Abstract
When I came across this book title via the internet I was incredibly excited, and Urban Subversion and the Creative City does not disappoint. The work is thorough, engaging and critical in spirit, and is packed full of theoretical insights and colourful examples of what the author calls ‘urban subversion’. Mould is keenly immersed in his subject matter, and his enthusiasm for it is both obvious and infectious. This is a book which every human geography and urban sociology student should read, and would enjoy at the same time (despite the Routledge hardcover price of £90.00).
While one might argue that there is now an overabundance of writing on creativity in cities, Mould’s contribution is a positive one in that it not only subjects the concept to a thoroughly critical treatment, but also offers an extended discussion of alternatives to it. His general argument is that the dominant Creative City (or CC for short) paradigm (derived largely from the writings of Richard Florida), and the majority of existing urban creative policy frameworks, are, at their core, characterised by instrumental forms of neo-liberal urban economic development and entrepreneurial governance models beset by inter-city competition, branding/marketing strategies and injustices. Mould argues that the only true creativity produced here is through everyday citizens’ critical reactions to this formulaic model. These forms of what he calls ‘urban subversion’ represent ‘real creativity’ which can challenge the capitalist city, yet they are also, ironically, susceptible to being incorporated into it. The author seeks to theoretically dismantle the dominant CC paradigm and to demonstrate how it ends up creating inequalities and actually hinders creativity, and shows how we might think about subverting and going beyond it.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first part Mould deftly unpacks the historical forces behind the rise of the CC idea, critiques the impact of the creative classes on cities and shows the consequences of these ideas for urban development. He cites neo-liberal globalisation, urban branding and inter-city competition, the political rise of the creative industries and the popularity of the creative class idea as reasons behind the creation of a dogmatic paradigm. Through concrete examples he also shows the negative impact such creative policies have had on cities, such as increased inequalities, divisive city zoning, gentrification and a social polarisation of cultural participation. In short, the CC paradigm literally ‘eats itself’, actually stunting creativity and fostering cultural homogeneity, as well as creating dissent.
The second part of the book is concerned with going beyond the dominant CC paradigm, and seeks to articulate new ways of thinking about urban creativity. Here he looks at the history of resistance to capitalist urban development in order to begin to get us to think about what a real creative city would look like. He also seeks to develop his key concept of urban subversion here, by both defining it and providing empirical and place-based examples. Mould’s alternative is the small ‘c’ creative city – characterised by creative social interactions and collaborations, experimentation and play, broader urban functions beyond the market and heterogeneous spaces – ‘a city where being creative is the very act of citizenship’ (p. 5). Its basis is the concept of ‘urban subversion’, which he defines early on in the book as ‘simply the desire to reconfigure the urban environment by active citizens’ (p. 5).
Theoretically, Mould admits that some of his discussion starts from conceptual frameworks that are well worn in urban studies, but which he claims to assemble in new ways. Starting with a discussion of concepts related to the idea of multiple voices of the city, Benjamin’s flaneur and the Situationalist International’s ‘unitary urbanism’ notion, Mould attempts to rescue the idea of urban subversion through a Deleuzian notion of ‘desire production’ and the related concept of ‘becoming minor’. He argues that these theoretical ideas reveal new modes of ‘less capturable’ urban subversions (which, incidentally, he says can be more effective if collectivised or done in collaboration (p. 109)) that can re-configure space, create more diversity, practice social justice and probe geographical boundaries.
Whether one agrees, or not, that Mould successfully theorises, assembles and recreates a new paradigm of urban resistance, there are a number of questions that his approach raises. First, both his definition and examples of urban subversion are quite diverse, ranging from performance artists to urban subcultures (including things like parkour, graffiti, skateboarding, urban exploration, yarn-bombing, flashmobbing, etc.) to quite ordinary citizen activities. Are we to believe that these very different cultural practices are similar in terms of both resistance and/or political effect?
Second, Mould’s discussion of urban subversion examples do not always match up with the criteria he defines them by. For example, his opening prologue of the performance artist Phillipe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between New York City’s twin towers is analysed as an act of creative engagement which raises issues of ownership of city space, but it could just as easily be read as a fleeting individualist act of desire, largely devoid of political intent and lasting urban transformation. Furthermore, many of his examples of collective urban subcultures discussed in Chapter 6, rather than being resistant to capture, appear to be highly subject to incorporation into the CC policy framework of valorised commodities and ‘successful’ creative policy-making (e.g. when graffiti becomes ‘official street art’, and free skateboarding becomes confined to official skate parks).
This raises a third and final issue around Mould’s politics of urban subversion. For if the dominant CC paradigm is undergirded by neo-liberal globalisation, branding and current ideas about the creative industries and creative classes, as researchers shouldn’t we be concentrating on the most effective forms of resistance to these aspects, rather than assuming that all forms of urban subversion have an equally transformative effect? Interestingly, with the exception of Chapter 7 which looks at political campaigns to save spaces of subversion from redevelopment or incorporation, Mould rarely focusses on collective cultural or artistic movements that are increasingly beginning to challenge the basic tenants of the dominant CC paradigm (like for instance artist and cultural producer-led movements for affordable housing and studio space, cultural squatting and social centres, anti-creative city, anti-gentrification and anti-corporate development protests, etc.). 1 Ironically, he touches on this issue in his final chapter in his discussion of the ‘creatively activist city’ (p. 175), which he asserts is too fleeting and fragmented to mount an effective political challenge to the neo-liberal CC. Unfortunately, his alternative, the ‘socially creative city’, faces the same problem of what all this everyday (yet unorganised) urban subversion adds up to in terms of effecting real social change. We need to not only articulate a ‘new language’ of creativity, but to research how best to build alliances across artistic, community-based, activist and anti-austerity movements to challenge the CC in its present form. While much remains to be done on both fronts, Mould’s book helps aid us considerably in thinking seriously about these two related issues.