13.

  Urban regeneration through culture

Jonathan Ward and Phil Hubbard

13.1 INTRODUCTION
As a subset of more general urban and planning policy, urban regeneration
policy has become more significant in recent decades, especially in those
‘shrinking cities’ that have borne the brunt of global shifts and economic
transitions. Foremost here have been some of the former economic pow-
erhouses of the industrial economy, with Detroit, Liverpool and Leipzig
frequently cited as paradigmatic examples of cities whose economic base
has been undermined by the emergence of a new international division of
labour in which they are yet to find a significant role (Martinez-Fernandez
et al., 2012). The language of regeneration, along with associated dis-
courses of renaissance and renewal, has accordingly been deployed across
a variety of post-industrial cities, typically, though not always, focused
on those struggling communities and neighbourhoods in the inner and
central districts that were at their most buoyant in the post-war era of
high employment and mass consumption. Urban regeneration has sought
to ameliorate the social and economic decline of these affected areas,
deploying a variety of different logics to achieve these ends; some focused
on improving ‘social capital’ and creating resilient communities (typically
through the development of community facilities and investment in social
infrastructure), others based on promoting economic prosperity through
investment encouraging business and private enterprise.
Over the last three decades, urban geographers have offered consider-
able insight into the shifting discourse and practice of urban regeneration,
identifying important connections between regeneration policies and wider
shifts in the urban political economy. In the 1990s, and following in the
wake of David Harvey’s (1989) influential work, much attention was
given to the changing role of the local state and especially the widespread
adoption of a more ‘entrepreneurial’ stance that contrasted markedly with
the welfarist, managerial role city government frequently fulfilled in the
industrial city (Hall and Hubbard, 1996). Into the twenty-first century,
motifs of urban neoliberalism have been more to the fore, with the selective
withdrawal of the local state from various areas of policy intervention
seen to be encouraging a reliance on the private sector to deliver urban
regeneration, something emphasized in accounts of ‘revanchist’ city p­ olitics

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(e.g. Smith, 1996; MacLeod, 2002; Hubbard, 2004). In such accounts, it is

posited that the local state’s role appears limited to making the city safe for
corporate investment, with gentrification appearing to have become the
only way that some city governors can imagine regeneration occurring. In
this light, ‘austerity urbanism’ provides a new context for urban regenera-
tion policy (Tonkiss, 2013), with DIY urbanism, localism and philanthropy
offering an alternative to corporate-led regeneration. This said, even the
efforts of community groups and activists can be co-opted by the state in
ways that fuel gentrification rather than regeneration (Douglas, 2014).
But across the decades, certain themes have been recurrent in both the
academic and policy literature on urban regeneration. One theme that
we wish to highlight in this chapter is the persistent attention devoted
to the role of ‘culture’ in urban regeneration. While culture has always
been one of the most problematic concepts in the social sciences, ‘cultural
activity’ has frequently been posited as something of a panacea for urban
problems, increasingly integrated into mainstream urban policy (Miles
and Paddison, 2005). In this context, both local and national governments
have used the cultural industries as a key, and perhaps central, element of
urban development and regeneration policies, the economic impacts of a
‘creative renaissance’ in our cities being viewed as a possible ameliorative
to the problems associated with the shift to a deindustrialized economy
(Evans, 2009). While such policies take different forms, in many instances
culture-led urban regeneration has also become synonymous with arts-led
regeneration, with artists constructed as at the vanguard of processes that
symbolically embellish place and unlock its ‘potential’, their presence
being understood as ‘a catalyst for neighbourhood transition’ (Bridge,
2006, p. 1965). In an era of inter-urban competition, the arts have come to
be increasingly prized in the post-industrial city for their ‘ability to brand,
cultivate and classify space’ given ‘the presence of the arts (the altera-
tions of built form and the caché attached to the artistic lifestyle/output)
transforms the symbolic meaning of urban spaces and catalyzes economic
development’ (Mathews, 2014, p. 1019).

13.2 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ARTS-LED

REGENERATION

The role of art and culture in ‘creative city’ and urban regeneration strategies
has now been explored in a wide range of academic literatures (e.g. Bailey
et al., 2004; Evans, 2009; Markusen and Schrock, 2006; Pratt, 2008, 2011;
Thompson, 2016), much of this critical of the idea that art can be a panacea
for urban ills. Nevertheless, there is an influential body of policy-oriented

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 Urban regeneration through culture  ­197

literature that is broadly supportive of such culture-led approaches, suggest-

ing that art and artists are ‘entrepreneurial assets’ in the global battle for
investment and tourism (see especially Landry, 2000; Florida, 2002). Here,
the arguments mustered suggest that artists can be directly enrolled in the
re-aestheticization of previously redundant and derelict spaces (Mommaas,
2004), can enhance local well-being by leading community arts initiatives
(Bailey et al., 2004), generate ‘social capital’ through their networks
(Ewbank et al., 2013; Vella-Burrows et al., 2014) and make a surprisingly
large, though sometimes hidden, contribution to local economic develop-
ment through their work (Markusen and Schrock, 2006).
Arts-led regeneration also seems to have become synonymous with
iconic architectural projects designed to anchor a cultural renaissance.
Prominent examples include, for example, Bilbao’s Guggenheim and
London’s Tate Modern (Dean et al., 2010; Plaza, 2000) – both interven-
tions based around the development of large contemporary art gal-
leries – as well as a wider range of museums, workshops and creative
spaces (Mommaas, 2004). These typically follow a paradigmatic template
wherein under- or disused industrial buildings are ‘recycled’ by cultural
workers and become ‘dream houses’ that symbolize a particular con-
stellation of hopes and aspirations (Thompson, 2016). The perceived
contributions artists make as the ‘creative’ agents who inhabit such spaces
are multiple given they are viewed as providing a cultural consecration
of these spaces, something that draws on a bohemian mythology and the
durable association between artists and those symbolically rich urban
districts that carry connotations of being authentic, cool or edgy (Lloyd,
2010; Zukin, 2010). Hence, art, culture and creativity are used to tease
out distinctive marks and connotations of authenticity and increase the
symbolic capital of place so important in inter-urban competition. As
Landry (2000, p. 118) argues, this is crucial ‘as celebrating distinctiveness
in a homogenising world marks out one place from the next. Making the
specific symbols of the city . . . visible [produces] assets from which value
can be created’. Tate Modern on London’s South Bank is exemplary here,
the gallery reconfiguring the disused Bankside power station into an icon
of London cool (Dean et al., 2010). As such, the use of culture and creativ-
ity in urban policy can be understood as a competitive strategy based on
the ‘upgrading’ of the city’s image and the development of a marketable
city-product that will appeal to visitors, investors and, importantly, other
creative workers.
While advocates of arts-led regeneration projects often focus on wider
social and economic benefits that follow in the wake of artist-led regen-
eration, it has also been argued that the artists themselves benefit from
involvement in regeneration projects. For example, Scott (2000, p. 19)

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highlights the ‘agglomeration economies’ of creative clusters and argues

there can be ‘beneficial emergent effects’, including the creation of a local
labour market attuned to creative recruitment, emergence of localized
‘politico-cultural assets such as mutual trust, tacit understandings, learn-
ing effects’, economies of scale in the provision of education and training
and essential infrastructure. There are also assumed to be lifestyle benefits
associated with the emergence of mixed-use design and arts space which
incorporate work and office space, shops, bars, cafés and sometimes hous-
ing (Evans and Shaw, 2004).
There are then many assumed social benefits of arts-led activity. For
example, beyond the creation of arts spaces, the presence of artists is also
registered in the placement of art works in a range of public spaces. For
proponents, these art works can both aestheticize urban space and foment
senses of public ownership and social cohesion, engaging with individual
and shared meanings and identities. For instance, The Angel of the North,
a giant angel-like sculpture in Newcastle/Gateshead, has arguably done
much to consolidate local identities and sense of place, as well as creating a
new and more positive image for the cities in question (Bailey et al., 2004).
Meanwhile, Vella-Burrows et al. (2014, p. 36) point to the ‘strong correla-
tion’ between engagement in cultural activity and reported improvements
in health and well-being when assessing the impacts of culture-led regen-
eration in three coastal towns.
Yet, as noted above, there is also criticism: arts-based interventions
and strategies have been deemed a ‘distraction’ from underlying social
problems (Pratt, 2008) and arts spaces accused of being an ‘inducement to
sleepwalk’ into a new economy of precarity and poor wages (Thompson,
2016). Issues of inequity and exclusion are then raised as potential dangers
of policies which place much faith in artistic labourers whose cultural
capital is rarely matched by real economic clout (Pratt, 2008). Peck (2005,
p. 763) also rejects the rhetoric that presents culture-led development as,
in some way, ‘civilizing’, suggesting that it is involved in processes that
ultimately ‘commodify the arts and cultural resources, even social toler-
ance itself, suturing them as putative economic assets to evolving regimes
of urban competition’. He continues by suggesting that both in theory and
practice such policy provides a ‘means to intensify and publicly subsidize
urban consumption systems for a circulating class of gentrifiers’ (Peck,
2005, p.764). There are then many tensions between cultural production
and consumption within these strategies, though as Comunian (2010) and
Pratt (2008) note, the glut of work on cultural consumption in regenera-
tion is not matched by an equivalent body of work on cultural production
or labour conditions. Recent research has begun to address this, demon-
strating that culture-led interventions have failed to adequately support

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 Urban regeneration through culture  ­199

cultural production and may even undermine the artists who are supposed
to feel ‘welcomed and rewarded’ (Ward, 2018).
This said, the majority of critical accounts continue to circle around
the assumption that creative renaissance can instigate wider processes of
regeneration. Here, Pratt (2008) and Bailey et al. (2004) point out that the
justification for arts-based strategies are often predicated on the myth of
‘trickle-down’ benefits to the wider community in the form of jobs and
economic growth. Both note, however, that the evidence for this is thin
indeed: ‘The distinct lack of and commitment to, in-depth research into
this issue creates a situation in which policy makers are unable to draw
an evidence base upon which to make key decisions in the application of
culture-led regeneration strategies . . .’ (Bailey et al., 2004, p. 47).
The insights of urban geography matter here in so much that the success
or failure of arts-led regeneration appears contingent on local contextual
factors (Cameron and Coaffee, 2005). While this means that it is hard
to gauge the effectiveness of arts-led policy on the basis of singular case
studies, such studies can still provide clues as to tendencies and, when
considered in the context of geographical theories relating to the uneven
production of space, can highlight how urban regeneration alters land-
scapes in material and immaterial ways, potentially encouraging a ‘zero
sum game’ (Harvey, 1989) in which the benefits accruing to some social
groups are reliant on the exploitation or displacement of others. Thus, the
tension between the desire to improve localities for established residents
and the dangers of promoting the incursion of wealthier gentrifiers is one
that is at the heart of debates around arts-based regeneration and it is one
we return to subsequently. Equally here, we want to emphasize the impor-
tance of the often-hidden labour through which new ‘creative’ and artful
landscapes are produced. In the remainder of this chapter, we explore this
through a case study of a declining coastal town (Folkestone in England)
that has been seeking to reverse its fortunes through a major programme
of arts-based activity. Via this brief example we seek to highlight a number
of key themes in the urban regeneration literature and flesh out some
important questions about the role of geographic research in promoting
sustainable and inclusive culture-based policies for urban regeneration.

13.3 COASTAL REGENERATION, POST-

INDUSTRIALISM AND THE LIMITS OF ARTS-
BASED POLICY

Folkestone is a town in Kent’s Shepway district, situated at the south-

eastern tip of England between the North Downs and English Channel.

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Shepway is largely rural, composed mostly of small towns and villages,

with Folkestone accounting for over 45,000 of the district’s 100,000
residents. Contemporary accounts of Folkestone play on a melancholic
imagery of a once genteel Edwardian seaside resort and thriving Channel
ferry port that is now faded, shabby and part-derelict (Ewbank, 2011).
Certainly, its popularity as a ‘bucket and spade’ seaside resort waned
rapidly from the 1960s, with the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994
gradually undermining the viability of the ferry port, docks and associated
industry: ‘The town was going down and down and down; gradually it
lost its grandeur, its heart. It all seemed inevitable – much of the time the
council just saw its job as managing gentle decline’ (Philip Carter, former
council leader of Folkestone, quoted in Ewbank, 2011, p. 14).
Although located in the generally affluent South East of England and
enjoying good high-speed train links to London, Folkestone suffers from
some serious social problems, focused in particular in its central and
eastern areas. In 2003 one of its census tracts (the Harvey Central ward)
was the worst in Kent for health deprivation, worst in the South East for
unemployment and in the 0.4 per cent most deprived wards in England
and Wales. Thirty-four per cent of the working-age population was in
long-term unemployment and had no formal qualifications (Ewbank,
2011, p. 31). In 2010, nine areas of Folkestone, which cover most of the
town, were listed as within the 20 per cent most deprived in England and
Wales. For Ewbank, these ‘indicators of deprivation told a consistent
story: Folkestone was failing to thrive’ (Ewbank, 2011, p. 31).
In response, Shepway District Council’s (2012, p. 29) Core Strategy
noted that a ‘Strategic Need’ was the ‘challenge to improve employment,
educational attainment and economic performance’, with a key part of
the mooted solution the expansion of ‘cultural and creative activity in
the district, with refurbished premises and spaces in Folkestone’s Old
Town forming a vibrant Creative Quarter’. As part of its contribution
to the Council’s strategic needs, this ‘Regeneration Arc provides major
opportunities for development . . . to upgrade the fabric of the town draw-
ing from its past and potential sense of place’ (Shepway District Council,
2012, p. 104). Speaking in 2010, Paul Carter, then Leader of Kent County
Council, noted the ‘unique potential’ of Folkestone, suggesting the town
could expect to develop as a popular place for artists thanks to its location
and the contributions of local businessperson, founder of the Saga travel
group, Roger De Haan (Jamieson, 2010). It is significant to note, then,
that it is the Creative Foundation – a charity established in 2001 and
funded by De Haan – that is driving this culture-led regeneration project
(Ewbank, 2011). The Creative Foundation has purchased and renovated
a majority of the properties in Folkestone’s Old Town, leasing them for

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 Urban regeneration through culture  ­201

use as studios and galleries for creative businesses and practitioners.

Most significantly, perhaps, it runs the Folkestone Triennial, the largest
commissioning programme for public art in the UK: the third Triennial in
2014 featured work from 19 artists, some of which has now joined the per-
manent Folkestone Artworks collection of 27 public artworks distributed
across the town, most produced by internationally-recognized ‘superstar’
artists (e.g. Tracey Emin, Yoko Ono and Mark Wallinger).

13.4 ARTS-POLICY AS URBAN REGENERATION

POLICY

The culture-led strategies undertaken in Folkestone were established

under the New Labour UK government (1997–2010). This administration
proved a consistent proponent of culture-led urban regeneration strate-
gies, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) arguing that:
‘Now is the time to recognize the growing success story that is Britain’s
creative economy and build on that. The vision . . . of a Britain in ten
years’ time where the local economies in our biggest cities are driven by
creativity . . .’ (DCMS, 2008, p. 6, emphasis in original).
While the approach of subsequent administrations has been to divert
attention elsewhere (e.g. the use of the 2012 London Olympics as a catalyst
for regeneration in the East End of London), much local policy activity
remains a product of that earlier period, with the cultural industries
(branded ‘creative industries’) deemed a means to promote economic
development, social inclusion and regeneration (DCMS, 2001, 2008;
Local Government Association, 2009; Evans and Shaw, 2004; Hewison,
2011). Before the election of the Coalition (Conservative-dominated)
government in 2010, Oakley (2010, p. 19) noted that it was at the ‘regional
and local level that the fusion of economic development, regeneration and
social inclusion goals was largely enacted’. This local/regional approach
was backed-up with central government funding and support through, for
example, the Local Government Association (2009, 2013) and the various
regional development agencies which, from 1999 until 2011, were involved
in many culture-led strategies and initiatives, such as establishing ‘cultural
quarters’, new public art and ‘flagship’ galleries (DCMS, 2001, 2008;
Oakley, 2010).
Despite lacking the larger urban centres generally envisaged as locations
for the hubs of the creative economy, local and regional cultural policy in
many coastal communities developed in this context. Here, it is notable
that many coastal towns in the UK fit neatly in with the narratives of
decline that apply to the deindustrialized manufacturing areas of the

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 202  Handbook of urban geography

UK and are therefore viewed as prime candidates for the same kinds of
cultural-led responses. Indeed, seaside towns may be particularly suitable
for culture-led regeneration as coastal resorts have long engaged in place-
promotion and undertaken strategies designed to alter their inherited
identities. Such strategies are supported by initiatives such as the DCMS
‘Sea Change’ programme (2008–2010) which provided £37 million to
projects that used culture to contribute to social and economic regenera-
tion of seaside resorts (BOP Consulting, 2011). Supported projects in this
programme include galleries and public art installations in Ilfracombe
(where Damien Hirst’s 66ft Verity sculpture has become a landmark) and
Hastings (where The Jerwood Gallery opened in 2012 at a cost of over £4
million). In each case, the focus on the visual arts suggests an important
imagined synergy between the re-aestheticization of run-down neighbour-
hoods and the promotion of an arts community that is imagined as more
socially mobile and resilient than those employed in ‘traditional’ seasonal
seaside work (e.g. hospitality and catering) (Ward, 2018).
The use of ‘flagship’ developments to anchor urban regeneration is
nothing new (Loftman and Nevin, 1995), but there is then an important
distinction here between arts-led interventions and the convention centres,
sports stadia and heritage shopping districts which so often underpinned
earlier forms of entrepreneurial place-making (Hall and Hubbard, 1996).
The symbolism of key arts-based projects can be understood as helping
to produce a representational space that overlays the existing material
and symbolic properties of the town with new socio-spatial configura-
tions (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 41–42). These representations deploy a specific
ideology of culture and creativity to imagine place as (inherently) creative,
upgrading the image of the city-product through the utilization of ‘histori-
cally constituted cultural artefacts and practices and special environmen-
tal characteristics’ (Harvey, 2001, p. 404). In Folkestone this is expressly
based on claims to uniqueness and authenticity (i.e. arts as embedded in
the ‘old town’) and an exploitation of synergies between culture, leisure
and tourism for economic development. The effect is the layering of
socially constituted discourses of culture, creativity and art over existing
and established ‘local’ understandings and lived experiences of these
places. This is heightened in Folkestone as the Triennial and permanent
Artworks collection imposes an ‘artful’ identity through acts of spatial
inscription and place-making (e.g. public artworks, installations and
interventions across the town). Indeed, the stated aims of the Folkestone
Triennial/Artworks are explicit about this:

[Folkestone Artworks is] helping to further develop Folkestone’s reputation as

a unique destination in the UK . . . The aim remains that when people think

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 Urban regeneration through culture  ­203

about Folkestone they think about the collection. The size of the collection now
warrants a trip to Folkestone by itself and we would like the people of the town
to be aware of it, proud of it and to talk about it. (Folkestone Artworks, n.d.)

There is little doubt that art can provide the basis for an effective re-
imaging of place given the media preoccupation with ‘superstar’ artists
and the ‘value’ with which their art is imbued. For example, when German
artist Michael Sailstorfer buried 30 bars of gold bullion worth £400 each
on Folkestone beach as part of the 2014 Triennial, it attracted huge media
attention: ITV breakfast, BBC news and even Chinese state television
broadcast live from the town. The Creative Foundation counted 119 arti-
cles in regional, national and international media, 14 radio and television
stories and more than 200 online articles estimating more than 1.6 billion
hits.

13.5 EXCLUSIONS AND CONTESTATIONS OF

ARTS-BASED POLICY

In Folkestone the legacy of arts-based regeneration is then visible in a

variety of ways, both literally in the form of public artworks and studio
spaces and metaphorically in the forging of a new mediated reputation
as a creative place. However, this conscious promotion of place can be
problematic and contested. Indeed, attempts to draw attention to bubbles
of ‘creative’ activity in parts of Folkestone has encouraged parts of the
press to look beyond these to those who live in conditions of deprivation.
For example, much of the media coverage in 2014 and 2015 sought to tell
the stories of those digging for gold on Folkestone’s beach, questioning
the logic of burying gold ‘under the noses of the poor’ and drawing atten-
tion to those who dug with their bare hands looking for a way out of ‘an
empty and wrecked town’ (Armstrong, 2015). This type of observation
chimes with the literatures on the role of artists in gentrification, suggest-
ing a disconnection between the lifestyles and values of artists in deprived
neighbourhoods and the needs of less wealthy or educated residents
(Bain, 2003; Lees and Melhuish, 2013). As noted previously, the literature
on artists as complicit in gentrification is now large and though mixed
conclusions have been drawn, it is clear that the deliberate deployment of
artists to ‘grotty’ neighbourhoods allows for the ‘grottiness’ to be ‘tamed
and made safe’ for the arrival of the middle-class (Landry, 2000, p. 125).
This was further highlighted as the Folkestone Harbour Company, owned
by Creative Foundation backer Roger De Haan, began work on a £337
million property development close to the Creative Quarter. In securing

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planning, the work of the Creative Foundation in developing the Creative

Quarter and running two triennials is entered as evidence to attest to their
commitment to the town:
The plans for the redevelopment of the harbour and seafront have sat alongside
considerable investment in the town by Roger De Haan through the Roger
De Haan Charitable Trust, Creative Foundation and Folkestone Harbour
Company. The town has gained a new vibrancy in the Creative Quarter, the
mounting of two international arts exhibitions (the Folkestone Triennial) in
2008 and 2011, investment in schools and sports facilities, and improvements
to the harbour itself, including public realm and visitor destinations. (Shepway
District Council, 2013, n.p.)

However, the new development is aimed at people moving into the area,
with only 8 per cent of the new homes classified as ‘affordable’. The urban
cultural regeneration, then, has become de facto branding for a scheme of
speculative property construction.
This suggests that culture-led strategies can constitute the first stage of
processes that materially and symbolically reconfigure spaces to the living,
working and consumption patterns of incoming (wealthier) residents. In
Folkestone the creative ‘pioneers’ of cultural regeneration are sited in
an area of high deprivation where, with backing from Roger De Haan’s
Creative Foundation, a swathe of dilapidated but still in-use commercial
and residential property was bought, renovated and repurposed for ‘artists,
artisans and creative businesses of the very highest calibre’ (Ewbank, 2011,
p. 48). Taking up tenancies there requires applications from prospective
residents and businesses to be vetted by committee and these are sometimes
vetoed on the grounds of artistic quality. Therefore, the use of culture-led
urban regeneration policy can be divisive, with the promotion of a ‘creative
vibe’ often requiring the (literal and metaphorical) displacement of existing
values, lifestyles and businesses. Indeed, in the case of Folkestone, it is clear
the process of marketing the town as creative has reinforced distinctions
between those who are artful and deemed to have the capacity to engage
in designated creative spaces and the ‘uncreative’ classes who populate the
more ‘ordinary’ town (see Edensor et al., 2009 on mundane creativity).
This is manifest in obvious physical transformations as more and more of
the town has been given over to gallery and workshop spaces, with these
occupying derelict shops, nightclubs and amusement arcades.

13.6  ARTISTS AND LABOUR

The assumption that arts-based regeneration creates cohesive communi-

ties is then highly questionable (see Lees and Melhuish, 2013) and much

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 Urban regeneration through culture  ­205

more research is needed to establish whether indigenous creativity always

suffers as external notions of artistic ‘value’ take hold. Perhaps the valori-
zation of the visual arts is misguided in this respect, given the other forms
of creativity that typically exist, but are not celebrated, in less affluent
communities (e.g. crafting, modelling, music-making, gaming, playing).
But it is clear that arts-led regeneration relies on other questionable
assumptions, such as those that equate creativity with the economic pros-
perity of creative workers. For Lefebvre, the discoursing of a particular
representation of (creative) space can serve to conceal the labour through
which it originated: ‘Products and the circuits they establish (in space) are
fetishized and so become more “real” than reality itself – that is, than pro-
ductive activity itself, which they thus take over’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 81).
Put another way, it appears the galleries and artworks that attract much
attention from visitors, the media and policy-makers obscure the very
labour and social relations on which the interpretation of these places as
inherently ‘creative’ is built. Displays of artistic activity – in studios, galler-
ies, festivals and fringe events – are vital in Folkestone’s re-imagination as
a ‘creative’ town but are reliant on the labour of individual artists who are
not necessarily part of the ‘flagship’ cultural project (Ward, 2018).
Thus, while the media and policy attention in Folkestone might focus
on the Triennial, or a general description of the town becoming a more
‘creative’ place, local artists’ labour plays an important part in producing
these representations of space. Currid and Williams (2010, p. 423) note
that ‘the social milieu plays a key role in the production, consumption and
valorization of cultural goods’, reminding us that it is labour that produces
the ‘buzz’ that ‘motivates consumption of cultural goods and generates
aesthetic and market value’. Culture-led development strategies seek to
exploit this and hence rely on the labour of ‘local’ artists, irrespective of
the emphasis sometimes put on ‘star’ and global artists. Yet it is equally
apparent arts-based urban regeneration can alienate local artists as much
as it can other local residents who feel their values and opinions are being
sidelined by agendas which are externally-oriented. Arguably, local arts
production is undermined in Folkestone by the Triennial’s curatorial
and commissioning activity and a focus on bringing in ‘big name’ artists:
though there is an acceptance on the part of local artists that artworks are
needed that can encourage visitors to Folkestone, there is also resentment
evident as the most prominent policy interventions do not adequately rep-
resent local artists’ work, something important given the precarious work-
ing conditions endured by many visual artists. This was further illustrated
by an event in February 2013, organized by Kent County Council, which
addressed ‘Engagement, learning, skills’ and ‘Sector skills development’.
To the consternation of local artists present, rather than exploring how to

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 206  Handbook of urban geography

develop skills and sustainability of the cultural sector, it unfolded as an

uncritical presentation promoting culture as boosterist tool, focusing on
East Kent’s (ultimately unsuccessful) bid to become UK City of Culture.
Thus, despite the vital activity of artists in creating Folkestone as a
creative place, policy activity arguably ignores the specific needs of artists,
including the difficult working conditions that many face. Folkestone has
attracted many artists to the town because it offers cheaper living and
working spaces than many other towns in the South East, an essential
trait for those who work in a sector where low pay and free labour, are
the norm (Banks et al., 2013). While there are ethical questions as to the
exploitation of artists’ labour by government and property owners, more
prosaically there are also serious questions as to the long-term sustain-
ability of a regeneration strategy based on promoting kinds of work that
often pay less than the national minimum hourly wage and which are beset
by chronic insecurity.

13.7 CONCLUSION

In the apparently global battle for jobs and investment, culture-based

urban regeneration strategies have much appeal for urban governors
struggling to identify routes to a bright post-industrial future. The visual
arts in particular seem particularly vaunted as a means by which place
images can be transformed and struggling economies revivified. This
chapter has explored the key arguments mustered here: namely that the
presence of art adds value to place by changing dominant representations
of a town or city at the same time artists are figured as a virtuous force for
social change. In a context where the local state is rarely able to devote
time or money to building ‘communities’ through the financing of social
infrastructure or grassroots initiatives designed to reskill or otherwise re-
engage marginalized residents, the appeal of arts-based policy is obvious.
But our conclusion is that arts-based regeneration must now come with
health warnings, as it raises the spectre of gentrification, displacement
and a class-based contestation in which those represented as ‘artless’ and
‘uncreative’ ultimately reject the arts-based identities foisted upon their
communities.
The example of Folkestone, though specific to a particular corner of
South East England, demonstrates the importance of a continuing dia-
logue between urban geography and urban policy and a need for academ-
ics to better communicate why concepts like gentrification, displacement
and precarity need to be invoked in discussions of arts-led regeneration.
More than this, perhaps, this example suggests that labour of creative

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 Urban regeneration through culture  ­207

workers themselves needs to be more fully considered in critical accounts

of culture-led regeneration. So while Folkestone’s Creative Foundation
is far from unique in suggesting it is building a successful creative com-
munity, questions remain about the viability and sustainability of an
arts-based approach in this town. While arts-led regeneration has begun
to produce economic returns via consumption-orientated models of
development in Folkestone, we have argued that a perspective focusing on
the dialectic of cultural production and consumption offers a better basis
for making any evaluation of costs and benefits. In this respect, urban
geographers need to work alongside artists to identify how their labour is
being enrolled in projects of culture-based regeneration and include artists
among the groups that might be disadvantaged or disenfranchized by
seemingly inclusive arts-based urban policy.

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