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Cultural regeneration or gentrification?
Cultural policy is seen as essential in
helping to regenerate previously unfashionable areas of east London and
right across the capital. Every neighbourhood seems keen to emphasise
its credentials as a creative, artist-friendly hub and no urban space is
complete without short-let ‘pop-up’ shops and restaurants, temporary
cinemas or urban beaches. Supporters argue that such playful,
small-scale interventions can help ‘citizens take ownership of their
city’ and engender a community spirit seen as sorely diminished after
the 2011 riots.
Yet others are more sceptical about the merits of such schemes,
seeing them as invariably corporate-sponsored examples of ‘hipster
gentrification’, which undermines rather than bolsters civic engagement,
with even the creatives of east London’s Tech City complaining
development of the area will change its ‘unique character’.
While many artists claim to be committed to being friendly with
residents and helping to improve neighbourhoods, the sceptics argue that
they are, knowingly or unwittingly, helping gentrification. CityLab
magazine recently called it ‘Artwashing’: getting an area cleaned up
before properties are bought up cheap, with existing residents removed
and flats sold for the highest price possible.
Some hail the rise of artist-led cultural initiatives as a radical
challenge to both the problems of austerity and the perceived stifling
sanitisation of contemporary public life. Are playful, small-scale
interventions and urban explorations a challenge to the sanitised city,
or merely part of it? To what extent do they provide a means to nurture
the urban realm and engender community spirit? In any case, is
gentrification inevitable?
Speakers
Alan Miller
co-director, NY Salon; co-founder, London's Truman Brewery; partner, Argosy Pictures Film Company
Emma Dent-Coad
leader, Labour Group, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council; design and architecture journalist
Feargus O’Sullivan
Europe correspondent, CityLab
James Stevens
strategic planner, Home Builders Federation
Chair
David Bowden
coordinator, UK Battle Satellites; columnist, spiked
View all episodes
By academyofideas
3.9
77 ratings
Cultural policy is seen as essential in
helping to regenerate previously unfashionable areas of east London and
right across the capital. Every neighbourhood seems keen to emphasise
its credentials as a creative, artist-friendly hub and no urban space is
complete without short-let ‘pop-up’ shops and restaurants, temporary
cinemas or urban beaches. Supporters argue that such playful,
small-scale interventions can help ‘citizens take ownership of their
city’ and engender a community spirit seen as sorely diminished after
the 2011 riots.
Yet others are more sceptical about the merits of such schemes,
seeing them as invariably corporate-sponsored examples of ‘hipster
gentrification’, which undermines rather than bolsters civic engagement,
with even the creatives of east London’s Tech City complaining
development of the area will change its ‘unique character’.
While many artists claim to be committed to being friendly with
residents and helping to improve neighbourhoods, the sceptics argue that
they are, knowingly or unwittingly, helping gentrification. CityLab
magazine recently called it ‘Artwashing’: getting an area cleaned up
before properties are bought up cheap, with existing residents removed
and flats sold for the highest price possible.
Some hail the rise of artist-led cultural initiatives as a radical
challenge to both the problems of austerity and the perceived stifling
sanitisation of contemporary public life. Are playful, small-scale
interventions and urban explorations a challenge to the sanitised city,
or merely part of it? To what extent do they provide a means to nurture
the urban realm and engender community spirit? In any case, is
gentrification inevitable?
Speakers
Alan Miller
co-director, NY Salon; co-founder, London's Truman Brewery; partner, Argosy Pictures Film Company
Emma Dent-Coad
leader, Labour Group, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council; design and architecture journalist
Feargus O’Sullivan
Europe correspondent, CityLab
James Stevens
strategic planner, Home Builders Federation
Chair
David Bowden
coordinator, UK Battle Satellites; columnist, spiked
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