A lasting legacy?
It is surely questionable to think that designating a city as European capital of Culture for one year will create a renaissance which will be of lasting benefit. Not least there is the knowledge that true capitals of culture are sometimes centuries in the making.
Liverpool, this year's dual European Capital of Culture, along with Stavanger in Norway, hands the baton to Linz, Austria and Vilnius, Lithuania, on Saturday, and while there has been much about that will be deemed a success, there is a central truth about using culture to re-generate deprived areas: whatever political parties think, culture isn't a tangible thing that can be imported into a place and it's a risky enterprise to think that it works that way.
The statistics for Liverpool are impressive: 7,000 events took place, involving 10,000 artists and 60 premieres. A defining and memorable highlight was the appearance of a 50 foot mechanical spider weaving its way through the city, causing chaos and intrigue, and involving the interest of many thousands of people.
The appearance also of some of the city's most famous sons: Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Sir Simon Rattle, made its mark and nearly 70,000 school children were involved in a Liverpool 08 project, which was no doubt deemed a gauge of success.
But, in the end, cultural re-generation is about the economy and flashy, irregular cultural events can't sustain the way a city needs to develop if it is to flourish in the long term. Don't get me wrong, cities need culture, but it has to evolve and build on the existing character of a place, not land like an alien and hope to engage with the locals: in West Bromwich is only the of that.
A year on, Liverpool can look back on big successes, but there will be many people in Liverpool who will not figure in the statistics, who have not been touched by Liverpool 08, who live in swathes of the city ignored by the capital of culture. They are the ones the Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has to think about as he embarks on creating Liverpool as a template for setting up a competition to find a UK city of culture every two years or so.
I'm 
Comment number 1.
At 10th Jan 2009, Geoffrey_Crayon wrote:Hi Razia
Yes I hope that as the hype from headline figures dies down that for its own sake there can be more honesty about what cultural regeneration can be expected to achieve.
Since some buffoon put the phrase '14,000 new jobs' into circulation in Liverpool it's given some locals the perfect right to be scornful and all the more difficult to make the case for culture.
I'll happily make the case for culture but the way regeneration policies, often of very different kinds, come bundled in a 'for us or against us' package.
That said, the new proposal looks good and I'm sure that there'll be enough competition to rule out local authorities who think they can become cultural overnight.
I think Andy Burnham has said that cultural regeneration isn't a distraction. I'd be happier if he said it can be but shouldn't.
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Comment number 2.
At 10th Jan 2009, Geoffrey_Crayon wrote:ahem
"I'll happily make the case for culture but the way regeneration policies, often of very different kinds, come bundled in a 'for us or against us' package*."
* doesn't help.
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Comment number 3.
At 11th Jan 2009, markyg_ wrote:Most people that want culture can afford to go and get it.
As you point out most people who strive for regeneration of their life want economic regeneration first.
The 'City of Culture' is widely viewed by most people as a waste of time and money. With the benefit of hindsight the money should have been better spent on positively moving forards the 'lot' of Liverpudlians not the 'lot' of some middle class suburban/urban elite.
Why are we spending money on cultrue (which most people wrongly think is just TV and cinema anyway) when there are families in Liverpool not well enough educated to put a proper diet in front of their kids every day.
The political elite lost their way years ago.
So come on the inteligencia (ie those who can spell that word correctly), tell me the exact cost of that spider and the exact benefits gained from it by the people of Liverpool. I said EXACT.
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Comment number 4.
At 12th Jan 2009, dennisjunior1 wrote:Razia:
Congrats to the People of Liverpool for being
an gracious host of the Cultural Capital of 2008...
~Dennis Junior~
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Comment number 5.
At 12th Jan 2009, dennisjunior1 wrote:Razia:
Congrats and Good Luck to the dual capitals of Culture for the year of 2009.....
Linz, Austria and Vilnius, Lithuania,
~Dennis Junior~
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Comment number 6.
At 18th Jan 2009, tediouslybrief wrote:cultural administrators - and cultural events - inevitably look at what was happening thirty or more years ago: the spider may or may not be something people will remember five years from now, but the beatles and simon rattle reflect what liverpool meant in the 1970s (or earlier).
the people likely to have been least touched by liverpool's capital of culture moment will be those who were too busy making living art to bother themselves with objets which have already aquired a patina and become tradable.
this isn't to say that liverpools highbrow junket was a bad thing - just that if it had happened when the beatles were still playing in hamburg - they wouldn't have attended.
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Comment number 7.
At 19th Jan 2009, Doctuer_Eiffel wrote:The regeneration will only come from the grass roots economy and grass roots artists. Artists now become sidelined by the arts bureaucrats, a new breed of go-betweens, without any talent except for filling in forms and applications to government organised charity. These capitol of culture events are doomed from the start. Much better to let art find its own way without any "help" from bureaucrats.
Methinks the reason why artists without the ability to draw hands are picked for such handouts is because the bureaucrats cant draw hands either.
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