Urban design, public space and creative milieus: an international comparative approach to informal dynamics in cultural districts*
Design urbano, espaço público e creative milieus: uma abordagem comparativa internacional às dinâmicas informais nos bairros creativos
[I]DINÂMIA’CET-IUL, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. email: pedro.costa@iscte.pt
[II]DINÂMIA’CET-IUL, Institudo Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. email: ricardovenanciolopes@gmail.com
]]> ABSTRACT
This paper explores the relation between urban design, public space appropriation and the informal dynamics taking place on creative milieus, from an international comparative perspective. Based on an empirical approach to urban morphology, everyday life and symbolic public space appropriation on those areas, ten cultural quarters around the world are studied: Bairro Alto (Lisbon); La Gracia (Barcelona); Vila Madalena (São Paulo); Beyoglu (Istanbul); Marais (Paris); Oltrarno (Florence); Akihabara (Tokyo); Kreuzberg SO36 (Berlin); Capitol Hill (Seattle); and Brick Lane (London). They represent very diverse situations in terms of their historical, cultural and economic backgrounds as well as in what concerns the spatial conditions that support creative clusters and the vitality and sustainability of “creative milieus”. Drawing on literature review and on the recollection and critical interpretation of visual information on these areas, a comparative approach to these cases is developed, considering multiple analytical dimensions, which enable us to map and characterize the diversity of urban cultural districts. This may provide a contribution towards the development of a new planning agenda for dealing with urban creative dynamics and cultural quarters.
Keywords: Creative milieus; Urban design; Cultural quarters; Public spaces; Informality.
RESUMO
Este artigo explora a relação entre o design urbano, a apropriação do espaço público e as dinâmicas informais que têm lugar nos meios criativos, a partir de uma perspectiva comparativa internacionais. Com base numa abordagem empírica à morfologia urbana, analisamos a vida quotidiana e a apropriação do espaço público simbólico nessas áreas, em dez bairros criativos à volta do mundo: Bairro Alto (Lisboa); La Gracia (Barcelona); Vila Madalena (São Paulo); Beyoglu (Istambul); Marais (Paris); Oltrano (Florença); Akihabara (Tóquio); Kreuzberg SO36 (Berlim); Capitol Hill (Seattle); e Brick Lane (Londres). Estes bairros representam situações muito diversas em termos de antecedentes históricos, culturais e económicos, bem como no que se refere às condições espaciais que suportam os clusters creativos, bem como a vitalidade e a sustentabilidade dos "meios criativos". A partir da revisão da literatura e da refexão e interpretação crítica da informação visual destas áreas, desenvolve-se uma abordagem comparativa destas áreas, considerando múltiplas dimensões de análise, quer permitem mapear e caracterizar a diversidade dos bairros culturais urbanos. Tal pode trazer um contributo para o desenvolvimento de uma nova agenda de planeamento para lidar com as dinâmicas de creatividade urbana e dos bairros culturais.
Palavras-chave: Meios criativos; Design urbano; Bairros culturais; Espaços públicos; Informalidade.
1. Introduction
Cultural quarters have been widely studied in recent years as they embody broader structural transformations associated with urban change (Bell and Jayne, 2004; Cooke and Lazzeretti, 2008). Wide social, economic, political, spatial and cultural forces shaped a variety of urban districts, quarters or villages, which are present in cities across the world. However, while this same kind of gentrified residential city enclaves, gay villages, ethnic quarters, ghettos, red light districts and creative and cultural quarters can be seen as a commonplace feature of contemporary urban landscape, there are significant differences among them which need to be disentangled (Bell and Jayne, 2004). The diversity and complexity of these territorial systems is often recognized as the ground to their resilience, and to the capacity to develop specific governance mechanisms and symbolic attributes which enable their long term vitality.
The “creative milieu” concept is a powerful resource to analyse this variety of situations (Camagni et al., 2004). It enables us to examine each situation as a combination of three intertwined layers (a localized production-consumption system; a governance system; and a symbolic system), fundamental to understand the specific conditions and ambiances which seem to be determinant to embed sustainable creative processes in these areas, and relating them to urban socioeconomic and morphological dimensions. The relation between these creative dynamics and planning has often been neglected. However, the re-thinking of the city through micro-scale systems of action instead of large projects is essential nowadays. The relevance of understanding everyday life and more informal and ephemeral initiatives for cities’ planning is fundamental, requiring the refocusing of our attention and the use of new methodologies.
In this perspective, this paper aims to discuss this relation between urban design, public space appropriation and the informal dynamics taking place on these creative milieus, from an international comparative perspective. Based on an empirical-oriented approach to urban morphology, everyday life and symbolic public space appropriation in those areas, ten cultural quarters around the world are studied: Bairro Alto (Lisbon); La Gracia (Barcelona); Vila Madalena (São Paulo); Beyoglu (Istanbul); Marais (Paris); Oltrarno (Florence); Akihabara (Tokyo), Kreuzberg SO36 (Berlin), Capitol Hill (Seattle) and Brick Lane (London). They represent very diverse situations in terms of their historical, cultural and economic backgrounds as well as in what concerns the spatial conditions that support creative clusters and the vitality and sustainability of “creative milieus”. Drawing on literature review and on the recollection and critical interpretation of visual information on these areas, we aim to provide better understanding of the key factors behind the development of these areas, in order to assist a new planning agenda for dealing with urban creative dynamics and cultural quarters.
After this introduction, the next section will offer the framework for the pursued analysis, relating the creative milieus development with their morphological, symbolic and informality conditions. In section 3, a brief panorama of the 10 cases is provided, with a short description of their main features and their urban insertion. A comparative perspective of the 10 cases, through a set of analytical dimensions, is developed on section 4, aiming to systematize and map out relevant factors for the development of urban creative districts. Finally, a concluding note provides some perspectives towards policy orientations for dealing with urban creative dynamics and cultural quarters.
2. Cultural quarters and the “creative milieu”: informal dynamics as drivers for artistic vitality
In recent years multiple territories have stood out as ‘creative milieus’ as they offer a specific atmosphere or certain conditions required to embed and develop sustainable creative processes in cultural activities (see Camagni et al., 2004; Cooke and Lazzeretti, 2007; Costa, 2007; Costa et al., 2011; or in a wider perspective, O’Connor and Wynne, 1996; Scott, 2000). This label usually congregates very diverse situations, which are generally based on specific governance mechanisms that play a key part in most of those success cases. Our study in this paper focuses a specific kind of these “creative milieus”, the “cultural districts” or “cultural quarters” (Costa et al., 2008).
These cultural quarters, in their diversity, have been broadly studied as they embody wider structural transformations associated with urban change (Bell and Jayne, 2004; Cooke and Lazzeretti, 2008; Porter and Shaw, 2009). It is not our aim to describe or discuss here their huge diversity, concerning both their origins and their main characteristics (more central or peripheral, more or less gentrified, more inclusive or segmented, more diverse or coherent, etc. – see Bell and Jayne, 2004 on this). In effect, the diversity and complexity of these territorial systems is often recognized as the ground to their resilience, and to the capacity to develop specific governance mechanisms and symbolic attributes which enable their long term vitality.Acknowledging the importance of “classic” factors (such as dimension, density and diversity of social practices – many times translated into expressions such as agglomeration, scale, interaction, networking, tolerance or others) to this, but also the crucial role of the symbolic sphere potentiated in cultural activities (Costa et al., 2011), our aim in this paper is just to discuss how the characteristics and the informal dynamics occurring in these places contribute to their vitality, relating those to their specific morphological and spatial conditions. In effect, the diversity and density of activities and the urban design and morphological conditions clearly influence these areas’ creative dynamics – as suggested by Hospers (2003), Gehl (2004) or Balula (2010), and witnessed by Costa and Lopes (2012) in some of these quarters. Urban material conditions, as the way they are appropriated and perceived by people, are naturally a key factor in the vitality and in the long term conditions for the sustainability of these spaces. Besides, the common diversity of rhythms and daily habits of its users, make us aware of their multiple layers of uses and symbolic codification.
As Costa and Lopes refer, in these spaces the symbolical sphere plays an important role and is fundamental to understanding both their vitality and their fragmentation (Costa and Lopes, 2012), particularly if they are central nodes in the conviviality and sociability mechanisms that are vital for reputation building and gatekeeping mechanisms on cultural activities (Costa, 2012). People who come to these spaces identify and many times deliberately look for a created image (of the place, of themselves, of their groups, of what they want to be), that is, for the symbolic meaning of that place. These are particular places for representation, for the assumption of specific lifestyles and ways of life (O’Connor and Wynne, 1996) and therefore, the concept of urban theatricality is sharp in these territories. Consequently, along with liminality processes, we can watch a natural segregation of practices and people in the different spaces (or even in the same places, each with several codified layers of representations, differently de-codified by their different audiences and users). Often, this process is based on auto-segregation, but sometimes it also involves conflict between the diverse potential users and power relations that take place within that system or in the framework of its external regulation (Costa and Lopes, 2012).
The “creative milieu” concept, in line with the GREMI approach (Camagni et al., 2004), is the theoretical backbone for analysing this variety of situations. Each one can be seen as a combination of three intertwined layers: a locally embedded production-consumption system, rooted in the territorial characteristics; a governance system, mixing the formal and informal endogenous and exogenous-based regulatory mechanisms in a specific way; and a symbolic system, involving both the external image(s) and the self-representations of the area. This triple perspective is fundamental to understanding the specific conditions and ambiances that seem to be determinant to embed sustainable creative processes in these areas, as well as to relate them to urban socioeconomic and morphological dimensions. Having this broad framework in mind, our specific aim in this text is to understand how informal dynamics can be seen as drivers for artistic vitality, in a wide range of “creative quarters” situations. Re-thinking the city through micro-scale systems of action, instead of just large projects and flagship interventions is essential for planning the city integrating urban creativity and real creative dynamics. Understanding everyday life and the role of more informal and ephemeral initiatives for cities’ planning is fundamental, requiring (re)focusing our attention to this specific issue and the use of new methodologies. That is what is developed in the next sections, first framing our approach to each case study and then drawing some comparative elements which enable us to typify the main features that seem essential to understand the role of this informality to these areas’ vitality.
3. A brief overview of ten cultural quarters: urban morphology, creative dynamics and informality
As explained before, our main purpose is to discuss the relation between urban design, public space appropriation and the informal dynamics going on around the creative milieus from an international comparative perspective. Ten cultural quarters around the world are used to illustrate our discussion in ]]>
Our methodological approach to these areas in this work was not the most conventional. In effect, some of the areas have been previously object of in-depth analysis in broad research projects (Costa et al., 2010, Costa and Lopes, 2012; Costa, 2008, 2012, 2013a; Lopes, 2012). Others, on the contrary, were approached now for the first time. ]]>
We ]]>
Bairro Alto was the first urban core built outside the city walls of Lisbon (Portugal), dating from the early sixteenth century, located near one of the city gates of the period. Its design is adapted to the topography, adopting an orthogonal grid. The quarter is characterized by its narrow ]]>
Pombalino period, and despite the numerous renovations and additions, it keeps essentially its historical and picturesque image. The sidewalks are narrow or nonexistent. The traffic is closed inside part of the quarter (in recent decades), giving access exclusively to residents and loadings. So, main car traffic is carried by the peripheral limits of the quarter, being possible to cross it by Rua da Rosa that divides the quarter into two parts with different characteristics, with a mostly residential Western zone, and an Eastern zone which is characterized by functional diversity, where the majority of functions with social character occur. Public space represents a small area of the quarter, mostly in the streets that cross it, and its peripheral limits (with rare green ]]>
Gràcia was also the result of an urban development outside the city of Barcelona (Spain). Distancing approximately two kilometers from the walled city it developed as an autonomous “pueblo” and these structural characteristics remain until today, which is also reflected in a strong sense of local identity in its population. It was incorporated in the city of Barcelona after Cerdà[3]plans, in the nineteenth century. The narrow streets are usually framed by 4 to 5-story buildings. The orthogonal grid is interrupted several times by squares, where ]]>
In Gràcia creative activities are further integrated with local dynamics, being ]]>
Vila Madalena, in São Paulo, Brazil, started as a small group of houses in the outskirts of São Paulo. Only in the early twentieth century, with the construction of the railway line that would connect this small cluster of blue-collar workers’ houses to the city center, and then definitively in the 1970’s, with the location of the Arts University of São Paulo in a close neighborhood, this area starts to assume the setting that we can find today. Like São Paulo itself, it is characterized for being in constant mutation. From the beginning it was a quarter composed mostly by single-family housing. Today, it is in quite advanced state of gentrification ]]>
4]). These kinds of alterations in edification typologies of Vila Madalena are changing the intrinsic characteristics of the district, due to the changes in uses and in population that these restructurings generate. Old buildings are mostly replaced by private condominiums that not only involve lesser levels of public space appropriation but also do not guarantee the same mix of activities that was present in the old structure of the quarter. That has being driving a certain lost of vitality, contrary to what seems to happen in other districts, where the strategy has been maintaing mixed uses in the buildings and multifunctional areas, regardless of the use conflicts that this can generate.
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Brick Lane area, in London, England, is an old industrial quarter, now associated essentially with immigrants from Bangladesh and new gentrifiers. In recent years it has affirmed itself as one of the most creative places of the city, where generations, styles and habits coexist side by side. The East End zone at London has been for many years characterized by migratory fluxes of people of a large heterogeneity such as Irish, Jews or Bengalis. The zone of Brick Lane [5], within this area, is an obvious reflex of this knowledge sedimentation which marks this multiethnic part of London. The fluxes of immigration are an integral part of this city’s history, contributing to its dynamic and vitality: ]]>
However these more “informal, marginal and alternative” milieus that “help” the development of this kind of dynamics and attracted these people aren’t new in this part of the city. East End was along the history of London the place for the activities which were not welcome inside the city walls (like in Bairro Alto case), being one of the poorest places in London until the nineteenth century. So industry, lower classes and marginal life, often connected to criminality and bohemia, dominated this part of the city until the 1990’s, when creative ]]>
The informality found in this territory allows a series of dynamics that are impossible to find in other parts of the city, where people are not so tolerant ]]>
In terms of morphology the area is level and composed by buildings with different ]]>
Kreuzberg SO36, located in the West part of Berlin, Germany, near the river Spree, is one of Berlin's cultural centres, in the middle of the now reunified city, evolving from its recent history as one of ]]>
Along history, this quarter (as Berlin itself) has staged many morphologic, political, cultural and social alterations, which have contributed with its ups and downs to the construction of the image of the city. This neighbourhood started developing in late nineteenth century, resulting from the fast industrial expansion after the foundation of German Empire in 1871, which continued until the end of the First World War. Based on expansive housing development, related to industrial growth, quickly it raised from an almost rural territory to the area with highest population density in Berlin. But it was the ]]>
In spite of its central location in the city, it was isolated during the “Berlin Wall” period, which closed the quarter near to River Spree, not allowing contacts with the Eastern part of the city. Even within the West side of Berlin, the area lost its centrality, enclosed by the Berlin Wall on three ]]>
In terms of morphology the quarter is located on level ground and is composed by large sidewalks and streets. Most buildings’ height don’t’t exceed the street width, which contributes to a good relation between edification and people. The mixed-uses of buildings contribute to the diversity of activities along the streets. Public sphere, more than strict public space, reveals its’ real importance here, because most of the year the climate conditions are not very encouraging ]]>
Kreuzberg SO36 is clearly an example of how ephemeral artistic interventions and creative appropriations can generate and enhance creative dynamics in a zone of a city, contributing to the redevelopment of “expectant spaces” believing this kind of dynamics helps reinventing the cities. Berlin is a laboratory for this kind of experiences, sometimes even promoted by official planning policies. Empty spaces, residential buildings, bunkers, old industrial spaces have been ]]>
Oltrarno is a “traditional” quarter on the ]]>
The quarter is composed by narrow streets and typical buildings of medieval period ]]>
cafés for young creative’s mix with old activities, bohemian life and conviviality mix with traditional usages. The use conflicts are not as visible as in other cases, while the quarter seems to connect and equilibrate all its activities; this seems to be a constant in more gentrified case studies, where uses tend to be more balanced and less informal. Nevertheless, the liminal character of the quarter, which is so important to the creative world, seems less visible and the space for ]]>
In effect, of all studied cases, this is the one where creative activities are less informal; some have been the same over centuries and even more contemporary ones often happen without huge spontaneity. In this sense it is a case different from all others. Like many, it has turned to a more consumption-oriented and symbolic-based territorial system. However, if in other cases, like Bairro Alto for example, some informality conquers the streets during the day, in Oltrarno tourists are essentially those who occupy this stage in everyday life. The main focus of ]]>
Beyoglu is a vibrant historical district situated in Istanbul, Turkey, on the northern bank of the Golden Horn, which separates it from the old Constantinopolitan center. Beyoglu has been characterized in last centuries as the most cosmopolitan area of the city, particularly since the Ottoman period. It was always home for the foreign that ]]>
Although being then one of the most “famous” and vibrant areas of Istanbul, a place for ]]>
Istiklal Caddesi is the main street of Beyoglu, around which are structured most of the functions of the quarter. It is the center for the commercial and more “institutional” cultural functions, as well as most conviviality-related spots. The theatre, cinema, patisserie and café culture that still remains strong in Beyo?lu dates from the late Ottoman period, when this street was the center of modern Istanbul. But it is turning to the small neighborhoods, along the hill, with its narrow streets, that we start to discover the diversity of ]]>
Le Marais is a historic district in the centre ]]>
rd and 4th arrondissements, at the North bank of the Seine River, it has a central location in the city, which is maintained since the thirteenth century. For long the aristocratic district of Paris, and hosting many outstanding buildings of historic and architectural interest, this area is nowadays marked by the image of a fashionable district, home of many trendy restaurants and cafés, fashion houses, creative ateliers, shops and hype galleries.
The ]]>
ème arrondissement). They settled in the area after the First WW, with activity centered on wholesale, mostly jewelry and leather-related products. All this diversity, mixed with a strong touristic attractiveness and a robust, but selective, gentrification process made the area one of the most heterogeneous and open zones of Paris.
In parallel, the neighborhood is marked by the fundamental importance of its morphology and urban design, which is also fundamental in the structuring of social and cultural practices and in public space appropriation. On the one ]]>
An intense gentrification process occurred; indeed, among all cases we focused this is the one where the gentrification process has been led to is extreme, with very high land prices, and significant changes in lifestyles, visible reflexes both in residential terms, and in commercial and cultural activities. In this process, it is important to note the role of regulations and local policies (e.g., commerce schedules, Sunday traffic closure and fairs, events…), as well as the relevance of sociability nodes, which are essential to the ]]>
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Capitol Hill (Pike & Pine) is a densely populated residential area in the centre of Seattle, USA. It is known as one of the city's most prominent nightlife and entertainment districts and the center of the city's gay and counterculture communities. It is marked by diversity and a concentration of activities (performing arts, nightlife, entertainment, small shops and ateliers, etc.), combining more institutional with more alternative ones. The area concentrates the city’s main movie theatres, its cinemathèque, and several performing arts venues, including a vibrant set of small performing arts theatres, dance studios and live music clubs. In parallel, nightlife and conviviality, as well as trendy shops and venues, perform an essential role in this creative territorial system.
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6].
Besides this symbolic and effective link to nightlife, entertainment and performing, the neighborhood is also known by its linkage to gay life, particularly after large-scale gay residential settlement on Capitol Hill from early 1960s. The ]]>
Outside the CBD, though affected by its expansionist dynamics, and embedded on the historical roots of Capitol Hill with its family buildings, many with significant architectural value, the area has a morphology that facilitated this appropriation and the development of this creative milieu (to a certain ]]>
In effect, this area’s vitality contrasts with the Seattle Center area (which is a park, arts, and entertainment centre, developed after the 1962 International Exposition, featuring the “Space Needle”, Seattle's most recognizable landmark). Like in many other cities (including several of our case studies), ]]>
Being one of the several cultural quarters in Tokyo, Akihabara is known as a major shopping area for electronic, computer, anime, games and “otaku” goods, clearly centered on popular culture. The quarter is dominated by the universe of manga/anime and by electronic and ]]>
The ]]>
It is interesting to go further back in history and understand that, like in many of our other cases, this is an area that was beyond the formal limits of the old city, being just out of Sujikai-gomon city gate (today Mansei bridge) which was one of the city gates of old Edo (Tokyo), being the gateway from inner-city to northern and northwestern Japan, and many dealers, craftsmen and relatively ]]>
Finally, the creative dynamics on this quarter could not be understood without referring also the importance of fans’ culture (“Otaku”, in Japanese, expression mostly used on anime and manga fans, but not only), and their specificities, essential to understand the development of the main cultural industries in Japan. This ]]>
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4. A comparative perspective: crucial factors towards the vitality and sustainability of urban cultural districts
The ten cultural quarters briefly presented represent very diverse situations in terms of their historical, cultural and economic backgrounds as well as in what concerns the spatial conditions that support creative clusters and the vitality and sustainability of “creative milieus”. They were analysed trying to understand the relations and the specific particularities comparing similar dynamics in different realities, in order to identify a set of crucial factors to their development and sustainability which can help improving knowledge for dealing with urban creative dynamics and cultural quarters in planning and policy-making perspectives.
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In every case study, naturally, the “traditional” factors to justify agglomeration and urban way(s) of life (Costa et al, 2011) are fundamental to the development of creative dynamics: the dimension, density and heterogeneity of social practices existing in that place. The importance of achieving critical thresholds, both on the demand and supply side, the capacity of attracting and relating people with different know-how, ideas and lifestyles, the relevance of diversity, openness and tolerance, have been broadly and quite unanimously recognized by the literature on creative ]]> The symbolic-capital is one of the most important features in the creative field, ]]> The centrality in the city (be it physical or symbolic) is also a factor of fundamental importance. It is actually experienced in all case studies (e.g. importance of public transport accessibility in most of them) and was linked to their development, even when they were not exactly at the centre of the city. But the physical centrality (in some cases historical centers; in others, specific central quarters appropriated by their specific urban characteristics) ]]> The morphological characteristics of the districts condition the ways people use them. Depending on its design, the quarter’s characteristics condition public space and their appropriation. So, the historical epoch of its construction and its design plays an important role in the quarter’s milieu (be it by their charisma and ambience, be it by the selectivity of inhabitants and activities they cause – e.g Marais, Oltrarno and Bairro Alto cases). The typological characteristics of the buildings also condition the sustainability of the creative dynamics and alterations of these characteristics can speed up the ]]> Conviviality ]]> Linked with the previous, these places assume themselves as central in the reputation building mechanisms and in gatekeeping processes in many art worlds. In some cases they are central in specific art worlds (e.g., manga and anime in Akihabara; ]]> The different interests and motivations of the diverse agents in each of these territorial systems are naturally often contradictory. The main use conflicts among them are one of the critical aspects for the development and long term consistency of these creative milieus. In effect, as expressed before (e.g. Costa, 2008, Costa and Lopes, 2012), the conflicts of uses in each of these spaces (e.g. between users and residents, night users and day users, ]]> Another ]]> Finally, a crucial factor for the development and sustainability of the creative dynamics, in each case, is the way they relate with their specific governance mechanisms. The different case studies represent diverse logics of governance that are undoubtedly a key factor to the sustainability of those creative ]]>
5. Concluding note
This paper’s objective was to explore the relation between urban design, public space appropriation and the informal dynamics taking place on creative milieus, from an international comparative perspective. Based on an empirical approach to urban morphology, everyday life and symbolic public space appropriation on ten creative districts around the world, we identified the main dimensions which were considered essential to embed and to support the development and sustainability of these creative milieus.
An empirical work supported on literature review, visual recollection and participative observation, allowed us to systematize for each one of our ten case studies their situation regarding each one of these key-factors: (i) the importance of the “classical” factors (dimension, density, heterogeneity); (ii) the relevance of the area’s symbolic capital; (iii) the physical and symbolic centrality of the quarter in the city; (iv) the morphological conditions of the area; (v) the relevance of conviviality and nightlife and their relation with the creative milieu; (iv) the local presence and relevance of art world’s reputation mechanisms; (vii) the main use conflicts and the way they condition the evolution of the territorial system; (viii) the informality mechanisms and their presence on public space; and (ix) the role of specific governance mechanisms.
The use of this grid permitted us to validate the generic importance of all these factors, each one standing out as crucial to the majority of the case studies, although with variable relevance in each situation. Historical, cultural, social, economic and institutional factors, alongside urban design and morphology, naturally condition each situation, and some of these factors assume sporadically less importance in one or two specific cases, but we can admit that all of them can generically be considered undeniably relevant to the dynamics and sustainability of “creative milieus”.
This was expected to provide a contribution towards the development of a new planning agenda for dealing with urban creative dynamics and cultural quarters. In effect, the attendance of these criteria when dealing or intervening with territorially-based creative dynamics, seems to be fundamental. And this does not mean that each one of them can be fabricated for each intervention by urban planners, private investors or public authorities; instead, this points to the fact that each territorial system must been understood in all its specificities and in all its diverse potential. Then, these key factors should be valorized and worked with the local actors, seizing specific governance mechanisms, articulating stakeholders’ interests, managing their internal use conflicts, and understanding the vital importance of the symbolic system and place representation, for the diverse users of the quarter and the multiple art worlds. Places open to informality, giving freedom for less formal action and providing space for liminality, avoiding the excesses of institutionalization, seem to be the key for a successful planning activity, as demonstrated in these case studies. For instance, many of the small artistic interventions on urban space or initiatives based on appropriation of local public spheres promote a vitality and an authentic connection to place and local dynamics which are much more consequent in terms of effectiveness and long term sustainability for local development than more “conventional” or “institutional” “creativity rhetoric”-led initiatives, branding creative quarters, supporting the attraction of creative people or promoting emblematic facilities or flagship events. And they are much more affordable for planning authorities as well...
The dimensions that we suggest in our analysis represent a first step in order to propose a typology of urban cultural districts. Further research will enable us to develop these multiple analytical dimensions, conceptually and empirically, with the aim of stabilizing a set of typological criteria which enable us to typify urban cultural districts according to this multiplicity and complexity of dimensions.
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Notes
[3] Author of the expansion plan of the city of Barcelona out of the walls in the nineteenth century, granting the city the distinctive urbanism that we know today.
[4] Although with different degrees: more restrictive in cases such as the Portuguese or the French, but assuming a more flexible paradigm in the Spanish case.
[5] Brick Lane is the name of a street in East London in Spitafields, Tower Hamlets; however, we will use the denomination ‘Brick Lane’ to refer to a broader area including the street and its neighboring limits, with similar characteristics and dynamics.
[6] Quoted from the local community website http://www.pikepinetriangle.com/.
