Be Berlin
"We experience the conflict between the corporate city and the urban village as a crisis of authenticity.
To understand the loss of the city that matters it is important that we take a close look at both historical origins
in economic and demographic changes and new beginnings in cultural representations,
especially media images and elected official’s rhetoric of growth. It is also crucial to look at the tastes
and lifestyles of the upper middle class, for these dominate the cultural representation of cities today."
(Sharon Zukin, Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford: University Press, 2010, p.223)
To understand the loss of the city that matters it is important that we take a close look at both historical origins
in economic and demographic changes and new beginnings in cultural representations,
especially media images and elected official’s rhetoric of growth. It is also crucial to look at the tastes
and lifestyles of the upper middle class, for these dominate the cultural representation of cities today."
(Sharon Zukin, Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford: University Press, 2010, p.223)
Hypothesis:
My initial hypothesis when I started this research was that marketing campaigns, such as “Du bist Deutschland,” (You are Germany) “Land der Ideen,” (Land of Ideas) but especially the “be Berlin” campaign, increasingly began to influence culture and cultural policy, and the most striking evidence for that is the “be Berlin – be diverse” Senate initiative and platform that promotes and funds cultural diversity in Berlin. What was not immediately apparent, and what came out only after I began deconstructing the history, structure, and the implicit and explicit messages of the "be Berlin" campaign, is that the campaign itself is a policy-making-mechanism.
Moreover, what became apparent is that Berlin politicians and urban marketing directors are using Richard Florida's creative economy vocabulary and theory to promote Berlin as a creative center of technology, talent, and tolerance.
Moreover, what became apparent is that Berlin politicians and urban marketing directors are using Richard Florida's creative economy vocabulary and theory to promote Berlin as a creative center of technology, talent, and tolerance.
Questions:
- Who are the masterminds behind this policy- and culture-making machine? (Mayor Klaus Wowereit, Berlin Senate, Berlin Partner)
- How does the campaign function? What are its goals? (participatory and promotional platform)
- What are the campaign's implications for identity formations in Berlin?
- How does it define culture, and whom does it exclude? (unemployed, homeless, immigrants who do not speak German or English)
- In what ways does it promote art and culture as a commodity to generate economic growth?
Theoretical Frameworks:
Florida's Berlin
The campaign is a public platform that outlines Berlin’s social, economic, and cultural policy, designed by the Berlin Senate and Berlin Partner, and is at its core based on Richard Florida’s social and economic outline of the creative economy, creative centres and the creative class. Based on statistical data, Florida outlines the apparent shift in global economy and urban geography.
According to Florida, in order to be economically prosperous and generate economic growth in today’s post-Fordist, globalized economy, a city has to become a high-tech and creative centre In order to become a creative centre a city has to attract talented, skilled professionals (the creative class). And in order to attract the creative talent, a city has to be attractive based on tolerance, openness, and creativity. Thus, technology, talent, and tolerance are the 3 T’s outlined by Florida as the prerequisites of urban and economic development.
Berlin communicates these messages to its own inhabitants and to the rest of the world by way of a simple message and marketing platform: “be Berlin!”
According to Florida, in order to be economically prosperous and generate economic growth in today’s post-Fordist, globalized economy, a city has to become a high-tech and creative centre In order to become a creative centre a city has to attract talented, skilled professionals (the creative class). And in order to attract the creative talent, a city has to be attractive based on tolerance, openness, and creativity. Thus, technology, talent, and tolerance are the 3 T’s outlined by Florida as the prerequisites of urban and economic development.
Berlin communicates these messages to its own inhabitants and to the rest of the world by way of a simple message and marketing platform: “be Berlin!”
Symbolic Economy
‘Symbolic economy,’ [is] the mobilization of cultural resources and the politics of urban re-imaging within contemporary capitalist urbanization processes. The economic prosperity of cities in a post-Fordist era has become increasingly reliant on the ‘symbolic economy,’ i.e. the ‘intertwining of cultural symbols and entrepreneurial capital’ (Sharon Zukin, 1995, p.3).
After reunification, Berlin began to mobilize its symbolic economy to generate capital investment and to attract talent and creativity.
After reunification, Berlin began to mobilize its symbolic economy to generate capital investment and to attract talent and creativity.
Hertie Berlin Studie (Berlin Study, 2009):
The Berlin Study provides statistical data on life in Berlin. 2000 Berliners over the age of 14 were asked about Berlin life styles, neighbourhoods, economic, cultural, and social issues, tolerance, employment, immigration and integration, economic conditions, identity, East-West relations, and diversity. What the authors of the study observed through their statistical data and interviews is that:
- Berliners think of their city as open, cosmopolitan, international, creative, and tolerant (p.298)
- Berlin is considered to be the capital of a new Germany, and a globalized, cosmopolitan society (p.298)
- Berlin can be a model for other German cities (p.304)
- According to the Roland-Berger-Studie, Berlin is at the top in the tolerance category, eighth in the talent category, and ninth in the technology category (out of ten). Overall, Berlin got the fifth place among German cities, behind Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Frankfurt. (p.308)
- Berlin has more artists than any other German city (p.309)
- "Culturalization of city politics" – today culture is an important vehicle of urban development, not only as conceptual and identity-constructing element, but as economics factor. Creative focal points in clubs, galleries, exhibitions attract more creativity. Once such a creative layer has been established, it attracts tourists, and later also investors. (p.310)
Be Berlin - Be Diverse:
This is an administrative organization, established by the cultural department of the Berlin Senate in November 2009, to promote diversity and intercultural education, and to allocate funding to artists in Berlin. Its mandate is to create:
- Cultural infrastructure (job market in the cultural sector)
- Cultural education (funding and stipends for cultural institutions, youth projects, stipends for artists, designers, musicians, film-makers in Berlin)
- Cultural diversity events (immigration themes are no longer presented as problematic issues, but as cultural heritage. Promoting immigrant artists in German theatres, orchestras, and in the arts. For example: Ballhaus Naunynstrasse)
The organization was conceptualized in connection to the "be Berlin" marketing campaign, in the hopes get some of the campaign's funding budget (5 million Euros), but no funding was made available through the campaign. The organization then formed a partnership with the Hertie Foundation, and together they organized public events to promote diversity. Gradually, they began to combine the public events with theatre performances or film screenings.
Events: 2009 - "be Berlin - be diverse" Symposium
2009 - Publication of the Hertie Berlin Study
2010 - Be diverse - Best Practice Examples - management and project leaders report how they promote intercultural
initiatives and projects in their institutions (Bibliothek Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Rundfunk-Orchester und -
Chöre, Museum Neukölln, Kreuzberg Museum, Neuköllner Oper)
2010 - Shahada (2009) film premiere at Filmtheater Friedrichshain with an introduction by Klaus Wowereit
2011 - Türkisch Gold play performed at Deutsches Theater, followed by a discussion panel on cultural diversity with
representatives from different cultural institutions and artistic disciplines
Problematic issues:
The primary motivation and driving force behind branding Berlin is to generate and sustain economic growth. While promoting culture, arts, diversity, and creativity, these pillars of talent and tolerance are also being used to bring in revenue (both through tourism and investors). The campaign shows results and prides itself on both economic and cultural growth, yet long-term consequences are largely ignored. For example:
- Gentrification, rise in housing prices and the cost of living (subcultures and artistic communities that made the place attractive in the first place, are gradually driven out of city centre)
- Credit-financed overbuilding (Janet Ward, 245)
- Global mobility of educated elite from all over the world, promotion of the creative class in the creative jobs, making these jobs inaccessible to low-paid workers (computer and IT dominated job-markets)
- The other service industry (employment of non-creative-class workers to support and provide services for the creative classes (servant class in global urban centres - Saskia Sassen)
Controversy:
Just Be Berlin -
In October of 2007, Andrea Horn and Marc Arroyo participated in the Berlin city hall contest to create a new identity for the city of Berlin. Their campaign with the slogan "just be.rlin" was designed to communicate diversity, internationality, cosmopolitanism of Berlin. On their blog, the designers claim that the city of Berlin used their concept and ideas without acknowledging their work and contributions to the official campaign.
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