Via the Regeneration and Renewal youtube channel

The Centre for Cities are a think-tank who investigate economic development issues with a focus on British cities and they publish an annual ‘Cities Outlook’ report which sets out the performance and prospects of the UK’s 64 main cities.  Their latest report was published a couple of weeks ago.

Like everything in this field at the moment, it makes for quite depressing reading.  Unemployment has risen to around 8%.  Retail, financial services and construction are the hardest hit sectors so far, all of which are key aspects of city economies.  The centre forecasts that it will take around 5 years for employment to return to pre-crisis levels.  We can add to this by noting that there is probably still some way to go before we hit the bottom of the unemployment curve.  With cuts still to come to the public sector and the commercial property market due to underperform significantly this year it is likely that unemployment will reach 10% by the end of the year, before it begins to pick up again in 2011.

A Key focus of the report is on what they describe as “public sector cities”, those urban centres whose recent growth has involved the re-location or creation of large numbers of public sector jobs.  As we all know, the pain of this crisis is going to be felt most strongly by the public sector. The Government is now taking steps to address the budget deficit produced by the bailouts of the banking sector and the programme of quantitative easing that is still ongoing, and necessary to keep the hyper-capitalist juggernaut rolling.  The graph below, taken from the report, places cities into categories of vulnerability according to their exposure to the effects of public sector cutbacks:

From a seaside perspective, the two cities that jump out  here are Brighton and Hastings seperated by only35 miles of coastline, but representing the most insulated and the most exposed groups of cities in terms of the risks associated with the coming cutbacks.

Brighton has seen highest contribution of any city in the country from the private sector to job creation -70.4% of all recent new jobs have been in the private sector, with a 20.8% growth in job creation since 2008,  and also the 6th highest rate of new business creation in the country.  Hastings, 39th on the list in terms of private sector contribution, saw a net loss of 0.3% of jobs in the same period.  In Hastings, only 57.5% of new jobs have been created in the private sector.

Hastings is the 2nd highest ranked city for earnings growth in the country, but 63rd in terms of average income, suggesting that the job creation is still taking place in the lower reaches of the earning scale.  This is supported by the city’s occupation of 58th place in the rankings for knowledge economy jobs (9.7% of the workforce), comparing poorly to Brighton in 10th place with 23.2%.  This contrast in the skills and profile of the two neighbouring cities is also reflected in the percentage of high skills (NVQ4+) in the local labour market:  Brighton is 6th on the list with 38.1% and Hastings is 40th with 22.5%.

It is clear from data like this that Brighton has a built-in resilience to the kind of economic shocks that Hastings is particularly exposed to in the current climate.  Brighton has been undergoing a renaissance since the early 1990s, with the regeneration of the town facilitated by good transport links to London, a growing creative industries sector and high levels of entrepreneurship.  Hastings, however, is still struggling to deal with the repercussions of the restructuring of the tourism industry following the recessions of the late 1970s and early 1980s.    As the report says, “Many of the cities that have been hit hardest are places still suffering from the legacy of industrial restructuring and previous recessions”. 

The regeneration of Hastings, which has recently embraced the cultural route to redevelopment, has been extensively supported by the public sector, notably the local authority and SEEDA, the regional development agency.  One of the reasons that the economic impacts of regeneration are so difficult to pin down in the short-medium terms is the effect of increasing public spending on job creation.  Major regeneration projects require investments in human, as well as physical capital, and these projects create employment by virtue of their existence.  Increasing the capacity of the local public sector to deliver change and bringing new facilities and projects online, often means increasing the size of publically subsidised sectors through the creation of new agencies, administrative structures and individual posts.  This growth in local employment is now at risk.

It would seem that Hastings, which has seen huge public sector investment over the last 5 years, is now in a precarious position.  No doubt, without the massive government interventions that the city has benefited from, Hastings would be in a far worse position.   Assuming that the funding continues to flow, the regeneration of the Harbour area and the presence of the new Jerwood contemporary art gallery will help to drive tourism in Hastings and begin to create secondary employment in the accommodation, catering and other tourism services sectors.  The real question for Hastings is can it weather the storm of the coming period of public-sector cuts without losing momentum? 

The reinvention of Brighton has been high-profile and dramatic; a more dramatic commercial-sector crash may have (and still might) jeopardise its future sustainability.  If public sector investment can be maintained in Hastings then this will help to maintain local development capacity and enable the city to push on with its ambitious plans when we come out of the other side of this crisis. Eventually, the public investment will begin to lever in private money and the city can look forward to the development of a more balanced economy.  If momentum is lost in Hastings it may never catch up with its more glamorous neighbour. 

The Centre for Cities report emphasises that the recovery, when it comes, will be uneven.  This will be no less true for our seaside towns.  In the south-east alone, the development of formerly bustling resorts is a patchwork of public, private, charitable and organic approaches to regeneration.  There will be winners and losers in the competition to become the next Brighton, but it appears that the city that has provide a template for so much current thinking about seaside cultural development will be on top for some time to come.

Smells like Teign Spirit

I’ve written about Teignmouth before on the Arcades / Promenades project blog, for those of you with an interest in finding out more about this quirky seaside town.  On the Animate Projects website you can also watch films about Bridlington and Hastings – enjoy!

“There was some exciting artistic work on show as part of the seascape event, and reports of fascinating research. But it seems as though the vogue for coastal cultural regeneration is in danger of repeating the rhetorical and ideological mistakes of the now not-so-novel approach to cultural regeneration taken by inland cities over the last 15 years, concentrating on attracting high-spending cultural tourists and viewing communities as a problem that needed to be solved.”

The Arcades Project

A taster of Wesley’s piece:

“Benjamin is, very, clear and, far too, concise in his summation of the method of The Arcades Project.  Convolute N, which deals with his historical method and his analysis of that method (moving into the philosophy of method and history), contains a very great deal of material but the following are his key methodological statements on the Project itself.

This work has to develop to the highest degree the art of citing without quotation marks. Its theory is intimately related to that of montage.
[N1,10]

Method of this project: literary montage. I needn’t say anything. Merely show. I shall purloin no valuables, appropriate no ingenious formulations. But the rags, the refuse – these I will not inventory but allow, in the only way possible, to come into their own: by making use of them.
[N1a,8] “

SeaScape Conference – Butlins, Skegness, PE25 1NJ
Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd October 2009

This is a two-day international conference exploring culture as a regenerative force for coastal communities.

Bringing together cultural strategists, architects, and regeneration experts to discuss creative applications and practice from the Black and North Sea regions, also highlighting the Sea Change programme led by CABE.

The SeaScape conference is part of the ‘SEAS’, a festival featuring installations and performances, happening throughout Skegness

Programme of events

Each day will begin with presentations and discussion followed by more informal opportunities for delegates to actively respond to the conference themes through hands-on exploration of cultural mapping; site visits to innovative arts capital projects and dialogue with local residents.

International speakers will discuss and explore approaches to coastal regeneration from capital investment to community engagement.

The programme includes a session hosted by CABE of examination of Sea Change funded projects from Margate, Bridlington, Boscombe and Hastings.

Event Speakers

Speakers include Dragan Klaic (Netherlands), Fast Urban Research: Jacek Dominiczak and Monika Zawadzka (Poland) and representatives from key projects in Sweden, Norway and the Ukraine. Mark Simmonds (UK), MP for Boston and Skegness and Shadow Minister for Health will be chairing Day 2 of the conference.  Mark is leading on the Conservative’s Coastal Manifesto.

Conference Purpose

SeaScape is part of ‘Cityscape’, a series of conferences within the Black/North SEAS festival. The festival has travelled through Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden and Norway before arriving in Skegness, on England’s North Sea coast.

SeaScape provides an international platform for reflection and discussion embracing politicians, residents, artists and cultural entrepreneurs exploring common themes of climate-change, regeneration and demographic challenge that bind these coastal communities.

The conference will be a dynamic and inspiring interchange of ideas and experiences, connecting UK activity to international exemplars and supporting European networking and community action.

Attendees

Senior decision makers, planners and regeneration officers in coastal local authorities from the UK and internationally; RDA and other staff responsible for Coastal Action; Senior cultural officers, academics, planning consultants and other influential professionals; Local Strategic Partnership representatives; artists engaged in regeneration projects.

Costs

£80 + VAT + Booking Fee – conference, including lunch and refreshments (Does not include accommodation).

Book Now

“…fashion…this semblance of the new is reflected, like one mirror in another, in the semblance of the ever recurrent. The product of this reflection is the phantasmagoria of “cultural history” in which the bourgeoisie enjoys its false consciousness to the full.” (Benjamin 2002: 11)

The arcades/promenades blog is a representation of our attempt to grapple with the meanings and practices of the seaside promenade through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s ‘Arcades Project’

Researching Coastal and Resort Destination Management: Cultures and Histories of Tourism

19^th – 20^th October 2009

Girona, Catalonia, Spain

2009 marks the hundredth anniversary of the formal designation of the Costa Brava, a title and destination region that has become synonomous with the emergence and growth of ‘mass’ tourism over the past century. The region today faces many challenges including maintaining tourist markets against competing destinations alongside environmental concerns.

This conference is therefore extremely timely in its aim of bringing together researchers who share interests in coastal and resort destination policy, planning and management in relation to culture(s) and histories of tourism.

These research areas are also clearly relevant to professionals and policy makers in destination management and the conference will provide a unique opportunity for researchers to share leading edge ideas, innovations and critical thinking with the professional destination manager participants at the European Union of Tourist Officers (EUTO) Study Visit to Catalunya which coincides with the conference. There will also be opportunities for delegates to participate in parts of the EUTO programme.

Conference Themes

The conference welcomes proposals for papers that address the development of tourism in coastal regions and resorts. Proposals might, for example address:

Creative uses of cultural, historical and heritage resources for tourism in coastal settings

Cultural events and festivals as animators of coastal resorts

Transnational approaches to and conceptions of destination policy and planning in coastal contexts

Community participation in coastal resort development

Building sustainable partnerships and stakeholder relationships between tourism, culture and heritage in coastal destinations

Competitive (dis)advantage, new tourist markets and coastal destinations

New and emerging technologies in coastal destination representation and marketing

Coastal destination image and branding

The conference organisers also welcome proposals for papers that address theoretical and applied issues and themes relating to destination management in the coastal contexts of Catalonia and the Costa Brava in particular

If you wish to submit a paper proposal, please send a 300-word abstract with full address and institutional affiliation details as an electronic file to Dr. Philip Long p.e.long@leedsmet.ac.uk

The deadline for the reception of abstracts is 31st of July 2009.

Please find regularly updated information regarding this conference, registration procedures and (at a later stage) a full programme at

http://www.udg.edu/jornades/EUTO2009/tabid/12969/Default.aspx

or email to euto2009@udg.edu