Culture-led neighbourhood transformations beyond the revitalisation/gentrification dichotomy

Abstract

In the past 30 years, culture has been used as a means for revitalising neighbourhoods and branding the urban economy. Often, culture-led urban policies have had undesirable consequences in terms of rising rents, displacement of former residents and changes in the economic and retail landscape, i.e. gentrification. However, this process is not univocal, and displacement may not occur while disrupting community life. In this paper we explore the changes that have occurred in San Francisco, a working-class neighbourhood of Bilbao where the attraction of cultural industries has been used to revitalise the area and change the city image. We employ a framework that considers the built form, the cultural cluster organisation and the socioeconomic and demographic changes and we rely on different sources of evidence, including neighbourhood level socioeconomic data, personal interviews and a participatory evaluation, to capture the edges of this complex phenomenon. Our analysis suggests a less deterministic and more complex characterisation of culture-led neighbourhood transformations beyond the revitalisation/gentrification discourses, since conflicts may be driven not by economic transformations and social class replacement, but by the symbolic representation of space and the ‘right to the neighbourhood’.

Composite Index to Measure Cities’ Creative Performance: An Empirical Study in the Portuguese Context

“…In addition, current debate on urban regeneration [43][44][45][46][47] has emphasized the growing role of culture in regional/local development [48], where this has become a trademark for cities [49], which highlights the weight of negative factors associated with creative cities, such as gentrification and social exclusion [50][51][52] caused by the elitism of the creative class, as argued by these authors. Nevertheless, Veal [53] considered that urban governance that stimulates culture aiming to provide urban well-being promotes the minimization of negative factors, i.e., the social inequalities caused by elitism.…”

Can cultural economy be social? Discussing about the rural heritage of Greece

“…UNESCO 1972;2001). Furthermore, the "culture-led development" thesis is highly problematic given that recent experiences during the last three decades expose in many instances the devastating spillover effects of "functionalizing" culture in the interest of consumption, including dramatic changes to the economic landscape, displacement of local communities and loss of place identities (Zukin, 1989;Zukin et al, 2009;Gainza, 2017).…”

Maintaining Urban Complexities: Seeking Revitalization without Gentrification of an Industrial Riverfront in Gothenburg, Sweden

“…These are not too unexpected reactions since municipalities or facility developers have often used cultural events to signal the inception of a new era and attract people to former industrial sites (Roult & Lefebvre 2013;Halle & Tiso 2014;Gainza 2016). Even if there has been a modest and more or less spontaneous migration of artists and cultural producers to former industrial sites, they "in general trigger gentrification processes because their presence is attractive to more affluent consumers and dwellers that share their aesthetic values and lifestyle" (Gainza 2016:2).…”