Leadership Conference Supported by Architecture + Design Scotland and the Academy of Urbanism
2: ‘Big idea’ regeneration and leadership
Learning from the City Gardens Project: ‘Big idea’ regeneration and leadership what do you need to make it work? “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.” This phrase was uttered in the early 20th century by a giant of urban planning, Daniel Burnham. Burnham worked on the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It was delivered despite political, financial and logistical upheavals. Burnham was a leader of big ideas done to achieve big things. Without his drive, it is unlikely that the Exposition would have happened, nor would the first comprehensive plan for Chicago have been developed. The Chicago plan started a line of thinking around the ‘City Beautiful’. On the basis of Burnham’s success, both big ideas and the idea of beauty took root as the necessary conditions for big economic success. In time, this developed into the idea of the ‘Competitive City’, the current line of thinking about how cities mobilise as engines of economic growth. One aspect of the ‘competitive city’ debate concerns the quality of place. This is often represented in the quality of public space and the cultural offer of a city. It is sometimes represented in iconic architecture, and big ideas. It is an assumed necessity to have big idea projects to participate in the global economy: without these symbols of competitiveness, it is hard to argue that you are a competitive place. To achieve the icon, you need vision, you need leaders and you need processes to align to make things happen. This is the big plan. This is the magic Burnham spoke of. However, desire in itself is not enough. Big ideas, to work, have a series of necessary conditions, both to get the idea built, and top operate it. Inside all of this sits the brief: what is this idea for, who is it for, and how will it make a difference to the lives, society and economy of a place? Big ambitions, big plans The Birmingham Big City Plan is one of the most ambitious city wide planning exercises in the UK. The aim is to enable Birmingham to be one of the top 20 liveable cities in the world in the next twenty years. Currently ranked 55 in the world by the Mercer index, the city has a lot of work to do to achieve its aim. The Top 10 is dominated by German and Swiss cities who have occupied these positions for some time. A series of global and local programme and project challenges are identified in the ‘Big City Plan’ to get Birmingham to where it wants to be. Success will be based on open-ness, building on the city’s diverse communities, and economic growth. The plan aims to be ‘both and’, both competitive and inclusive. The ‘both and’ nature of the thinking is important. Professor Michael Parkinson, in presenting work on competitiveness and social cohesion notes that ’the key social face of cities and regions is the emergence of social exclusion which is growing in rich as well as poor areas, in growing as well as declining areas. The growth in social exclusion is intimately connected to, and partly caused by, the search for economic competitiveness. But at the same time the growth in social exclusion is limiting the economic competitiveness of our cities and regions’. The key issue here is that big ideas, such as say growth at any cost, which are too narrow in their focus can lead to unintended effects. This is important in that the overall impression of the city is more complex issue than the appearance of the physical space alone.
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If part of the rationale for capital investment is to make cities more attractive places for other people to locate in, then it requires a robust consideration of the motivations of people to locate in a place. Motivation to locate in a place can include factors such as the reputation of a place, how it is presented in the media; it can include factors such as the opportunities, social, economic and cultural for talented labour and their extended network of friends, and family, which may include civic opportunities as much as consumption; it includes the values a place holds, particularly with regard to difference ie tolerance of people with different faiths, sexual orientation, ethnicities; and it includes factors such as the way in which the assets of a place are managed [Place Race, 20??]. In short, it relates to how open a place is, socially, culturally, environmentally and economically. Bigness and open-ness?: attracting people and investment to places The OPENCities initiative, funded by the UrbanAct programme of the EU, took a deeper look at the issue of open-ness in cities, to enable policymakers, managers and investors to be more informed about what it is and the conditions that make it successful. It groups 54 indicators of city open ness into 11 categories. It addresses many policy areas. The overall implication is the need to integrated policies and actions which relate to both people and place. In terms of the OPENCities categories, it is interesting to look in a little more detail at three in particular: infrastructure, quality of living, standard of living. The infrastructure category contains the following indicators: • Hotspots: the total number of internet hotspots within the city centre and a 10 mile radius • Telephone: this relates to a weighting in the Mercer index relating to the ease of telephone connection internationally • Internet users • Global accessibility: this again relates to a Mercer index issue on airports, looking at the range of destinations served, the functionality of the airport as a hub, and the integration of the airport with the city Quality of living is broken down into: • Quality of living as defined by the Mercer index • Total unemployment rate • Difference unemployment rate, this being the difference in unemployment between natives and incomer citizens • Crime • Hospital services • Perception: trust of another religion • Perception: trust of a foreign national Standard of living is broken down into: • GDP per capita • GDP change ie annual growth rate • Cost of living • Flat rents • Taxation What is noticeable about these categories and indicators is what they expect from city spaces: opportunities for living and working come out strongly in terms of the practical nature of the indicators. Physical space is not explicitly highlighted. Rather, the indicators focus on what the city
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spaces enable - the outcomes. However, outcomes need actions, and actions need to be defined. In many cities, an action to achieve the kind of place that people would like to locate in relates to boosting the city’s cultural and public space infrastructure. This, for many places, becomes a big city idea. The belief is in physical change as a vehicle for city transformation, enabling both growth and cohesion. The Millennium projects programme in the UK is one example of this set of big ideas taking the form of a national ambition. What is necessary to make big ideas work? The purpose of the Millennium projects was to both celebrate the millennium itself, and put in place a set of cultural landmarks that would act as a stimulus for various parts of the economic geography of the UK. Over 28 landmark projects were supported with capital funding. By spring 2000, over 10 of the projects were running behind schedule, and 1 had been cancelled. Between 2000, and 2011, the programming of a number of the facilities ran into significant challenges to sustain them as attractive, viable venues, including the National Botanic Gardens of Wales which was at one time threatened with closure. Three projects failed and closed, including the Earth Centre in Doncaster. In each case, there was a high element of cultural content in the projects, and an aspiration that the projects, located in economic areas in need of regeneration, would lead to some transformational change. A factor in the closures was the failure of the projects, in their content, management and sustained funding to provide a sufficiently attractive offer to patrons on an ongoing basis. Another factor was the failure to generate any meaningful multiplier effect at local level. The desire for change didn’t meet with actual change. What makes these big ideas work? Vision and leadership, across a range of activities and actors are key. Central to this is informed decision making. A cultural flagship’s relative success or failure depends on effective visioning from the outset. Such projects need cultural leaders with confidence and authority in order to reach the correct decisions about priorities, content and programming. (Landry, 2002, p265). Research shows that issues to determine at this stage include: who the target audience will be, where is the best location for the project, to what extent the product relates to the area and an understanding of what role the facility plays in the regeneration of the wider area (Strange, 2006, p24). This positions the idea of the vision in terms of both audience and physical intervention. It also positions the idea of vision, as an idea that is led, in terms of its narrative and resonance with local and external audiences. In this context, for flagship projects to succeed in attracting the necessary local and regional audiences to sustain their existence, the facilities need to either have some unique draw and/or content with a meaningful resonance to the place. The success of the project is likely to hinge on how well it engages with the people who belong to the place it represents, to what extent it provides residents with a sense of pride, and how well it connects to the past and present contexts of the place it is situated in. (Miles, 2005, p913, p924) (Landry, 2002, p265) (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p25) (Strange, 2006, p25) (Woodward, 2005, p23). However, where a facility is charged with multiple roles, or where there is ambiguity about its aims (as a physical/cultural/social/ economic catalyst) problems can occur (Strange, 1999, p19) (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p25) At the heart of this argument is the issue of participation. Facilities and big projects require multiple levels of participation by a range of groups. They require active patronage to sustain the financial cost of running the physical facility and its programme. They require active participation in the ‘narrative’ of the project by political communities, and the community at large. The long term sustainability of the project is not just an issue of physical care and management. It is an issue of long term stewardship of ideas, of demonstrable effects on the local area in cultural and other terms, of agility in the responsiveness to changing conditions. In this context, the success of cultural projects requires not just leadership to get the project built, but require both an infrastructure to sustain the idea over time and stewardship of communities to maintain support and good will.
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These different aspects of a cultural city project shape thinking about the nature of leadership to sustain an ‘open city’, to sustain big city ideas. Public sector decision making as leadership In the process of delivering on big idea projects, planning authorities have a role that requires them to mediate diverse political, social and economic agendas with cultural considerations into creative place-specific solutions (Pugalis, 2009, p283). This creates a number of leadership requirements at a number of levels. This might be unpacked in terms of the concepts of ‘bonding’, ‘bridging’ and ‘linking’. These terms, most usually expressed to describe ‘social capital’ express how ideas are led across groups. Bonding refers to the process of leading an idea within a small group of shared values and world views. Bridging refers to the process of connecting with other groups in a similar community context with different views. Linking refers to the process of mainstreaming the ideas across all communities, internal and external. At the level of the professional community of planners, leadership requires well informed decision making, strength in negotiating across themes and silos of thinking and strength in making of decisions. These aspects of leadership are important to communicate intent to stakeholders and lead the workforce. A key bridge is the interface between the professional planning community and the political community, where a shared understanding of concepts of place and issues for its improvement are collectively championed. The regular elections faced by a planning authority’s political leaders can present them with a barrier to developing genuine long-term visionary thinking (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p18). Responsibility can therefore fall to planning authorities to reflect on the difficult questions regarding the long term implications of development. In ideal circumstances, a planning authority will exercise a leadership role to; provide a development framework, based on an accessible strategic design vision with public backing, and translate that vision into a deliverable strategy, with design quality secured through supporting policies (Punter, 2011, p34). Planning has a vital role in assessing / determining necessary conditions for successful public space. Factors influencing successful development include: stakeholder and community support, spatial integration with other plans and strategies and building on what the place has, rather than borrowing ideas from other successful projects (Pugalis, 2009, p283). An analysis of public space case studies highlights the importance of the following physical conditions: a desirable human scale and sense of enclosure, a strong sense of place, and the need for regular activity. There is a danger that space reserved for occasional use can feel unwelcoming and socially barren when not in use. (Pugalis, 2009, p280). Successful public spaces are, as Jan Gehl described, ‘people places’. For him, a good space is like a good party. It works because people choose to participate, to engage. This is enabled by spaces which provide the permission to engage, enabling people to make and re-make the meaning of the place over and over. It does not rely on formal programming, nor on strict management. People places can be messy concepts. Risk and the role of the public sector While it needs to be appreciated that “if you are going to have a vision you must exercise risk” (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p18), it is important to recognise that the failure of flagship cultural schemes can often be attributed to visions that were unrealistic in their scope or ambition (Lupton, 2004, p19) (Ryder, 2010, p52) (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p23,25). The challenge for local and national government is to become more bold about taking measured risks, with the acceptance that some failure will occur, in the pursuit of successful initiatives (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p18, 25). The exercising of measured risk taking is so important since where flagship cultural projects have failed, the results can be severely damaging for leaders in question, for the public purse, for local
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jobs, and for an area’s image. There is the danger that such failure can lead to a loss of economic confidence and investment in the region (Strange, 1999, p19). As a pertinent example of project failure, several important lessons can be drawn from Liverpool’s ‘Cloud’ project, where a landmark Will Alsop building was chosen through a design competition as a flagship regeneration project for Liverpool’s waterfront. Critically, the project was selected prior to an assessment of what was actually needed to enhance Liverpool’s visitor and tourist offer. Other issues contributing to failure here included: a disregard for public opinion, which favoured alternative solutions, and an ill defined concept of what the end use would be for the building. Project costs spiralled as plans evolved and public funding for the proposal was eventually withdrawn before work was initiated (Lupton, 2004, p18). Research suggests that there is also risk in the assumption that cultural vitality will lead to or drive economic competition. Projects such as Chicago’s Millennium Park, while in a different context, show that regeneration can attract more people to a place, to good economic effect. However, there could be issues attached to developing a space that is envisioned as being of cultural, social and economic benefit. Research suggests that physical interventions are not enough in themselves. “Hard improvements to the physical fabric of public spaces need to be accompanied by ‘softer’ activities to support the cultural life of spaces”(Pugalis, 2009, p282). “Because the cultural projects do not actually generate new arts and commercial activity in themselves, the catalytic power of a flagship cultural project depends on both the presence of compatible activities interested in relocating adjacent to a museum and an adequate space to house them” (Grodach, 2008, p209). Other research suggests a focus on network formation and the ability to attract and support the enterprise and industry of individual artists could be a far more powerful way to drive economic regeneration than flagship physical cultural infrastructure (Markusen, 2004, 2006). Informed decision making therefore has a vital role to play in determining how to proceed with flagship regeneration projects. Research into experiences on flagship projects around the subject of risk suggest that there are a multitude of factors to consider including: • Risks are high where project visions are unrealistic in their scope or ambition; • Where the success of a project relies upon regular and sustained patronage risk is increased; • Risk of failure is higher where there is an absence of local support; • Risk is high if projects are initiated simply because funding is available, rather than evolving from a recognised need or drive; • Risk is high where there is an ill defined concept of what the end use will be; • Risks are high where there are issues surrounding the commercial viability of a project; • Risks are high where assumptions are made that provision of culture-led flagships will in themselves generate economic returns. (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p25) (Lupton, 2004, p18) (Markusen, 2004, 2006)(Pugalis, 2009, p282) (Strange, 2006, p25) (Woodward, 2005, p23)
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Whole life value: what is the legacy of the investment? The final challenge for any flagship project, given it has succeeded in being delivered by means of a successful vision, strong leadership and intelligent risk taking, will be its legacy. What are the important factors in building a successful legacy for the project? The Scottish Government’s recent publication ‘Delivering better Places’ highlighted the important role that stewardship plays in the delivery of better places, based on analysis of flagship regeneration schemes from around Europe. Difficult decisions about stewardship will play a part of securing a successful legacy for the City Gardens Project. Liverpool’s Liverpool One Masterplan project shows what is possible where a big vision, bold decision making, and belief and drive at a leadership level have seen a successful flagship project realised (Alexander, 2009, p65). The project was only made possible through significant private sector investment. The Council made the assessment that the only feasible solution to the long term upkeep and maintenance of the project would be to hand responsibility to the project developer, Grosvenor, by way of a 250 year lease for the site. However, this has resulted in criticisms from some quarters about the erosion of public ownership of public space. Lessons from millennium projects show a number of other comparable schemes faced failure early on due to problems with the initial stewardship role. Failures experienced with stewardship of the millennium projects have been attributed to the following (Loney & Carpenter, 2004, p25) (Strange, 1999, p20): • • • • • •
Project charged with fulfilling multiple roles Scale of development incompatible with operation A failure to match iconic design with useful content Inappropriate commissioning for ‘vanity’ reasons Over-ambitious visitor estimates Failure to engage the private sector
In 1992 DEGW identified three main values of buildings: use value (mainly custom designed buildings with greater accent in functionality), exchange value (speculative buildings with greater accent in flexibility of space) and symbolic value (importance is given to the image, sometimes in detriment of the function of the building). In 2006 Sebastian Macmillan following Ken Worpole’s work The Value of Good Design (2000), extended this classification to include environmental value, social and cultural value among other variables. These concepts of value are important to understand, both in a public space and built space context in terms of the function of the building, but also in terms of the contribution of the built project to the wider area. In considering the issue of value in public sector terms, and specifically, the value of any public investment over the wider area, Rob de Wildt of Rigo consultants identifies four ways of looking at the issue that are helpful to consider the legacy value of an investment in place. De Wildt’s discussion on value considers: • Direct: Quality of houses, quality of neighbourhood, accessibility, transport, public space, shops, education and jobs; • Indirect: Health, safety, density, image and the perception of the social environment; • External: Air quality, neighbourhood effects and noise; • Distributional: Income, employment, ripple-effect. Unlocking value is an important task of leaders and managers. In reviewing the cultural industries developed in the UK in the last 20 years in Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle/Gateshead and Glasgow, Professor Ann Markusen, Fulbright Professor with the Glasgow School of Art looked at the way in which value was created through spatial and non spatial investment. Her studies, still in development, looked at the performance of both cultural industries [firms] and cultural districts
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[areas] within the city. Her initial appraisal suggests that the definition of area specific concepts like ‘creative districts’, or ‘cultural hubs’ or zones, can have a series of negative effects. One relates to definition and differentiation. To describe one part of the city as ‘cultural’ or ‘creative’ is to suggest other areas of the city are not, and that the activities in the cultural district represent some higher value of use. Her evidence suggests that this is rarely the case, as a mix of things are necessary to make these places work. In addition, the economy of these places needs a variety of consumers, people who are willing to participate in the narrative of the place and its offer. Success therefore requires ‘open-ness’ over some idealise idea of what kind of specific consumer an area needs. A key concern is about definition. For Markusen, neither ‘culture’ nor ‘creativity’ are exclusive terms; for her, creativity is about the full human capital potential of a place to tackle problems in innovative ways. Her research looks at this idea in terms of physical investment and investment in human capital in the UK Cities. Her interim results are interesting. Sheffield has invested a lot in physical capital, in the quality of buildings and spaces. The impression though is of a creative industries sector that is vulnerable. In Manchester, much greater emphasis was placed on investing in people networks, building markets, connecting people to investors, skills, other communities of interest. There seemed to be less investment in physical space and more permission to appropriate space, and adapt it. The evidence seems to suggest that this strategy resulted in a more vibrant and resilient creative industries sector, one which has had a significant set of impacts on the city and its neighbourhood in direct, indirect, external and distributive terms. The value of any investment can be seen in terms of performance against any aspect of this value chain, but more completely in terms of performance against all the measures. It also allows a means of discussing trade offs: where a place needs the impact of the investment, but can only realise value in particular areas, the possibility of subsidy or support can be discussed in terms of the predicted actual effects in the other value areas. The key here is that both the initial project development, and its legacy must deliver value[s] to a place, and that a clear understanding of these values must inform all levels of decision making, particularly leadership decision making at the front end of shaping risk. Leadership and big ideas It is clear that leadership, across political, professional and community/stakeholder levels is necessary to conceptualise and deliver any idea for any city. The confidence about the value and impact of any big idea decision within each of these groups is important, as is the bridging of this confidence between groups. This view of the nature of big ideas is important in leadership terms, as it necessarily challenges a ‘big idea big leadership’ hierarchical view. If success is about enabling maximum participation in an idea, then working with the grain of a place, and its complex communities seems to be a necessary factor over ideas which get superimposed on the basis of ‘hope value’. Delivering big ideas, from concept to implementation though necessarily requires a constant movement of discussion between leadership and management. In this context, Gyford says that if politics are moving towards an emphasis upon difference and identity rather than function the ‘local government, through its regulatory and intervening functions in planning, economic development and in environmental health may find the management of place becoming an increasingly significant function, particularly if it is simultaneously seeing its role as service provider reduced to that of enabler. However, the efficiency of management alone is not sufficient. Gibney et al note that modern leadership in a place context may be about concern ‘with identified and agreed performance gaps, addressed through selection and retention of the right individuals and/or building the skills considered necessary to meet specified economic imperatives. This is an idea of leadership which ‘focuses on that which is accomplished rather than that what which leaders are, skills based approaches consider leadership to be open to those willing to learn, and build partnership building across thematic, organisational, local and professional bodies. This is a collaborative form of leadership, one that mirrors both the complexity of organisations, and the complexity of embedding sustainable ideas into the city fabric, social and physical.
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References Academy of Urbanism 10x10x10 series, Reading Provocation: http://www.academyofurbanism.org.uk/projects/10x/provocation_reading.pdf Adams, David, Tiesdell, Steve, Weeks, George. Delivering Better Places, A+DS, RICS, Scottish Government, 2010 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/336587/0110158.pdf Alexander, Ian. Liverpool one, millennium project nil (Chavasse Park), New Start, No 470 Sep 2009, pp64-65 Birmingham Big City Plan, http://bigcityplan.birmingham.gov.uk/ Burnham, Daniel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Burnham Chisolm, Sharon [ed]. ‘Investing in Better Places: International Perspectives’ , The Smith Institute, 2010. http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/file/Investing%20in%20Better%20Places.pdf Collinge, Colin and Gibney, John. Connecting place, policy and leadership, Policy Studies, Vol 31, Number 4, July 2010, pp 379-392 Grodach, Carl. Museums as urban catalysts: the role of urban design in flagship cultural development, Journal of Urban Design, Vol 13 No 2 Jun 2008, pp195-212 Harfield, Rebecca. Millennial angst on landmark projects, Planning, 21 Jan 2000, pp18-20 Landry, Charles. (2002) Urban Showmanship and deeper regeneration. Town and Country Planning, Vol 71 No 10 Oct 2002, pp263-265 Loney, Nick and Carpenter, Jamie. Risks in regeneration, Regeneration and Renewal, 30 Jul 2004, pp18-21,23,25 Lupton, Mark. The cloud bursts (Cloud building in Liverpool), IN Regeneration and Renewal, 20 Aug 2004, pp18-19 Markusen, Anne (2004) Targeting occupations in regional and community economic development, Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol 70 No 3 Summer 2004, pp253-268 Markusen, Ann (2006) The artistic dividend: urban artistic specialisation and economic development implications, Urban Studies, Vol 43 No 10 Sep 2006, pp1661-1686 Miles, Steven. ‘Our Tyne’: iconic regeneration and the revitalisation of identity in NewcastleGateshead, Urban Studies, Vol 42 No 5/6 May 2005, pp913-926 OpenCITIES, http://opencities.britishcouncil.org/web/index.php?home_en Pugalis, Lee. Cultural and economic vitality - the role of place quality, IN Town and Country Planning, Vol 78 No 6 Jun 2009, pp279-284 Punter, John.(2011) Urban Design and the English Urban Renaissance 1999-2009: A review and preliminary evaluation, Journal of Urban Design, Vol 16, No 1, February 2011, pp 1-41
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Ryder, Brett. 10 years of good luck (millennium building projects), Building, No 25 25 Jun 2010, pp49-52 Strange, Ian (1999) Regeneration through culture: problems and prospects, Regional Review, Vol 9 No 3 Dec 1999, pp19-20 Strange, Ian (2006) The ups and downs of developing regional cultural attractions, Yorkshire and Humber Regional Review, Vol 16 No 3 Autumn 2006, pp24-25 Uhlir, Edward. The millennium park effect: creating a cultural venue with an economic impact, IN Economic Development Journal, Vol 4 No 2 2005, pp7-11 Woodward, Ian. Making white elephants extinct (landmark projects), Regeneration and Renewal, 4 Mar 2005, p23 Holyrood Magazine, Building on energy (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future), Holyrood Magazine, 13 Dec 2010, pp20-21
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