{"id":8647,"date":"2019-06-24T16:08:57","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T16:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=8647"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"city-or-symbol-dundee-and-perils-of-regeneration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2019\/06\/city-or-symbol-dundee-and-perils-of-regeneration\/","title":{"rendered":"City or Symbol? Dundee and perils of regeneration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What can one building achieve for a city? How does a remarkable structure reflect and define the identity of a sprawling and eclectic urban space? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year Scotland witnessed two events revealing the significance of these questions. In Glasgow, there was lamentation at the desolation of its School of Art, while Dundee saw a great wave of triumph at the completion of the cliff-like object that now sits on the banks of the Tay, housing part of the V&A\u2019s collections and Scotland\u2019s first design museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both\nbuildings remind us of the wider cultural anxieties at work in modern Scotland.\nThe extremes of gruesome death and immaculate conception compel us to reconsider\nthe now casually accepted alchemy that such places are supposed to perform for\npost-industrial cities. It\u2019s no coincidence, perhaps, that the chattering\nclasses in Britain so frequently talk of culture and regeneration in religious\nterms, the \u2018Glasgow Miracle\u2019 worshipped in all its mystique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that\nthe temple has been burned down, it\u2019s perhaps easier to consider the real, all\ntoo fragile, matter that makes for the coveted status of cultural hotspot. The\nmiracles are in fact an accumulation of mundane factors: canny municipal\nintervention, cheap and plentiful workspace, low costs of living, social\nmobility, access to higher education. Factors increasingly elusive in Scottish\ncities driven to compete for coveted inward investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nruins of the GSA, and all the tiny acts of neglect and poor governance that\nadded up to its double conflagration, caused the veil of Glasgow\u2019s hard won\ncultural capital to suddenly be lifted. What could the people discern among the\nruins? A city centre whose built environment has been chronically neglected,\nwhere small gems like the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) must fight for a\nliving, or, like the famous Arches, face a needless death. The promise of ever\nrenewing cultural vitality is as hollow as the shell of what was once the\ncrowning achievement of the city\u2019s visionary and gifted son. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

II. Post-industrial pre-eminence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Today the scene has shifted from the Clyde to the Tay, where Kengo Kuma\u2019s solid yet ethereal museum blends with the haar and juts out into the river, <\/strong>in conversation with the watery elements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nbraw thing is surely an occasion for joy for everyone. It is a building that\ndemands to be looked at. In the global race for post-industrial cultural pre-eminence,\nDundee needed a calling card, a sliver of magic to grace its transformation and\nseal its entry into the club of top destinations for tourism and investment. In\nthis respect the city has clearly achieved a monumental success. To decry spending on\nculture in the midst of poverty is to ignore the fabric of the city itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in these austere times when many Dundonians will soon find themselves pushed below the breadline by Universal Credit, it\u2019s pertinent to ask what relationship the wider waterfront project will have with the rest of the city. With its shiny new train station with unaffordable and unreliable connections, and a multiplicity of boutique hotels and eateries, will this shiny new quarter really be any more accessible to claimants than Canary Wharf?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dundee railway station
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But\nthere is a greater problem sitting behind these ever more pressing questions.\nAt a national level, Scotland\u2019s approach to culture and regeneration, despite a\nlong succession of scandals, reviews and fresh starts, is outmoded and failing\nfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

III. Creative ‘industry’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The\nmodel that is currently propelling Dundee to the top of \u2018must visit\u2019 lists is\nessentially the product of a consensus unchanged for forty years. It pursues\nthe course charted first by Michael Heseltine in the 1980s and happily followed\nby the New Labour government into the millennium. Devolution itself was a New\nLabour creation, and it is perhaps unsurprising that, when it comes to culture,\nso many of the Scottish Government\u2019s institutional instincts remain redolent of\nthat period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nnotoriously ill-defined idea of the \u2018creative industries\u2019 also has its roots in\nthat era. Culture and creativity were, in short, presented as a solution to the\ntroubles of the post-industrial place. The basic thrust of New Labour cultural\npolicy contended that culture was a panacea that could soothe the bruising\ncontradictions of the inescapable truth that these cities had been robbed of\nindustries and the civic identity that built them. Instead, the new creative\ncity would provide ideas, symbols, signs and services. A new idea of what a\ncity ought to be emerged out of this thinking, one that was essentially\nabstract: not a place of complexity and conflict, with the sweat and stink of\nlabour, but rather a product itself, a symbol, a device used to speak to how\nthe new class of upwardly mobile Britons\u2014and their highly educated counterparts\nfrom further afield\u2014would want to live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we\nhave the pursuit of a more \u2018European\u2019 city, or at least, the creation of an\ninner-city enclave to reflect this. Dundee may have its sights set on\nrecreating the Guggenheim effect but, unlike Bilbao, there is no new public\ntransport network, no great scheme to re-integrate the city and connect it to\nother cities. Despite the polished facade of the new station, the East Coast\nmainline runs on infrastructure as old as the now defunct or converted jute\nmills, and the city\u2019s busses are run for private profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civic\npride rendered without proper municipal government is always compromised. This\nis what traps the modern Scottish city. Measures such as a tourist tax, the\nnorm across Europe, are deemed far too radical to be the province of local\ncontrol and must instead be deferred and picked away at a national level. No\namount of remarkable architecture can change this lack of public power at the\nlocal level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the\nfuture of Dundee is just to be a place for consumers, its creative soul is\ndestined to diminish. As critic Owen Hatherley writes in A Guide to the New\nRuins of Great Britain<\/em>, buildings such as the\nV&A\u2014like its forerunners on the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne\u2014imply a process of \u2018triumphing\nagainst the loss of industry,\u2019 signalling the final and irreversible shift in\nurban transformation from production to consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmodel works, provided a great building, whether a gallery, conference centre,\nperformance venue (or amalgam of all three) allows wealth to coalesce around\nit: thus bringing investment, wealthier consumers and taxpayers, and, above\nall, greater marketability. The goal is a competitive edge in the national and\nglobal race not to be tarred with the stain of being a \u2018poor relation,\u2019 stuck\nin an outmoded past. When Dundee Council Leader John Alexander described the\ncontroversial Marriott Hotel site next door to the V&A as an \u2018exceptional\nproduct\u2019\u2014was he talking about the specific site or a wider vision of the city\nitself? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The draw\nof fresh concrete, glass and steel is undeniable. There can be space for little\nelse in the prospectus presented by the Scottish Cities Alliance, quick off the\nmark in touting for \u00a310 billion of investment opportunities after the new\nmuseum opened. Yes, this may still be a place with a certain kind of urban\nswagger, but much of value must be squeezed out as elite heads are turned\ntowards the ideal Exceptional-Product-City. The messiness of identity and\nconflict, cheap living, space for subcultures and chronically impoverished\ncommunities don\u2019t fit into a property portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the\nwhile, Scottish culture as a whole is also being boxed up and packaged in a manner\nthat is disturbingly reminiscent of all the failings of Cool Britannia in the\n1990s. For Visit Scotland\u2019s #ScotlandIsNow<\/em>\ncampaign, attracting capital and tourists becomes a kind of mantra, creativity\n\u2018bucks the trend,\u2019 even traditions of political activism\u2014\u2018now fights for rights\u2019\u2014become\nmere marketing hooks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nV&A is just part of a long list of symbols which communicate the message\nthat this is a \u2018happening\u2019 place with the \u2018right\u2019 kind of third way politics,\nunder which the spending of the filthy rich becomes transformed into a morally\nworthwhile exercise. But how could it ever be regarded otherwise, in a country in\nwhich the tourist board tells us \u2018hope calls home\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like New\nLabour\u2019s ruse, this attempt to create a wave of optimism, by aligning with a\nyouthful sense of cultural revival and presenting culture and creativity as a\nremedy for economic and social problems, is fundamentally dishonest. Looked at\nanother way, it is simply the desire to promise social democratic outcomes\nwithout committing to social democratic inputs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nwhether it\u2019s the roots of Dundee\u2019s gaming industry, Glasgow\u2019s art scene or\nEdinburgh\u2019s festivals, the social democratic settlement of the post-war era was\nfoundational. Why? Precisely because it created an economic safety net, founded\nmajor institutions for the arts (funded accordingly) and pursued a policy of\nexpansive higher education. These projects were undertaken not because they might\ncatch the wandering eye of canny investors, or please a neoliberal management\nculture with the right metrics, but for their own sake. They represented an\negalitarian political settlement made tangible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IV. An ageing culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The\nother factor which ought to make cultural policy makers wary about the lessons\nfrom New Labour\u2019s attempt to link culture, regeneration and politics is that\nScotland is not young, but rather ageing, fast. By 2039 the number of\npensioners living in the nation will have increased by a quarter. It\u2019s become\ncommonplace to fixate on the economic and social \u2018timebombs\u2019 associated with\nthis trend, but some incendiary cultural factors are already with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\n2018 was declared Scotland\u2019s Year of Young People, there remains precious\nlittle evidence that young people will be afforded the kind of cultural\nopportunities to make it new that previous generations enjoyed. This is the\ncold hard reality that no amount of city branding can obscure. The first\ngeneration to be worse off than their parents since the end of the 19th century\nwill find themselves less able to make things\u2014the risks, the time pressures,\nthe traps of rent and debt make truly creative endeavour increasingly\ndifficult. Their chances of living a rich life defined by the freedom to pursue\nfledgling talents and burning creative passions are made ever more remote. Ironically,\nit is the very regeneration processes that see cities desperate to draw in \u2018creative\nindustries\u2019 that make urban living and participation in culture ever more\nexclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\ngenerational lag is becoming an increasingly dominant feature of Scotland\u2019s\nculture. The result is all too often silence, save for an inevitably narrow\nstream of talent that is funded by the fruits of inherited wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nshould be at a moment when a new generation is gearing up to set the terms that\nwill shape Scotland\u2019s culture for decades to come. Instead we find ourselves\nco-opted, borrowed for our energies, living, thinking and creating on someone\nelse\u2019s terms. Living in cities pursuing policies essentially unchanged since\nthe 1990s, shouldering financial risks that were once borne collectively, less\nable to inhabit the shared spaces that are the wellspring of culture and craft.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nadds up to a desperate need to reimagine what our cities are for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowan\nMoore\u2019s Guardian<\/em> review of the\nV&A noted that the building is guilty of \u2018mistaking a sign of an action for\nits reality.\u2019 Despite its best intentions, it does not function well as a\npublic space\u2014offering few opportunities for Dundonians, young and old, to\nclamber around and sprawl about. He goes on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kuma says his building is \u201corganic\u201d, by which he means that its rough-hewn shape looks like a work of nature, but a larger meaning of the word is that a design grows harmoniously out of its situation and use. This it does not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This\nspectacular building exists to be looked at. It does not face the city, but\njuts out from it, as though yearning to be in the pristine air of international\nwaters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dundee has been a great factory for weird and wonderful creativity over the years\u2014exporting people who relate to the world with a peculiar slant. One of their number, AL Kennedy, recently said of her native town: \u2018the feeling of being at the bottom of a well and having to scream gave rise to a great deal of artistic expression.\u2019 Today, amid the new neatness required by capital as it turns dirty old cities into presentable products and symbols, Dundee may find it lonely, and eerily quiet, at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared in the print magazine Ossian<\/a>. Enjoyed it? Help keep the magazine going by supporting their campaign on Kickstarter.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: <\/em>museum<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>station<\/em><\/a> CC-SA 4.0 International<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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