Levelling up and gentrification: an ugly cultural news week
Sparked by four different stories in the news recently, Simon Tait argues that cuts to local authorities are poisoning our cultural grassroots.
There are two key phrases in the cultural news this week, equally ugly: “levelling up” and “gentrification”, sparked by four different stories.
First is the Birmingham bankruptcy story; second a report about the link between artists and the uplifting, or gentrification, of urban centres; third is a riposte to the government’s designation of arts degrees as “low-level” as not only wrong but missing the point; and fourth is another report that schools are no longer taking kids to museums. Separately they may seem incidental to our developing cultural story; together they paint a shocking picture of infinite potential being scythed down at the knees.
Until recently local and regional councils outspent central government on the arts, even though it was not a statutory requirement, and in the nineties and noughties Birmingham, Europe’s biggest local authority with one of the country’s fastest growing economies, led the way, and if not rivalling London for its creative output it certainly offered a very credible and different alternative...Keep reading on Arts Industry.
There are two key phrases in the cultural news this week, equally ugly: “levelling up” and “gentrification”, sparked by four different stories.
First is the Birmingham bankruptcy story; second a report about the link between artists and the uplifting, or gentrification, of urban centres; third is a riposte to the government’s designation of arts degrees as “low-level” as not only wrong but missing the point; and fourth is another report that schools are no longer taking kids to museums. Separately they may seem incidental to our developing cultural story; together they paint a shocking picture of infinite potential being scythed down at the knees.
Until recently local and regional councils outspent central government on the arts, even though it was not a statutory requirement, and in the nineties and noughties Birmingham, Europe’s biggest local authority with one of the country’s fastest growing economies, led the way, and if not rivalling London for its creative output it certainly offered a very credible and different alternative...Keep reading on Arts Industry.