Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and economically polarized cities. For example, Austin in Texas is one of North
America's high-technology nodes, with companies such as Dell, IBM, Apple, 3 M,
eBay, Intel and Sun Microsystems having major operations there, leading Austin
to be ranked as the top performing metropolitan area in the United States by the
Milken Institute in 2009 (De Vol et al.
2009
). But this ability to create and sustain
creative jobs has gone hand in hand with increasing polarization, particularly as a
result of decreasing housing affordability, which has increased the numbers of the
disadvantaged. Moreover, arguing that Austin's growth is only a matter of the Cre-
ative Class ignores the salient fact that it is the state capital, so entrepreneurs have
access to decision-makers, while it is also the site of the very large, research-based
University of Texas. In a European context, researchers such as Lund Hansen et al.
(
2001
), as well as Bayliss (
2007
), have picked up similar themes and trends in rela-
tion to the city of Copenhagen (Denmark). The former suggest that the construction
of a new built-environment to facilitate the Creative Class is nothing more than pub-
lic sector-funded gentrification and the subsidization of middle class consumption.
In effect, these authors see the Creative City strategies as representing nothing more
than the state stepping in to 'take back' the city for the middle classes, marking the
re-emergence of a highly interventionist state.
What at first glance appears to be an unambiguously positive characteristic and goal—the
creative city—becomes on closer inspection a dubious ideological smokescreen to cover up
the social costs associated with compulsive adaptation to the “requirements” of the “new”
flexible globalized economy, including reduced transparency in urban governance, social
and geographic polarization and large scale transformation of the urban landscape involv-
ing considerable displacement. (Lund Hansen et al.
2001
, p. 866)
These kinds of observations are almost a re-run of the debates on the merits and
costs of 'place marketing' and 'urban imagineering' in the early 1990s. One particu-
lar case in point was the
Glasgow: European City of Culture
events held in 1990
that attracted hard-hitting criticism from a number of quarters for the amount of
money spent on high culture at a time when suburban and inner-city areas were in
significant need of regeneration. The same criticism has been levelled at the man-
ner in which Creative City strategies are being enacted in many cities. Peck (
2005
),
describing the operation of the Cool Cities programme in Michigan, illustrated how
the neighbourhoods with creative potential are being targeted for financial incen-
tives, rather than those with the greatest needs. In effect, already deprived areas are
being condemned to a future of economic decline, through the particular bricks and
mortar approach favouring creative activities being adopted by the State govern-
ment and other agencies. This determination to follow the Creative City path seems
to be leading to more gentrification and marginalisation on a class basis (Ponzini
and Rossi
2010
). This approach exemplifies the “dark side of the dialectic” de-
scribed by Gouldner (
1979
) in relation to the new economy and the new class who
benefit most significantly from these types of policies. The result has been increas-
ing urban inequality as examined in the Just City review (Chap. 3). This has been
acknowledged by Florida (
2013
) in his more recent work where he concedes that
talent clustering is responsible for rising economic inequality in a U.S. context. The
bohemian lifestyle promoted as part of the Creative City appeals to a very small
