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Presentation given to Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago, on June 7 2011 at a colloquium on the City and the Arts. Further metadata inside
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CITY, KNOW THYSELF: CULTURAL EVIDENCE AND
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Alan FreemanLondon Metropolitan University
Acknowledgements and further reading
This was presented to a symposium on “the Future of the City and the Arts” organized by the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago on June 5th 2011
Special thanks to Betty Farrell, Mitch Marr, and the team
For more information see https://londonmet.academia.edu/AlanFreeman Slideshow from ‘My City’s Still Breathing’, Winnipeg 2010 Slideshow from Winnipeg Mayor’s luncheon for the arts ‘London: A cultural Audit’ Reports on creative industries from the GLA
These will all be posted during 2014
Why plan for culture? Some rationales
• Economic benefits (the ‘creative industry’ agenda)• Other social goals (such as health, social cohesion,
well-being, poverty reduction and crime reduction)
Instrumental benefit
• A desirable goal of human life
Intrinsic merit
• ‘Fourth Pillar’ (Hawkes)• Beasley ‘love your city’• Branding
Expressing identity
The forces behind the city’s changing role
Exxon Media$0
$100
$200
$300
$400
$500
Assets (2010 reported valuation)
ViacomNews CorpTime WarnerDisneyAppleSonyExxon
$bn
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
300000
Food products Creative products
Demand for creative products by UK families, 1992-2004Demand for creative productsUK families 1992-2004
0
30000
60000
90000
19942004
Demand for creative productsUK businesses 1994 and 2004
The unstoppable rise of services
Chart 1: proportion of employees in the service industries in industrialised countries
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
19
48
19
52
19
56
19
60
19
64
19
68
19
72
19
76
19
80
19
84
19
88
19
92
19
96
20
00
20
04
em
plo
yee
job
s in
ser
vice
s as
pe
rce
nt
of
tota
l em
plo
yee
job
s
UK US
Japan Germany
Chart 2: proportion of employees in major sectors, China
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
Jobs
in m
ajor
eco
nom
ic s
ecto
rs a
s pr
opor
tion
of to
tal
Agriculture
Services
Manufacturing
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20130
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
UK revenue from music
Recorded Primary Recorded SecondaryLive Primary Live Secondary £million
What is creative capacity?
The productive paradigm has changed
The old idea that machines are replacing people has reversed
Design is king The main
required resource is people
What constitutes cultural evidence?The conflict between diversity and comparability
The Cultural Audit – what it’s not
What’s in a number?
206,000
172,000
But…Most of the authors are
not British
Most of the readers are not British
So what’s going on?
UK
US
Canada
AustraliaSouth Asia
Africa
English language writers
UKUS
Canada
AustraliaSouth Asia
Africa
English Language readers
The city is a centre of encounter and exchange
It connects the parts of the
region to each other
It connects the region to other
regions
What cities do
The populations of the region mingle in each city
Business, government, and ideas come from other
cities to exchange
Culture as resource
The successful modern city provides the facilities for interchange.
It cannot do this as an empty shell; it has to be culturally alive
Because culture is the vehicle of exchange.
Identity
PlaceCapacit
y
The city as factory
What to measure, how to measure it?
(and should we measure it at all)
Dancing with EconomistsEconomic (revealed) value• Output• Jobs• Firms
Social (concealed) value• Willingness to Pay• Subjective Well-Being
Revealed Cultural Activity• Audiences• Sites• Participation• Diversity• Qualitative indicators (eg ‘buzz’)
User-generated data• ‘own-use’ data generated by user
communities projects with grants, web communities, etc
• ‘Industry’ data: Prizes, reviews, accolades, self-evaluations
No measure is ‘best’
Cultural data is intrinsically contested It took 200 years to agree on what ‘GDP’ was
(not defined until 1945) Most economic measures are completely out
of date (what is ‘agriculture’?) A standard will not fall from the sky It must be created by communities of users
NETWORK DATAPEDIA
EVIDENCE
Over to you
Typical ‘creative industry’ data
