The costs of putting Valencia on the map: the hidden side of regional entrepreneurialism, ‘creative city’ and strategic projects

ABSTRACT

Strategic projects based on culture and sports have been one of the vectors of regional development since the 1990s. Accordingly, local and regional governments have drawn up entrepreneurial strategies to project their image internationally and foster investment and tourism. These developments have been described in Spain as ‘The Calatrava Model’ for putting a city/region on the map and for boosting tourism. However, from the study of the case of Valencia and four strategic projects (The Fifth World Meeting of Families, The America's Cup, Formula 1 and The City of Arts and Sciences), we will show how there is a hidden side to this paradigm, which boils down to an unsustainable, top-down system whose sole purpose is to gain and maintain political hegemony. We will also assess the medium and long term impacts of these projects in terms of: opportunity costs, snowballing debt, corruption, and an utter breakdown of democratic controls as a result of Valencia’s poor regional governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurial regionalism
• creative city
• urban planning
• regional governance
• white elephants
• corruption

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0582-2786

Notes

1. Between January and July of 2017 we interviewed Albert Girona (Regional Secretary of Culture of the Generalitat Valenciana), Maribel Domenech (Professor of the Technical University of Valencia and expert in the Visual Arts), Antonio Bravo (Deputy Director of Cultural Heritage and Museums of the Generalitat Valenciana), Maria Oliver (Cultural Action manager in charge of the Local Council), Vicent Flor (IAM — Diputación de València), Miguel G. Cortés (Valencian Institute of Modern Art), Núria Enguita (artistic foundation Per amor a l'art), Toni Gisbert (cultural association Acció Cultural del País Valencià). The interviews were analyzed using qualitative analysis of content and incorporated iin the paper.

2. We have chosen these cases because they are the most relevant examples of entrepreneurial regionalism projects, focusing on the ‘creative city’ model. We are aware that other cases could have been included, such as the Terra Mitica theme parks or the Ciudad de la Luz (City of Light, film studios) in Alicante. We are aware that it is worth delving deeper into the birth, development, and medium and long-term impacts of the chosen cases.

3. The Valencian Company for Thematic Projects (Sociedad de Proyectos Temáticos de la Comunitat Valenciana) (SPTCV) was slated by the regional audit agency (Síndic de Comptes) for its murky management and for racking up debts of €112 million in the period up to 2015 (Sindicatura de Comptes, 2016).

4. From the General Elections of 1993 to the European elections of 2014, the nationalist, right-wing ruling party (PP) won over 40% of the votes and in the second half of the strategic 2000s (when projects grew like Topsy) it captured over 50% of the vote (in the Valencia Regional Elections of 2007, the PP obtained a whopping 53.3% of the votes cast, and in the Regional Elections of 2011, 50.7%).

5. An acquisition that was initially concealed and only came to light after investigation by the Valencia’s Podem parliamentary group (left-wing party). The transaction has since been denounced as epitomizing the squandering of public funds during the project feeding frenzy.

6. Translator’s note: This also happens to be the title of a poem by Ausiàs Marc (1400–1459).

7. Nor should we forget that The America’s Cup was used to legitimize the holding of an international forum on the management of major sporting events —The Valencia Summit —by a company jointly owned by one of the daughters of King Juan Carlos I (the former Spanish monarch) and her husband — Iñaki Urdangarín — who has been convicted of corruption. On the risible pretext that the Summit would underpin Valencia’s position as host of The America’s Cup, the local government forked out an astronomical €3.6 million to Urdangarin for three meetings between 2004 and 2006.

8. The Audit Office requested the report funded with public money but IVIE denied that any such report existed — as stated by the Court itself (Court of Auditors, 2016).

9. It would be worth studying the long-term costs and social outcomes of the strategic projects covered in this paper. As things stand now, these projects have done nothing to improve either education or income standards in Valencia (which has the dubious distinction of being bottom of the heap in Spain on both counts) (Flor, 2015). Neither have they facilitated ordinary citizens’ access to culture. If we look at Valencia itself, the city has not opened a single new library since the 1990s and its library network receives under half the investment and users per capita compared to Barcelona (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 2017).