Popular culture and urban regeneration: Manchester’s Northern Quarter Dr Katie Milestone, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK The Northern Quarter • ‘Creative’ district in central Manchester, UK • Bohemian, quirky, non- corporate, hip (?) • Hub for fledgling creative industries and pop culture Location Manchester, UK 500,000 (2.5 million) Cottonopolis, Shock city, History • 19th and 20th C (up to 1960s) - thriving commercial and retail area • Close to (slum) accommodation – Ancoats • Animated 24 hours due to market Ancoats Decline Rebirth Post-war Britain and the rise of the working class • Explosion of popular culture • Rise of consumer society • Dynamic new forms of cultural production • Established cultural hierarchies dismantled • Rise of working class access to Higher Education = w/c involved in cultural production • Cultural producers (writers, film makers, musicians and artists) from working class backgrounds • Changing demographic of cultural producers • Increased representation of working class culture – especially of the north Late 1970s - 1980s The 1980s saw the success of “From 1976 onwards alternative or resistant spaces emerged in Manchester music impact on which punk and post punk the physical and symbolic were to play a crucial role. transformation of the city… The habitus of pop bohemians became imposed on spaces of the city centre and abandoned Punk had shown the sites became captured and possibilities for independent reinterpreted. The pop scene had a physical and symbolic action in the provinces… impact on the environment yet, at the same time, it was In 1982, the Hacienda marks a inspired and impressed upon by the landscape, architecture transition from the old city to and mood of the city” Milestone,K 1996: 104 in Wynne and O’Connor (eds) From the new city – the city of the Margins to the Centre:Production and industrial production to the Consumption in the PostIndustrial City, Ashgate city of the consumption of the industrial. Late 1980s success… • ‘Madchester’ The ‘Madchester’ scene ..and the base for UK acid house Northern Quarter becomes a hub for pop cultural entrepreneurialism abundance of cheap, central city centre space available for new uses. Enterprise Allowance Scheme in 1983 • bottom up • Local government – delayed reaction • industrial heritage - valued and reused • Networking, working, living and leisure spaces • Business and technology support for creative businesses Manchester: context • De-industrial –search for new employment possibilities • ‘Northern’, working class city • Importance of post-punk music in re-imaging Manchester (Madchester) • Music culture/Enterprise Allowance new micro businesses and SMEs • Ex industrial spaces – cheap rents • Clustering of creative businesses UK Cultural Policy 1990s • Away from state subsidized provision of ‘the high arts’… • to a focus on enterprise and economic value of the culture…. • Led by the DCMS – (Department of Culture, Media and Sport) • importance of ‘culture, media and sport to Manchester’s economy ; these occupations are the fastest growing in Manchester and increased from 3,300 to 7,000 between 2009 and 2010.’ (Source: Manchester economic factsheet, February 2012). Evaluation : factors of successes 2011 The Northern Quarter is named ‘Britain’s best neighbourhood’ by the Academy of Urbanism http://www.academyofurbanism.org .uk/northern-quarter/ Evaluation : lessons-learnt .