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Abstract
This paper examines the development of creative industry clusters in Shanghai. It looks at the cautious adoption of the creative industries agenda by the Chinese government and how Shanghai was to adopt this more positively. The paper also looks at the complex provenance of the creative clusters concept and how Shanghai focused more on its urban regeneration effects rather than its role as ‘industry base’. We try to show how the creative industries agenda, viewing this sector as advanced business services, allowed creative clusters to be linked to a powerful real estate model. However, the paper suggests that this undermined much of the functioning of creative clusters and uncoupled them from most their original intent, retaining mostly just the aesthetic appeal to a ‘creative class’. The paper ends by an examination of how these clusters might be repurposed as part of the adoption of a more holistic urban cultural economy approach.
Notes
1. The difference between cultural and creative industries has been subject of much discussion in academic and policy circles (cf. O’Connor Citation2010 for an overview). Sometimes it is possible to accept the fuzziness of the distinction and settle agnostically on one term or another. However, in this paper it is impossible. The term ‘cultural industries’ was used by the Chinese government to refer to those industries producing cultural goods on a industrial scale (news, broadcasting, film, music, etc.). The term ‘creative industries’ as it was adopted by some in China had a complex relationship to ‘cultural industries’ as we try to show in this paper – therefore as a specifically new agenda (however confused) it needs to be distinguished terminologically from the cultural industries. However, on occasions we will refer to the actual sector constructed/designated by the two terms, in which case we use the composite term cultural/creative industries. So for example, we suggest that Shanghai’s cultural/creative industries sector is amongst the largest in China; in this case we use the composite term to refer generally to the sector of cultural industries with the addition of various design, fashion, new media companies often identified as ‘creative industries’. We believe the two sectors cannot be coherently separated but use the composite term to avoid any confusion with the specific policy constructs around either cultural or creative industries.
2. The numbers of clusters fluctuates, a recent estimate putting them at over 200. However, research by Ma Da, co-founder of Creative Times (http://www.Creativetimes.com) suggests 84 official clusters existing on 2011, with around 25/30 more being planned for completion in 2012. A CIC is counted when it has an official designation as a CIC with registered address, phone and recognized owner/developer.
3. This research draws on a three-year research project funded by the Australia Research Council under their Linkage Programme: ‘Soft Infrastructure, New media and Creative Clusters: Building Capacity in China and Australia’. cf. http://www.creativeasia.co.uk. Partners with Arup, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Creative 100, Qingdao. The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution made to this paper by all three partners who have given extensive advice and industry knowledge.
4. It is interesting that even over a decade after its first coinage by New Labour reports still attest to its definitional indeterminacy or claim its irrelevance whilst continuing to selectively use its differentiating characteristics vis-à-vis cultural industries – such as tradition, or art, or heritage.
5. The creative industries were broken down into five categories by the Shanghai Economic Commission and Shanghai Statistical Bureau: (1) research, development, and design; (2) architectural and related design; (3) cultural activities, creation, and media; (4) consultancy and planning; and (5) fashion, leisure, and lifestyle services (SCIC Citation2006).
6. This uncoupling can often be misread as liberalization, a reading tacitly promoted by the city with its westernizing, global branding strategy. Interviews with academic policy analysts in Shanghai have suggested, however, that this was not uncontested, with those promoting the ‘cultural industries’ concerned to defend core Chinese and socialist values under the guise of ‘cultural security’ (Pang Citation2012). However, in a city as tightly controlled by the party as Shanghai (Huang Citation2008, McGregor Citation2010) it seemed that the economic committee’s determination to promote a growing commercial sector won out over these fears.
7. It made an appearance at the Shanghai Expo exhibition space on the future city (Hatherley Citation2012).
8. It was a coalition very similar to that which had successfully resisted development in SoHo, in Zukin’s Ur-history of culture-led urban regeneration (Zukin Citation1982).
9. These CICs were plotted on a Google map: http://www.creativeasia.co.uk/creative-industries-mapping-survey/.
10. The ARC project conducted over 50 interviews with creative clusters managers, policy-makers, creative cluster occupants and creative/artists working outside the official clusters. Interviews were conducted in Chinese and English by (X and X) between December 2009 and April 2011.
11. That is, they are not included on even expanded lists of ‘creative industries’. They may be important for the creative industries – courier firms are of course crucial to many of these – but they do not need to be in spatial proximity any more than, say, computer suppliers.
12. When I asked (in 2011) the Manager of SCIC if there would be space for artists in the planned village he replied – ‘Of course not, how can artists expect to live in the centre of the city’?
13. It was not just developers. Red Town, a classic old steel mill conversion, was developed in association with the municipal council who funded the sculpture park. Its prestigious offices came out lowest in Zhong’s survey of client satisfaction, with a high turnover of businesses and growing vacancy. Clearly it was expected that art + factory would produce a thriving cluster. It is interesting to note that despite the presence of a government funded sculpture park, Red Town has built premium offices in ways that compromise the sculpture space, and rents out its huge central space to commercial events such as Ferrari and Swarovski (Wang Citation2009, Zhong Citation2011).
14. This was stated at a seminar organized under the ARC-Linkage project (see note 1) in October 2009 at M50.
15. The head of SCIC suggested to us in 2011 there would be a freeze on new clusters. In a recent interview (November, 2011) with a cluster manager and consultant, we were told that the Shanghai government has warned an investment company, based on mining interests, that its purchase of over 30 CICs in Shanghai would run into difficulties if it did not increase the numbers of creative businesses within them.
16. Xin DanWei [New Workspace] – which offers flexible office space for ‘creative nomads’ in the city http://www.Xindanwei.com.
17. The office since moved to 1933 Millfun.
18. Scholars have made a distinction between local development and local entrepreneurial states. The first is concerned to promote the economic development of their territory as a whole, the concerned to invest in and promote local projects in order to generate direct income (profit not just increased tax returns) for their departments. In the first role, they can lay claim to be market organizer; in the second, their own direct interest makes any neutral role within the local economy exceedingly difficult (cf. Zheng Citation2010 for extended discussion).
19. The SCIC sets out the basic rules for a conversion to qualify as a CIC. The main rules were that there should be minimum alteration to the buildings (in effect a minimal design code for the both conservation and aesthetic aspect of clusters) and that there should be a high percentage of creative usage.
20. In an interview I conducted with Howkins (Citation2001) he suggested that his involvement in this business venture was no longer active.
21. More art-oriented spaces such as M50 (and 798 in Beijing) were allowed some leeway, but most commentators agree that this involved a restriction of space outside the cluster and an increased control over what was possible within it (Pang Citation2012).
22. The manager of M50 is a one of the few exceptions. He had been manager whilst it had been a functioning textile factory and had evolved his understanding as the artists and creative businesses had moved in. His knowledge of brand, of client-mix, or design and animation, of service provision and the need for a wider developmental role are quite rare. Most developers have no idea how to run a CIC when they begin. The M50 manager did try and stimulate a wider developmental role for the cultural/creative sector by setting up monthly meetings for CIC developers/managers – but according to our interviewees these tended to become forums for discussion of tax breaks and other direct business concerns for the members.
23. There are 154 sites of cultural consumption listed in Douban for Shanghai. We chose a period between mid-March and mid-April 2011 to make the survey of these events and plot them onto the map.
24. The main exceptions are the universities which combine clusters and events though not necessarily in the same physical spaces.
25. The attempt at repurposing might be difficult given the investment already sunk into CIC; but they are becoming unsustainable in this form anyhow. The ‘rent gap’ underpinning the CIC business model was made possible because local government accepted the contribution of CICs to the ‘public value’ of developing a new creative industries sector. If it is deemed that this ‘public value’ benefit accrued more to developers than the creative industries sector (a widespread view) then the rationale for local state intervention to repurpose the CICs is given strong legitimacy.
26. Though the ‘gentrification effect’ has been a (intended and unintended) driver in western cultural-creative policies (Ley Citation2003) and is clearly aimed at by many Shanghai CIC developments, this effect is now presenting real problems for creative use of inner city space. That is, gentrification can benefit some members of the ‘creative class’ but not usually the small creative businesses which give life to the cultural ecosystem (Markussen Citation2006). In the last decade, the detrimental impacts of creative gentrification on local communities have become much generally acknowledged; the rapid displacement of lower income ‘non-creative’ businesses rapidly destroys the atmosphere which attracted the creatives in the first place. The cultural dynamics of this are very context specific; many creative businesses in China (driving their SUVs as do Florida’s creative class (Florida Citation2002, p. 316) have little interest in social equity (Wang Citation2004).
27. The 12th Five-Year Plan and the 6th Conference of the 17th CPC Central Committee in 2011 further asserted the role of the cultural industries in China’s development. As a consequence, a new spurt of CICs has occurred. According to Ma Da at Creative Times (http://www.ccitime.com) an estimated 365 clusters across China in 2011 will be joined by 950 new ones, the majority (65%) being on land held by county or district level local authorities. But this has also been made possible by the national government’s freeze on real estate prices in early 2011; developers prevented from selling on property (and servicing their debt) have moved into the cheaper land of offered by local authorities for ‘cultural industries’ development (gaining crucial collateral for further loans).
