Journal for Northeast Issues, # 3 (2004), pp. 24-26.
by Sampo Ruoppila
Introduction
The redevelopment of old manufacturing areas for new uses began ten years ago in post-socialist Eastern European cities. So far, the old industrial sites have been replaced mostly by offices and shopping centers. However, the supply of convertible premises is large, and plenty of properties are still waiting for new uses and users, even in most central locations. In this article I propose that cultural agents could get involved in urban renewal by organizing different kinds of activities as temporary uses for areas which are not yet redeveloped, and in that way enrich the content of contemporary urban change. I stress the feasible option of changing a non-place in waiting into a place in action.
The article starts with the explanation of why there is plenty of space to be redeveloped in the centers of former socialist cities and how these cities have developed since year 1990. It is followed by a summary of how urban regeneration policies have made use of cultural activities in the West. Shifting the focus back to centrally located manufacturing areas in Eastern European cities, I describe what kind of public spaces some of them could become and how cultural projects could play an active part in this process. I also discuss why landowners and city officials should be interested in supporting the projects.
By “Eastern Europe” I refer primarily to countries that were part of the Eastern Bloc, but not part of the Soviet Union, though I include the Baltic States . The analyses and suggestions are, nonetheless, largely relevant for cities in Russia and elsewhere in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) as well. Similarly, the cities of the FSU have abundance of obsolete manufacturing areas in central locations. The conditions of contemporary developments are however different: in the FSU, economic restructuring has been more modest, property relations are often obscure, and the role of top-down governance by public administration is greater in the urban development process. This usually makes involvement more complicated, but definitely not less worth the attempt.
Development of city centers under socialism
When state socialist regimes came into power in Eastern Europe (by 1948), they took over cities that already had a specific spatial structure: administrative and commercial cores, manufacturing areas and different kinds of residential neighborhoods were present. Urban growth can alter the built environment in two ways: cities can grow either by expanding outwards to as-yet vacant land, or the use of land which has already been developed can be intensified or the land can be redeveloped for more modern use. Socialist cities grew primarily by expanding outwards to as-yet unused areas. New housing in particular, mostly in form of large housing estates, was constructed on the outskirts of towns and cities. The density of population there sometimes even exceeded that in the city centers, which is usually not the case in Western cities (see Bertaud and Renaud, 1997: 141). Meanwhile, ”in the centers of cities, far fewer physical and functional changes were observed than in cities of similar size in countries with market economies” (Musil, 1993: 901). Major remodeling of city centers was carried out only in cities like East Berlin or Warsaw , which suffered considerable damage in WWII. In other cities, the existing urban structure survived relatively unscathed. However, buildings gradually deteriorated because of the lack of maintenance. The preservation of the historical cores of cities was often intentional, but other centrally located “old” areas, including outdated industrial sites, were spared due to the rarity of redevelopment of the existing built environment.
The relatively modest development of city centers under state socialism was not caused by a lack of appreciation. The administrative (i.e. white-collar) work places as well as cultural and (limited) shopping facilities continued to be concentrated in city centers, including the construction of new administrative facilities, cultural centers and hotels (Hamilton, 1979; Sýkora, 1998). Furthermore, following the European tradition, the centers in general and the former bourgeois quarters in particular remained most popular residential areas (Ruoppila, 2004).
In urban studies, the lack of redevelopment has been explained by the conventions of public housing construction and the irrelevance of land prices in land use planning (Sýkora, 1993; Szelényi, 1996; Bertaud and Renaud, 1997). Michalovic (1992) and Szelényi (1996) argue that state’s prominent role in every niche of the construction industry supported a scheme of housing production where all agents preferred large projects to “reap (supposed) economies of scale” (Szelényi, 1996: 305). The “large projects” refer in particular to housing estates, constructed of pre-fabricated elements, which were more manageable to build in as-yet undeveloped areas compared with urban renewal. The disadvantage of constructing at more distant sites was the increase in infrastructure costs (e.g. organizing of public transportation). Alternative choices were possible, because all land was in state ownership and thus under its authority, but the higher costs of the infrastructure were disregarded because of the “non-existence” (Bertaud and Renaud, 1997) or “highly restricted nature” (Szelényi, 1996) of urban land markets. The absence of land prices, the argument goes, had a pernicious effect as it eliminated the main incentive to redevelop built-up areas. As Bertaud and Renaud write, “without price signals to reveal the opportunity cost of land in alternative uses, it was administratively simpler to respond to current land demand pressure by developing at the periphery than to redevelop well-located areas with obsolete land uses” (Bertaud and Renaud, 1997:139). By the latter, the authors refer in particular to the sites of old manufacturing industries that already had lost their economic significance.
Real estate development in the city centers after 1990
After the collapse of state socialism and consequent transformation from a planned to a market economy, city centers have become again the focal point of urban development in Eastern Europe. The transformation, on the one hand, changed the principles of production of the urban environment. The real estate market was introduced, including private property ownership and new agents in private sector such as real estate developers. On the other hand, it triggered economic growth in the (post-industrial) service sector, financial intermediation, insurance and commerce; together, these gave a rise to a demand for new kinds of commercial spaces in central locations in major cities (Kovács, 1999).
Since the 1990s, development of city centers has been characterized by filling in the existing urban structure with new buildings and by increasing density. As a part of the process, redevelopment has also begun in the areas formerly used by manufacturing industries. Major projects that have included land use conversions are the West End shopping center in Budapest (VI district), major retail developments along Könyves Kálmán körút in Budapest (IX district), the Zlatý Anděl offices and shopping center in Smichov ( Prague 5), office developments in Karlin ( Prague 8) and office developments along Narva maantee in Tallinn . As these examples suggest, centrally located industrial areas have so far been redeveloped mainly as offices and shopping centers. These commercially biased projects have rarely included the creation of cultural centers, parks or other arenas of public space.Cultural initiatives as a part of urban regeneration
In the West, culture has often assumed a strategically central role in policies designed to support the physical and economic regeneration of cities from the 1970s onwards, i.e. after the decline of manufacturing industries (Bianchini and Parkinson, 1993). This is not only due to culture’s alleged capacity to assist in making a city “known” and successful in the inter-urban competition for investment and influence as well as enhance local job growth in “creative industries”, but it has also occurred because policy makers have regarded culture as a potential mechanism for encouraging social integration, reviving civic culture and reducing social marginalization (Griffits, 1995).
Based on literature regarding urban governance, Griffits (1995) has identified three models of how cultural policies and projects have been used in urban regeneration. These models differ in terms of their political priorities as well as their conceptions of culture. In the “integrationist model”, cultural projects are used in order to revitalize public social life and revive a sense of civic identity and a shared sense of belonging to the city, creating a more inclusive and democratic public realm and raising expectations about what a city life has to offer. In this model, culture is defined as the general network of meaningful practices which characterize a community. In the “cultural industries model”, the emphasis is on viewing the production and dissemination of cultural products as an important form of wealth creation in its own right, one which has both significant potential for future growth and which derives ideas from the city life. The focus of attention is on commercial cultural industries, such as audiovisual industries, publishing and fashion design. The “promotional (or consumerist) model” uses the arts as instruments with which a city can attract tourists, businessmen and other visitors, as well as business investment in mixed-use developments (which include cultural facilities) and cultural districts. The emphasis is on art consumption. This model is often associated with the business-led policies of local growth coalitions (see Logan and Molotch, 1987: 76-79). In contrast to the other two models, it usually expresses a rather narrow conception of culture as high art or, broadly, anything to be consumed by a mass audience.
Temporary land use as a strategic tool for cultural projects
Compared with Western cities of equal size and importance, the current situation with the redevelopment of centrally located manufacturing areas in Eastern European cities is different in two respects. First, given that “post-industrial” conversions started only in the mid-1990s, there are comparatively more sites which have not yet been redeveloped. Second, the cultural sector (and cultural policy) has so far played only minor part in urban renewal in Eastern Europe. It is the commercial actors that have been so far active, and thus the newly produced spaces consist primarily of offices and shops.
However, the cultural actors could themselves start to make a difference and opt for alternative urban development through grassroots activity. In the current situation that (plenty of) space is just waiting for redevelopment at some time in future, opportunities emerge for cultural actors (individually or in coalitions) to lease this space on a temporary bases for their own purposes. The rents should be affordable because there are few commercial uses for old factories, for instance, in their present modest physical condition. Before redevelopment, most sites have at most market value as storage and many stay empty, providing the owner with no income at all.
Temporary uses arranged by cultural actors, as I envision it, could consist of working spaces for artists and art-related industries as well as (semi-)public spaces for hobbies and happenings to attract social life. The centrally located former industrial areas would provide excellent spaces for studios, exhibitions, clubs, dancehalls, children’s playgrounds, temporary city parks, (open-air) cinemas, band rehearsal, concerts or something totally new – imagination is the only limit. Establishing such functions (even temporarily) in the areas awaiting redevelopment would be to conquer public and cultural space. It would be “space making” par excellence, contributing to the perception of these areas as a part of the functioning city. As Lehtovuori et al. formulate, ”by focusing public attention on forgotten places, temporary uses literally produce new public space” (Lehtovuori et al., 2003: 45).
The possible conductors of cultural projects should be able to successfully negotiate about the temporary use, because the benefits of changing a non-place in waiting into a place in action should also be in the interest of real estate owners and the city officials. Strategically speaking, the advantages can be presented in many lights. The real estate owners can be seduced with rhetoric which borrows from the “cultural industries model” and especially the “promotional model”, while the city officials can be expected to also favor the projects that present their case in the tone of the “integrationist model”, to use Griffits’ terminology.
While temporary land uses can be a good strategic tool for cultural projects to introduce alternative urban renewal, it is not mere rhetoric to claim that other actors may also benefit from it. The Urban Catalyst project, which studied temporary uses of former industrial areas in Amsterdam, Berlin, Helsinki, Naples and Vienna (see report by Lehtovuori et al., 2003), detailed the benefits of temporary use and users for the city and the property owners. Firstly, temporary use and users are beneficial because they are potential permanent users. What is today small-scale and experimental can be a success story tomorrow. Temporary performing stages may become established and playful innovations in media art workshops, for instance, may have great business potential. Alternative novel uses are relevant, because not every building even can be converted into standard offices or shopping centers. Secondly, temporary users also pay rent (and local taxes). Furthermore, compared to no use at all, they also preserve buildings from decay and vandalism and reduce security costs for the owner. Thirdly, temporary uses may change an image of the site and give it a “new address”. Thanks to them, previously closed and “forgotten” places can be mentally integrated into the urban fabric. Fourthly, temporary non-commercial uses attract commercial use. The effect can be immediate: say, for example, if three quarters of an empty building is rented cheaply to independent theaters and orchestras that bring in an audience, the other quarter can be leased to a restaurant entrepreneur at a decent rent. Place promotion and the rise of property value is nonetheless in the long run a main attraction for the property owners and an argument to persuade to let cheaply to temporary users in the first place. Fifthly, the temporary uses often develop a mix of functions to the districts in question, and thus follow the ideals of urban planning that favor heterogeneity. For planners, these can be testing grounds to try out new things. Local residents also tend to consider them as legitimate new ways to use a site. Sixthly, for city officials, to support voluntary projects is a cheap way to establish and maintain public space.
Temporary land uses provide feasible and concrete opportunities to affect urban development and enrich the social and spatial variety of the newly produced urban environment. The time to establish them and put this idea into practice is now. Therefore, I encourage you, dear reader, to get involved and actively take part in the remaking of Eastern European cities.
Sampo Ruoppila is a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Social Policy.
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