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Robin Pridy investigates the debate going
on around the City of Culture 2002 campaign
The
excitement was palpable. Passers-by opened the papered-over
doors to peek inside and grab a quick whiff of the coffee
being ground at the city's first Starbucks coffee shop.
Shoppers milled around and sailboats skimmed the water.
At night, the sea air wafted through the streets and into
the decidedly hip downtown core, cozying up to where the
latest buzz was happening. The city was alive with clubs,
restaurants and wine bars, filled to the brim with a cool
new educated elite, urbane tourists, and white collar
workers, all out to spill the cash in a city listed as
Condé Nast Traveller Magazine's top ten destinations
in the world.
This
city, though it does exist, is not our own. But Brighton
and Hove City Council wish it to be. They say it is a
reachable and worthy goal, and they want to bet your bottom
dollar on it.
We
are talking about our local government's latest attempt
to sell the city as a cultural destination to upmarket
tourists and creative industry-type businesses. In the
latest government-organised throw of the dice, the city
is bidding to be the European Capital of Culture for 2008,
kicking it off with City of Culture 2002, a campaign to
market the city and host cultural events throughout the
year.
It
may seem far off, but the council believes it is worth
the wait. Along with the illustrious one-year title, the
winner of the 2008 bid will receive at least £1/2m
from the European Commission, and an undisclosed amount
of money from the UK government. Bookies' bid favourites,
from a total of 13 UK cities, include Belfast, Newcastle
and Gateshead, and Liverpool, while Brighton and Hove
sits in the middle with 10:1 odds. Though most punters
haven't heard about it, the 2008 bid goes to the UK government
at the end of March, complete with the tag-line Brighton
and Hove 2008 - Where Else?.
Yet
despite the council's optimism, some of those who have
caught wind of the bids are sceptical, asking instead,
why bother?
The
council has inadvertently stoked the flames of this local
dissent - cutting or reducing grants to local groups such
as the Brighton Rape Crisis Project and the Hangleton
and Knoll Community Project, both of which rely on council
grants to survive, while announcing to the press about
the £150,000 they are putting towards the City of
Culture campaign. What may have seemed to the council
as a mere drop in the financial bucket is stirring up
public dissatisfaction with the way residents' money is
being spent.
Paul
Hudson, the council's hard working Sponsorship and Development
officer spearheading these bids, believes it is not a
waste of funds, but a great boon to a city economy dependent
on tourism and feeling the pinch after September 11. This
year's City of Culture programme includes the first London
ad campaign in ten years, as well as a Samba weekend,
a fireworks spectacular, a theatre project at Hove Lagoon,
and buildings adorned with sculptures in the shape of
body piercings. There's even talk of Fatboy Slim taking
to the beach again, and a £10,000 community chest
will allow locals to try a cultural activity in the city
'for the first time', be it opera or rollerblading. Hudson
is quick to point out that it's not just the council financing
the bid - so far, he has garnered about £200,000
in business sponsorship, and has hopes for more.
He
just does not see why anyone would want to complain about
making the city a more vibrant place. When asked about
it, he points to Glasgow, which won the European accolade
in 1990, as a shining example of the title's benefits
- it is now in the top three UK destinations for visitors
and conference-goers, behind Edinburgh and London. Hudson
believes fostering the city's image is key, and not just
for the obvious reason of drawing sea-starved tourists.
"Twenty per cent of our businesses are in the creative
industries," he says, "If culture starts going,
then those new industries won't settle either, and they
provide huge impetus for the local economy."
Yet
anti-bidders claim the bid is just more New Labour-type
spin, all glitz and no infrastructure - and that questioning
it is vital.
Local
resident and recalcitrant journalist Julie Burchill was
so upset at what she calls "taking money from the
deprived to give to the depraved," that she recently
wrote a scathing anti-bid tirade for her weekly column
in The Guardian. And she refuses to back down. "As
the events of September 11 showed, tourism is a woefully
shaky house of cards on which to base a whole economy.
All we need is one IRA bomb and we're in big trouble,"
she says. "This is also why the town goes so dead
for six months of the year, because there are no proper
jobs. And of course nurses and teachers can no longer
afford to live here. One day we'll wake up in a place
in which there are 1,000 coffee bars and 2,000 websites
but no one to teach our children or treat our cancer.
Then we'll be sorry."
Yet
Deputy Council Leader Jackie Lythell, who chairs the Where
Else campaign's 32-member executive committee, believes
that culture and a cure for cancer can, and should, live
side by side. "Yes, we need to provide essential
services, but at the same time, we live by tourism, by
creative industries, and we have for the past 200 years.
We have to market the city as if it is business."
Brighton
and Hove Bus Company's Managing Director Roger French,
agrees. "If we turn our backs on tourism, we would
be shooting ourselves in the foot," he says. He points
to the 15,000 jobs which rely on the city's eight million
yearly visitors. "I would ask the detractors, 'Where
is the alternative? Where is the money going to come from?'"
Local
Green councillor Keith Taylor doesn't have an easy answer,
but believes the first step is for the city to adjust
its priorities. "We should be spending money trying
to fix the problems we've got rather than trying to convince
the world we haven't got any," he says. "I would
prefer to see jobs based on sustainable businesses, whose
wealth creation will be created in the city." Councillor
Taylor doesn't buy into the idea that money from tourism
and white-collar creative jobs trickles down to the less
affluent, and claims that it only widens the gap between
the rich who move into the city and the poor who can't
find a place to rent. "We could see a city where
workers are bussed in," he says, adding, "I
think it's a kick in the teeth to those people who are
in housing crisis."
Lythell
doesn't believe, however, it is a fair link to say that
people in housing crisis are being directly deprived of
the money the council has put towards the City of Culture's
2002 events. She notes that the overall grants funding
was not cut, but redistributed amongst other voluntary
groups. She also cites £20.3m to be spent on "the
engrained and difficult problem" of social housing
in the area, of which about £3m is coming from the
council.
Promoting
tourism and creative industries to keep the city afloat,
while not really knowing how to address the social issues
that always seem to shadow them - increased house prices,
burgeoning seasonal and low-waged jobs and widening income
gaps - does raise questions however. And with tourism
and new media's recent financial carnage, as well as the
council's claim that creative industries include call
centres, one could wonder if this might be as good a time
as any to look around for some other strengths.
Of
those cultural killjoys who continue to question the City
of Culture and the 2008 bid, some actually reside in the
arts community itself - the very people the council want
to showcase, and the city to profit from. A meeting in
January between the council and arts groups to discuss
the City of Culture events resulted in walk-outs and strong
words against the bid process which some groups had only
just heard about. A second meeting was hastily planned
for the next week, and while the council did make adjustments
to the bid as a result of the input of those concerned,
some groups couldn't make the meeting on such short notice
and therefore didn't get a voice.
Naomi Alexander of Community Arts Network remains unconvinced.
Her organisation works with underprivileged communities
such as Brighton's Whitehawk estate, an area known as
one of the top ten most deprived in the UK. This bid,
she says, "shows that there is no understanding of
the role community arts could be playing, nor of the reality
of people's lives who live in the outskirts of the city."
Though the 2002 events are free to everyone, she says
that sometimes this can be irrelevant, noting, "There
are some kids in Whitehawk who haven't even been to the
sea."
Carnival
Collective co-ordinator Daniel Bernstein, whose group
will receive Where Else funding for its Samba Encounter
Weekend to be part of this year's Brighton Festival, does
see benefits to the bid process however. "At the
end of the day, if the council hadn't decided to do the
City of Culture, these groups never would have got together."
He believes the council is showing good initiative to
support the arts with the City of Culture events, but
adds a note of caution in defense of the starving artist
who may find it harder to afford housing or studio space
in the city. "When you try and create a cultural
renaissance in an area," he says, "it forces
out the creative element that brought people in the first
place."
Now
back to the city which Brighton and Hove city council
remain convinced we can be.
Trends
changed and tourism floundered - long enough to empty
out the restaurants, and lose the all-important buzz.
The other main employer, the government, cut jobs due
to widespread recession. The homeless began camping on
the doorstep of converted loft apartments and Starbucks
chains picked off the competing coffee shops. Businesses
left, or downsized. Stores in the city centre's largest
shopping complex fell like dominoes. And where did this
leave the little city by the sea? Without a hope. All
foam and no coffee, and with graduates donning aprons.
This
quaint west coast Canadian city is called Victoria - a
smallish seaside community much like Brighton. Its local
government and business folk also bought into the idea
that looking outside their
community,
to tourism, was the key to success.
But
perhaps this will not be Brighton and Hove after all.
If anything can be certain of this debate, it is that
more local people are reacting to Council and business-led
decisions, and are at least demanding a bit more say in
them. OurPower, a loose collective who opposed last year's
mayoral bid, are revving their engines once again, hosting
public meetings and debating the way Council money is
being spent, and on the arts front, groups and individuals
are coming together as never before as a result of the
outcry. Local website, brightonunderground.com, which
hosts a forum on the City of Culture and the 2008 bid,
has had postings calling for an 'alternative city of culture',
saying, "The things that work in Brighton and that
have created a buzz have always had an underground quality.
They've been self-organised on no money but plenty of
hard work, good ideas and dedication."
What
appears crucial now is for the council to adapt its numbers
and take such ideas into account when it considers the
city's future. This way, the outcome may well by brighter
than it was in Victoria, Canada, that other city by the
sea.
Calling
all Creative Writers
As
part of the City of Culture campaign for 2002, The Insight
is hoping to be able to run a creative writing competition
with a prize of publication in a future issue and cash,
for the winners. It is possible that the overall winner
will also have their entry read out on local and national
radio, and for their story to be bound in to a booklet
to be handed out on trains.
We
are waiting for City of Culture funding to come through
for this extremely exciting competition, but the signs
are very hopeful - the campaign is trying hard to fund
and make happen a project put forward by The Insight -
so for all you writers out there, watch this space!
copyright New Insight 2001
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