Veronika KOVACSOVA - Shrinking diversity: the usage of space in Bratislava

In today’s post-industrial economy, where cities are thrust in a whirl of rivalry with each other, the concept of knowledge-based and creative industries appears continuously. A very popular and effective ‘tool’ to revitalize urban economies in many Western societies has been localizing and integrating cultural industries into the cities’ infrastructure, where arts and culture play an important role in urban growth and change.

The concept of cultural industries has been studied extensively during the last few decades, mostly because of its reference and relevance to today’s knowledge-based societies (from a comparative point of view, Ondroš & Korec (2006) even make a link between the historical developments of Eastern and Western Europe, where the post-Fordist or – industrial period is compared to the post-socialist one). A number of urban economists (Harvey, 2001; Martin, 2006) are claiming cities in today’s post-industrial economies will survive through innovativeness, uniqueness, diversity. Often, these factors are identified as pre-conditions for a vibrant environment in contemporary cities, where culture and arts play an important role.

What is happening in today’s urban space of Bratislava, is that empty (especially) industrial buildings are being torn down to be replaced by high-rised buildings designed by internationally renowned architectural studios. Even though independent centers located mostly in formerly empty industrial buildings like ‘13 kubíkov’, ‘Tranzit’ or ‘Cervenka’ exist and provide spaces for exhibiting and creating art, their position compared to Stanica (in Žilina), Kasárne (in Košice) or even A4 (which is a Bratislavian governmentally supported cultural platform) is less influential. Therefore, their existence is also threatened due to difficulties to get finances from the government or even general public. Zukin argues that “artists also derive satisfaction from performing a creative life in spaces that remains distant from both the popular commercial mainstream and high culture venues.” (Zukin, 2008:729). Probably the most successful example of redeveloping a former industrial building is where the Design Factory resides. At the moment, there is no coherent plan created by the city government to protect and revitalize abandoned industrial socialist-complexes. One of the most recent controversies is around demolition of a former factory producing plastic materials Gumon in August 2008, which was declared as a historical industrial building in May 2008. Scott (2007) argues that these abandoned and dysfunctional industrial and commercial sights should be reused and revitalized, providing spaces for artists. Although it may be argued that pilloried artists are agents of gentrification (Zukin, 1995; Ley, 1996; Sassen, 2001:342; Scott, 2008:555) because they move to abandoned buildings in cheaper neighborhoods and revitalize them with their activities, Markusen (2006:1937) claims that in stagnant or small-town environments it is harder to argue that new artistic spaces are displacing anyone.

Jacobs argues that “planners can easily destroy city primary mixtures faster than these can grow in unplanned districts” (Jacobs, 1961:177). The problem is not with building twelve storey houses, but in the routine-mindedness of real-estate developers and standardization – little or no diversity in dwelling types. Jacobs argues that “the more homogeneity of use in a street or a neighbourhood, the greater is the temptation to be different in the only way left to be different.” (Jacobs, 1961:225). Especially preserving and recycling the old-industrial buildings and turning them into concert halls, art galleries or theatres (Evans, 2004; Scott, 2008:556), would create this distinctive factor of a neighbourhood.

References:

EVANS, GRAEME (2004), ‘Cultural industry quarters: from pre-industrial to post-industrial production’. In D. Bell and M. Jayne (eds.), City of Quarters: Urban Villages in the Contemporary City. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited

HARVEY, D. (2001), The Art of Rent: Globalization and the Commodification of Culture. In Harvey, David Spaces of Capital. Towards a Critical Geography, pp. 394-411. New York: Routledge.

JACOBS, JANE (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books, New York

LEY, DAVID (1996), ‘Follow the Hippies’: The Cultural Politics of Gentrification. In: The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford University Press: Oxford. pp. 175-221

MARKUSEN, A. (2006), Urban development and the politics of a creative class: evidence from a study of artists, Environment and Planning A 2006, volume 38, pages 1921 – 1940

MARTIN, RON (2006), Economic Geography and the New Discourse of Regional Competitiveness. In Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen and Helen Lawton- Smith, eds., Economic Geography, Past, Present and Future, pp. 159-172. London/New York: Routledge.

ONDROŠ, SLAVOMÍR & KOREC, PAVOL (2006). Súčasné dimenzie sociálno-demografickej štruktúry Bratislavy (Current dimensions of the socio-demographic structure of Bratislava), Sociologia (Journal) 38/2006, p. 49-82

SASSEN, SASKIA (2001), A New Urban Regime? In: The Global City: New York, Tokyo, London. Second Edition. Princeton, Princeton University
Press, pp. 329-344

SCOTT, ALLEN J. (2007), Capitalism and Urbanization in a New Key? The Cognitive Cultural Dimension. Social Forces 85, 4, pp. 1465-1482

SCOTT, ALLEN J. (2008), ‘Resurgent metropolis: economy, society and urbanization in an interconnected world’, International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research, 32(3): 548-564

ZUKIN, SHARON (1995), High Culture and Wild Commerce in New York City, In: The Cultures of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 109-
152

ZUKIN, SHARON (2008). Consuming Authenticity: From outposts of difference to means of exclusion, Cultural Studies, Vol. 22: 724-748

(This text is an excerpt of my Master thesis ‘Bringing Warhol (back) to Bratislava: transformation of the city’s symbolic capital into income’, November 2008)

********************************************************************************************
In my presentation I will also try to address the current development of the cities in the Netherlands, which are busy with finding sustainable solutions to (re-)use empty office spaces, the product of the knowledge-based economy of the late 1980s and onwards. The issue of office buildings resembles the situation of empty industrial buildings a lot, although this time with a seemingly slightly different and more elaborate agenda.