Capital of Culture (just for Lucy_Parsons)

I went through Lille a few times when it was capital of culture and they did a fair bit, but the French are much better at that sort of stuff so it doesn't mean much.

There were a couple pretty good events so finges crossed...

when a city is the capital of culture doesnt that basically mean that loads of money is ploughed into tourist attractions when it could be used to alleviate the poverty that people exist in, will liverpool housing estates be given a complete face lift and working class people be given better houses to live in, or does it just mean regeneration for the city centre cos few tourists venture out to the council slums that always surround large cities.

its all so wrong isnt it, think of all that european money being ploughed into the places where it should be, instead of being used to make rich men richer why not use it to make the poor have a decent standard of living, but that idea is in cloud cuckoo land isnt it. I think they should take their capital of culture and shove it up their well stretched multi national arsehole.

All that really happened in that city of culture year was that licensing hours were relaxed for the duration so that any hoped for visiting Europeans wouldn’t think we were philistines afraid of the night. That meant all Glasgow pubs got to open until 2am and clubs until 5am. Culture maaaannnn!

Also, some council money squandered on stuff like operas and art exhibitions.

But the big plan – which was to yuppify whole swathes of Glasgow – went nowhere when house prices collapsed in the Major/Lamont recession of the early 90s. With houses being repossessed all over England, no one was going to buy, or develop, in Glasgow. The Saltmarket/Calton (given new made up name of “Merchant City”) redevelopment died half way through, so that to the present day, horrified yuppies rub shoulders with the junkies and winos they had been promised would be cleared out in 1990.

The huge Glasgow Garden Festival site – former docklands and shipyards – lay derelict until now when the yuppie flats that were meant for it from the start have finally found a developer to build. Planning blight was preferable to construction of social housing or industrial units for all that time.

Much of the current Glasgow clearance and gentrification project being talked about elsewhere in the forums was stuff that was meant to happen then, and has been kept in the freezer until now when house prices have at last gone crazy again. Like the last time though, there is no guarantee that the political schemers won’t have missed the bus – there are only so many £300k flats you can sell in a city like Glasgow – and find themselves caught in the next housing bubble burst.

Workers’ City group was formed oppose the whole thing from 1988. Got huge amounts of positive great press publicity in doing so – 16 years on academics are still wanking off about it:

Not bad for a group whose acts of resistance included drinking in the Scotia Bar. Their book gets a mention in the appendix of Unfinished Business. “Workers City: The Real Glasgow Stands Up”, “The Reckoning: Beyond the Culture City Rip Off”. Farquhar Maclay – Clydeside Press. Second hand copies for sale for a fiver at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/detail/offer-listing/-/0951205722/all/026-7602464-0930869 Or chunks of it are online at http://www.citystrolls.com/people/sections/index.htm

So, absolute uncompromising opposition on the basis of working class culture seemed to work well in Glasgow in 1988/90. I remember everyone in the end felt obliged to claim they believed the whole city of culture thing was a rip off and a betrayal, even/especially those involved in getting grants from it.

Could be parallels with Liverpool.

Ooops, only just saw this thread, shows how often I browse Organise Cheers for the info ticking_fool. This all sounds a lot like when they tried to create a "Cultural Quarter" in my home town (Stoke) which, surprise surprise, was a complete farce. Three senior council officers got suspended as the project overspent by £15m. You can see where the money went, I got this quote from a news story on bbc.co.uk:

It was intended as "regeneration" for what has always been an industrial town, but ended in massive financial losses for virtually everyone concerned. The words "piss up" and "brewery" spring to mind.