Urban Fads and Consensual Fictions: Creative, Sustainable, and Competitive City Policies in Buenos Aires

Abstract

Scholarship in urban sociology has pointed to the reliance of city governments on ever‐more market mechanisms for organizing social and economic policy. This form of governance involves prioritizing cities’ cultural and social assets for their value in a global competition of urban “brands,” each competing for new infusions of human and investment capital. At the same time, however, cities have been at the center of seemingly progressive policy efforts aimed at promoting innovation, sustainability, and creativity. These themes represent a newly dominant planning discourse in cities across the globe. While researchers have thoroughly examined how “creative classes” and “creative cities” may exclude everyday, working‐class, or poor residents, new urban imaginaries focused on sustainability potentially imply less stratified urban outcomes. Analyzing two high‐profile interventions in Buenos Aires, Argentina—a sustainable urban regeneration plan for the historic downtown, and the creation of an arts cluster in the impoverished south of the city—this paper argues that despite divergent narratives, creative and sustainable urban projects suggest similar policy agendas, planning assumptions, and relationships to market mechanisms. Increasingly, global policies, whose design and objectives may appear to contradict market logics, may have outcomes that further them.

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

“…Similarly, Lazzeretti [63] argued that creative industries are a force of innovation and economic development, which, through sharing, sustains cities' social development. New forms of city governance prioritize cultural and social resources to improve their competitive advantage and sustainability, based on innovation and creativity [64]. Thus, culture and creativity are the path to development, urban entrepreneurship, and are part of the political agenda of leaders [65], who aim to conjugate culture, creativity, and urbanism in their cities [66].…”

Portland Oregon, Music Scenes, and Change: A Cultural Approach to Collective Strategies of Empowerment

“…Portland always welcomed misfits but was wary of the overflowing of the “Californification” of the 1970s. Hippies looking for a less hectic life inspired a billboard on the highway that read, “Welcome to Oregon, a Nice Place to Visit, But Please Don't Stay.” The most recent influx of newcomers came on the bandwagon of creative culture and “livability.” This comprised the cultural branding of a city in competition with other creative cities for creatives on a world stage (Florida ; Lederman ). Portland signals to its initiates, “Keep Portland Weird,” as a battle cry against cultural normalization.…”

Cities for sale: Contesting city branding and cultural policies in Buenos Aires

“…Despite the anti-neoliberal, progressive rhetoric of Argentina's national politics, market mechanisms have continued to shape policy agendas, planning goals and urban interventions at the municipal level (Lederman, 2015). Rather than moving away from state restructuring, culture marketisation and public service privatisation, the 'pro' municipal politics has been oriented towards deepening the legacy of the 1990s.…”

“…In times of strong urban entrepreneurialism, emerging concerns about urban environmentalism, tied with creative city policy imperatives, can become productive in legitimising exclusionary neoliberal urbanism (Lederman, 2015). As an example, in the midst of political electoral campaigns and a severe housing crisis in the city, on 3 April 2015 Macri inaugurated the new and costly sustainable City Hall building by star architect Foster + Partners in Parque Patricios as part of a wider, creative industry-led urban regeneration scheme.…”