Definitions

1. MEDIUM TO HIGH CULTURE NON-MEGA EVENTS AS REGENERATION STRATEGIESSamuel Cameron, Professor of Economics, University of Bradford.

2. Definitions Culture – traditional ‘arts’ activity (ancient and modern high and medium) Note- the spectrum issue is problematic with the placing of comedy/humour Regeneration – the process of bringing economic activity into decaying city neighbourhoods Event – something special or unique which attracts attention Non-mega – this is a sarcastic term used in this presentation in oppostion to the existence of a literature on ‘The Economics of Mega Events’. The non mega event is a small collection of activity like a local or specialist arts festival.

3. Creative Industries Save The World The work of Richard Florida has promoted the idea that the creative sector of the economy drives growth. It therefore follows that the promotion of growth via creativity is a viable regeneration strategy. In the UK, DCMS and NESTA likewise enhance a governmental view of a win-win approach to investment in creative industries. Such ideas would lead us to expect that the City of Culture year would have finally solved the fundamental economic problems of Liverpool.

4. Leicester County Council

5. Music, theatre and events throughout the year create a district of colour, contrast and atmosphere, including the internationally-recognised Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Marsden Jazz Festival, Holmfirth Art Week, and a well-established Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival, now in its fifth year. Kirklees Tourism and Visitor Strategy 2004-2008

6. Why do Creative Industries Save The World? • Why would it work? • External magnetism effect Come to my ‘funky neighbourhood’, name capital, reputation • Spending pattern shifts Expenditure patterns of creative incomers may be beneficial to local growth • Interior networking effects traditional notion of industrial linkages and synergies transferred to the creative sector/class • Afterbirth externalities

7. EVIDENCE Florida’s core evidence is based on cross-section regressions of local economic activity on funky neighbourhood proxies such as ‘gayness’/bohemian-ness. There are also a number of studies of the impact of MTHCNME’s.

8. Why do Creative Industries Save The World? To the skeptical economist, Florida’s approach seems like a curious renaissance of Physiocracy and one that plays very loosely with the use of the word creativity eg including psychiatrists in the ‘creative sector’. It thus simplifies notions of high/low/medium culture that have beset cultural economics by amalgamating all cultural activity into one lump of ‘good stuff’ BUT Does this matter if it works? :

9. CLAIMS FOR CULTURE AND ITS EVENTS Guetzkow (2002) “The arts have been heralded as a panacea for all kinds of problems Arts-integrated school curricula supposedly improve academic performance and student discipline (Fiske 1999; Remer 1990). The arts revitalize neighborhoods and promote economic prosperity (Costello 1998; SCDCAC 2001; Stanziola 1999; Walesh 2001). Participation in the arts improves physical and psychological well-being (Baklien 2000; Ball and Keating 2002; Bygren, Konlaan and Johansson 1996; Turner and Senior 2000). The arts provide a catalyst for the creation of social capital and the attainment of important community goals (Goss 2000; Matarasso 1997; Williams 1995)”

10. PROBLEMS Concept measurement • Causality e.g Glaeser critique of Florida • Data Mining Bias • Stupid questions, Unasked questions and unloved answers Specifically wrt welfare – culture events are assumed to be ‘win-win’

11. BIG IS UGLY? Analysis in the economics of mega events suggests that it may be the case that ‘big is ugly’. The apex of big in mega event terms is the Olympic Games which has been problematic in terms of its development effects. One cost aspect of big is the need for high level security. We may also note that the truly mega event has not been given to regeneration areas but rather stuffed into over already expanded cities

12. Standard Welfare Economics • Optimality problem of too many resources in big events in places that are already too big. • Besides rent seeking problems the resolution of this also faces> • Indivisibility obstacles to downsizing mega events and/or redistributing them to smaller places • Credibility • Infastructure There is also the issue of whether there is a global addiciton to mega events however inefficient they may be

13. BUT IS SMALL BEAUTIFUL? So there is a case for small -as in lots of low scale independent dispersed activity versus big . An agglomeration of NME’s in a region create bigness in the region and some mega events are really compilations of small events.

14. Case Regions: LEICESTER AND KIRKLEES Development strategies here have been to encourage NMEs embedded in a general context of the idea of the region being attractive and capable of tourism magnetism.

15. NON EVIDENCE There is no specific reliable evidence for gains from the small is beautiful approach. Only the wishful thinking noted earlier and consultancy based surveys of limited validity. There is also no attention to the competition between regions for the creative industries highspot premia.

16. CONCLUSION Necessity for empirical work on the NME which is more conclusive than that hitherto undertake which is generally based on nebulous opinion seeking or economic evaluations which are unable to separate specific impact or look at comparative efficiency versus other regeneration drivers.