broadly speaking, socially defined by a gradual demographic replacement where blue-collar gives way to non-collar, and it is subsequently substituted by white-collar, leading to a middle/upper class monoculture.

In ‘The Observer’ newspaper of 16 January 2011, a full-page article headline reads: “A City’s Soul is Swept Aside by Money”. This article describes the gentrification process currently taking place in Berlin giving particular emphasis on the imminent closure of one of the city’s most emblematic post-wall reunification symbols: the Kunsthaus Tacheles in OranienburgStraße. A squat housing hundreds of artists and studios that is about to be tore-down to give way to a new development, displacing all residents and practitioners. According to one interviewee, it highlights the increasing yuppification/hipsterization of the area and the trajectory of groups of people who are forced to move from one neighbourhood to another. Interestingly, it also creates a geographic map of gentrification that started in Mitte, moving to the now substantially gentrified neighbourhood of Prenzlauer, followed by Kreuzberg and Neukölln, which are starting to experience modifications in their landscape, both physically and socially. The same process happened in New York and it is has been going on for almost two decades in East London, starting in Hoxton and Shoreditch, then, spreading to Hackney Central, Clapton and now quite manifestly in Dalston, along the Kingsland Road corridor.

What is ironic about this particular regeneration phenomenon is precisely what defines capitalism in its current incarnation: value surplus is in great part created by means of social production performed by ordinary people – or consumer-citizens one would say – in their daily practices. This surplus is then appropriated and symbolically re-injected into the commodity and sold at a premium price. In many ways, this logic of late capitalism is also reflected on the socioeconomic dynamics of spaces where the individuals responsible for creating the right conditions for a process of urban development to occur in the first place are usually the first ones to be filtered once the process reaches a certain stage – due to the fact that rents increase and the overall living costs become too high. However, as soon as they move on to the next neighbourhood, the process is ignited once again and new cycle begins. So, we could conclude that, in this respect, the economic contribution of the creative class is twofold: besides the direct economic input resulting from business practice, it also creates value for the real-estate market and functions as a lever for evaluations informing investment decisions. It is little wonder, then, that a number of consultancies – such as Richard Florida’s Catalitix (Peck, 2005) – preach, in a quasi-evangelical fashion, the adoption of the creative city model as a fast track for urban regeneration and investment.

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