Developing a Creative Cluster in a Postindustrial City: CIDS and Manchester

Abstract

This article takes the establishment and demise of Manchester's Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS) as an exemplary case study for the ways in which creative industry policy has intersected with urban economic policy over the last decade. The authors argue that the creative industries required specific kinds of economic development agencies that would be able to act as “intermediaries” between the distinct languages of policymakers and “creatives.” They discuss the tensions inherent in such an approach and how CIDS attempted to manage them and suggest that the main reason for the demise of the CIDS was the domination of the “economic” over the “cultural” logic, both of which are present within the creative industries policy discourse.

Keywords:

• creative entrepreneurs
• creative industries
• cultural policy
• urban cultures
• urban regeneration

Notes

1. An interesting attempt was that of Taylor, Evans, and Frasier (1996), bringing Williams's national-level “structure of feeling” down to local city-region level—in this case, contrasting Sheffield and Manchester.

2. This is obviously linked to different political systems and their structuring of local and national—for example, unlike the United Kingdom, local power bases in France can launch national careers.

3. See Oakley (2009) for a retrospective discussion.

4. The emergence of new cultural policies, cultural industries policies, and creative city policies in places such as Sheffield, Birmingham, Greater Manchester, Bristol, and Huddersfield related very much to specific individuals—and often dissipated with their departure.

5. The list is extensive: Birmingham's custard factory; Helsinki's cable factory; Marseilles's cigarette factory; Factory 798 in Beijing; Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek and Witte Dame, Eindhoven; London's Truman Brewery and Berlin's Bruerei; Moscow's winery; and so on.

6. http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/creative_industries/3275.aspx

7. In particular, the history of Manchester's Hulme area, associated with the punk and postpunk era of the city, had seen high levels of oppositional engagement with the political, legal, and bureaucratic processes of urban regeneration (see Haslam 1999; 2005; Dickinson 1997).

8. MIPC was established in 1993 at Manchester Metropolitan University (Redhead, 2004). Justin O'Connor was director 1995–2006, and then it was closed. Its work on local urban cultures included a conference on the “night-time economy” in 1994; a consultancy on the Northern Quarter for Manchester City Council 1995–96; three UK Economic and Social Research Council Projects (cf. Wynne and O'Connor 1998; O'Connor 1998; Brown, Cohen, and O'Connor 2000; Banks, O'Connor, and C. Raffo 2000; Banks 2007); and a large-scale study, “Cultural Production in Manchester,” which provided the research basis for CIDS. This document became publicly unavailable after the closure of MIPC.

9. We might say it echoes the way contemporary games companies involve users in brand development, and are required to acknowledge this through respecting the rules of engagement of this user input (Banks and Humphreys 2008).

10. See note 8.

11. Funded mainly via European Structural Fund money through Manchester City Council, then via funds from the North West Regional Development Agency.

12. This section on CIDS is based on interviews conducted by the authors. O'Connor was co-chair of CIDS between 2000 and 2006. Xin Gu conducted extensive interviews as part of her PhD thesis: “Social Networks in Cultural Industries: Fashion, New Media and Network Development Policy in Manchester,” Manchester Metropolitan University, 2008.

13. Saville created the distinctive image of Factory Records and its club, The Hacienda (see Haslam 1999).

14. For example, CIDS became a “must-see” organization whenever cultural and creative industries delegations came to visit the city.