Bringing Warhol back to Bratislava /MSc. Thesis/ by Veronika Kovacsova

Bringin g Warh ol (back) t transfo o Bratislav rmatio a:

n of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lic capi tal into income

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University of Amsterdam Graduate School for Social Sciences Master Programme â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Social Theory and Public Affairsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Master thesis by

Veronika Kovacsova

First thesis supervisor

Prof. Robert C. Kloosterman

Second supervisor

Dorine Greshof

/veroni.kovacs@gmail.com/ /r.c.kloosterman@uva.nl/

Study Advisor

/d.greshof@uva.nl/ Barak Kalir /b.kalir@uva.nl/

Date of submission:

November 2008

ABSTRACT

The focus of this thesis lies on the socio-economic challenges and roles of the post-socialist city of Bratislava, its potential of cultural industries, as a part of creative economy. The city is at the heart of its new economic proﬁle and deserves a special attention: its case has been considerably less analysed and researched as compared to other CEE capitals and cities. 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. After 1989 and 2004 (when Slovakia joined the EU), the relatively young and mid-sized city of Bratislava has been attracting lots of foreign investors and the local government has been focusing on fast and high proﬁt-making real-estate projects, overshadowing activities with a long-term value, such as embedding cultural initiatives in the local economy. In order to generate a sustainable urban economy, Bratislava will have to rethink its concept of competitiveness and learn from international cases.

KEYWORDS

Bratislava, cultural industries, post-socialist city, urban economy

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The title of this thesis, ‘Bringing Warhol (back) to Bratislava’, has a rather symbolic meaning, as the American pop-art icon (born in 1928 in Pittsburgh to parents originating from a poor rural area in the north-east of Slovakia, from which they emigrated in the beginning of the twentieth century because of poverty; nothing unusual at that time in many parts of Europe) is not among the alive anymore and he cannot come ‘back’ to Bratislava as he has not been there ever at all. Nevertheless, Bratislava, according to a Slovak sociologist Tížik, resembles a work of Warhol in many ways – with its huge, vividly coloured shopping malls, endless billboards popping up once you enter Bratislava, hypermarkets (Image 1). Although not many do realize it, Bratislava has its own Warhol – a bronze statue in its historical centre (Image 2). There are currently two ofﬁcial Andy Warhol museums of modern art in the world; one is in his hometown Pittsburgh, and the other close to his parents’ birthplace in Medzilaborce1, north-eastern Slovakia. The symbolic meaning of the title of this thesis refers to the (need to) revitalisation and renewal of the arts and culture scene in the city of Bratislava.

1) See http://www.andywarhol.sk, only in Slovak

Image 1 (right) One of the most central places in Bratislava – Hotel Kyjev (in the back, with Nokia advertisement) and Tesco Hypermarket at Kamenné Námestie. Image 2 (left) Bronze statue of sitting Warhol in front of a restaurant on Ventúrska, the very centre of Bratislava v

CONTENTS

Abstract iii Preface viii Introduction 10 PART I Analytical framework: Concepts and deﬁnition 17 1 Cultural industries 18 Summary 21 2 Bratislava’s urban economy – from past to present 22 Developments in the ﬁrst half of the 20th century 23 Developments in the second half of the 20th century 24 Dealing with the past 27 Summary 28 3 Agglomeration economies – breeders of cultural milieus 28 Summary 30 4 Modes of competitiveness 31 Diversity / density 31 Survival of the ‘innovatest’ 32 It’s all in the mix: distinctiveness / authenticity 33 Summary 36 5 Conclusion: How do the theories and concepts work? 36 PART II 1 2 3 4

Quantitative analysis: Bratislavian cultural economy 37 Cultural industries in Slovakia – whose potential? 38 Facilities and participation in the cultural economy 40 Employment in cultural industries 45 Conclusion 50

PART III Qualitative analysis: Discussions 51 1 Re-emergence of the critical mass 51 2 Headquarters vs SMEs as spaces of economic production 53 3 Bratislava in a network-economy 55 4 Competitiveness 60 Bratislavian tourism and genius loci 60 Size does not matter 62 Is Bratislava attracting urban creatives? 64 Summary 69 5 Which Bratislavian cultural industries? 70 Summary 78 6 Promoting Bratislavaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intangibles 78 Summary 82 7 Employment and participation in the cultural economy 83 8 Conclusion 85 PART VI Conclusion: Outcomes 87 What next? 93 Reference 94 Appendix

1 Short proďŹ les of interviewees 100 2 Locations of images 102 3 Map with the location of Bratislava and other cities of analysis 103

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PREFACE

This thesis grew from an interest to a city I neglected in the past. Bratislava has always been a book for me I never opened - I did not know what to read or where to start. October 2007 was the time to start getting acquainted – with the city and its cultural ‘scene’. This was the time when my subscribed Dutch daily paper nrc.next published each day on its back page a recent photo from the Slovak capital, where the young Dutch photographer Illah van Oijen has been documenting mostly the visual transformations of the city. As I might get condemned by ‘Bratislavians’ for writing a slightly critical thesis (as I am not a Bratislavian, I shall not know anything about the city!), I would like to express my intentions and feelings about writing this thesis to my doubtful (and proud, why not?) Bratislavian or Pressburger readers. I am not a Bratislavian, nor a Pressburger2. So why have I decided (or even dared?!) to dig into studying this middle-sized European capital? I haven’t experienced growing up in Bratislava, hanging around in Petržalka’s3 parks or at the Square of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) as a teenager; nor have I attended one of Bratislava’s universities. Therefore, I have not got to know the ‘corners’ – places where people meet, bump into each other or hide from the grey neighbourhood units, the exceedingly coffee-cultured semi-bohemian centre or cold and faceless outskirts by the shopping-mall areas. Also, I do not know how to use Bratislavian slang and what it means when used in everyday language. In the past, I had a love-and-hate relationship with Bratislava; as probably many who do not live in the capital and do not understand it – its accelerating urbanism, its language, and so on. Tížik in his essay in Bratislava – mesto na mieru (2008), distinguished the ‘real’ Bratislavans - ‘Pressburgers’, as descendant of a several generation of Bratislavans and the new Bratislavians - migrants from other regions in Slovakia, usually coming to the capital because of education or work. 3 Petržalka is the largest Socialist-style architecture neighbourhood in Slovakia, located south of the river Danube. With its 114.153 inhabitants (Source: Statistical Ofﬁce of the Slovak Republic, 31.12.2006), it is the most densely populated area in Bratislava. 2

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Now, with a background that allows me to understand and answer some of my questions from the past, I have established some kind of a ﬂirting relationship with the city. Bratislava encompasses big city rush and a small town unrest at the same time. It is this once unknown and not understood persona I am now interested in, observing all its shapes with fascination. There have been several Bratislavians (both those who were born there and who moved there later in their lives) that showed me – at least for a moment – what it means for them to be living in this city. I would like to thank (in alphabetical order), Michal Babiar, Dana Drobniaková, Ľubomír Falťan, Petra Feriancová, Zuzana Duchová, Ivan Jančár, Zora Jaurová, Katarína Martinková, Illah van Oijen, Miro Tížik and Matej Vakula for their time and willingness to meet me and talk about Bratislava. Lastly, but not leastly I would like to thank my thesis supervisors Professor Robert C. Kloosterman and Dorine Greshof for their enthusiasm, guidance and valuable suggestions which led to this thesis. Although the topics of this thesis would probably ﬁt within a ‘Urban studies’ programme, the discourse of Bratislavian cultural economy will be addressed as a public affair – to strengthen the connection to the ‘Social Theory and Public Affairs’ Master programme, for which this thesis is written for. Veronika Kovácsová November 2008

INTRODUCTION

In today’s post-Fordist urban economy, the concepts of knowledge-based and creative industries are being highly proﬁled as ‘the tools’ to revitalize or improve the character of today’s urban systems. In the last couple of years, localising symbolic capital in Western societies has been increasingly integrated into the cities’ infrastructure (Gomez, 1998; Newman and Smith, 2000; Harvey, 2001; Evans, 2004; Kloosterman and Stegmeijer, 2004; Florida, 2005; KEA, 2006; Currid, 2007). The cities, including their institutions in Eastern Europe, have been behind their Western neighbours, due to different character and preferences of the central power, resulting in a slower or more limited development both in their infrastructure and social and economic mechanisms. Nevertheless, discourse of the relationship between the localisation of cultural industries and the growing urban economy does not seem to be totally unknown in the city of Bratislava4. The city seems to be on the border between pursuing a post-materialist agenda (where grass-root institutions are gaining power) and following a materialist regime (with a focus on boosting and developing resources as, for instance, the infrastructure)5. Even though local grass-root institutions are taking a lead in the discourse of cultural industries, the local and national government does not prioritize or sometimes even support and care enough for cultural initiatives; the current discussions of the local government examine the new urban (or master) plan of the city and its implicaHaving deducted from the interviews, knowledge and awareness of the direct or indirect impact of cultural or creative industries on local economy in Bratislava is in its infancy. 5 The division of the cities to post-materialist and materialist was discussed by Savitch and Kantor (2004). These two categories imply to the two different types of development policies, where the ‘socially-centred’ (post-materialist) is opposed to the ‘market-centred’ (materialist) or where often a mix-match of them is created. Authors analysed ten different Western cities in Europe and the United States, comparing the post-fordist development of the two sides of the Atlantic, where the systems of governance are being pointed out as the main difference. What Savitch and Kantor try to say is that choices and circumstances in pursuing divergent urban strategies are crucial when approaching chances for development (or avoiding decline). 4

-tions, which have a rather geographical and planning character6. The city is experiencing an urban re-design, where old architectural elements are being replaced by new ones. Also, Bratislava is at the moment culturally rather homogenous (where groups of bigger institutions – theatres and galleries - play the main role). The reason for this is that the budget for culture (and education) given by the Slovak government is very tight and shrank dramatically in the last couple of years. Smaller initiatives find it harder to survive without initial support in forms of subsidies from the government. The creation and development of both formal and informal cultural economies in Bratislava is an urban issue forming not only the physical but also the social structure or character of the city. To stay more concentric, the focus of this thesis is on the concept of cultural industries. The central research question is: “What role do cultural industries play in the current transformation of the post-socialist city of Bratislava, and which actors are involved in this and what kinds of resources are deployed by them?”, which can be divided into three units: first studying the (historical) development of Bratislava and its role in the urban economy, then defining cultural industries and various actors which affect the city’s development and finally evaluating and discussing these actors’ role and importance in this post-socialist city. This thesis is a case study of cultural industries in Bratislava and their socioeconomic function, with a timeframe of the city’s development since the 1900s till today.

6 The Slovak economy is booming, with an expectation to ease to 9% yearly growth in 2009, which acclaims the country as one of the fastest growing economies in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) – often referred to as the ‘Slavic Tiger’. Similarly, a parallel development in the knowledge-intensive and service sector of Bratislava is experiencing a boom, with a clear desire to make for of the period of international isolation and lack of concern in urban development during the era of socialism. A recent study by the Netherlands based research institute and consultancy ECORYS claims that Bratislava will be the 6th fastest developing city in Europe, in the period 2007 – 2012 with a 5.9% growth. (Source: <http:// www.ecorys.nl/nieuws-en-persberichten/grootste-groei-verwacht-in-oost-europese-steden-utrecht-koploper-in-west-e-4.html>. Site last accessed on 4 September 2008)

The central questions are studied and analysed through two central concepts with the following sub-questions: 1.

Path-dependency:

Are cultural industries “new” to Bratislava, or is it indeed a re-emergence of older competencies that were submerged during the communist regime? What makes Bratislava (from a historical perspective) a distinctive city? What makes Bratislava a creative or cultural city?

Agency:

Who contributes to creativity and culture in the post-socialist city of Bratislava? Is there awareness (mainly from the side of the municipality, but also the individual cultural institutions) of transforming symbolic capital into income and of the potential and relevance of cultural industries in a city’s socio-economic and –cultural development? What are the roles of different institutions (both governmental and non-governmental) in creating and supporting culture and arts in the city? Do these different actors co-operate? Is there exchange of knowledge and ideas?

Bratislava has not had its own architect since the establishment of Slovakia in 1993 till last year, when the urban theorist and architect Štefan Šlachta was elected for this position. Especially after 1989 (fall of Iron Curtain) and 2004 (joining of the EU), Bratislava has been attracting lots of foreign investors and a number of various building projects were established and accomplished.

The hypotheses of this research are: -

The local government is focusing too much on the fast and big proﬁt making projects, leaving out activities with a longterm value, such as culture. Cultural industries are not an unknown phenomenon in Bratislava, but their importance and inﬂuence in socio–economic terms is overshadowed by the growing amount of projects focused on the city’s infrastructure and tangibles

These questions will be answered through (1) reviewing literature on cultural and creative industries, urban economies and broader social science topics, (2) analysing interviews that were conducted for this study and (3) evaluating statistical data on cultural industries in Bratislava and their implications in the city’s economy. The main publications and articles used to understand the role of culture in an urban economy are Throsby’s ‘Economics and Culture’ (2001), Scott’s ‘Capitalism, cities and the production of symbolic forms’ (2001) and Florida’s ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’ (2002). To learn and understand post-socialist economies and the development trajectory of the city Bratislava, publications such as Howard’s ‘The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-communist Europe’ (2003) and Van Oijen’s (ed.; 2007) are suggested. Scholars studying and analysing cultural industries in an urban economy (Jacobs, 1961; Florida, 2002; Markusen, 2006; Currid, 2007; Bathelt and Boggs, 2003; Primorac, 2006) argue that factors such as history (path dependency), locality (agglomeration and proximity) and civic involvement (agency) have an important role. The main tools of this research are various literatures reviews on culture and economy, mid-sized and post-socialist cities. Also, scholars theorizing cultural economies often choose rather large cities as their case study (Scott 2007; Savitch and Kantor, 2004; Jacobs, 1961; Storper and Venables, 2002). In this thesis, an argument will be presented that size does not matter (Markusen, 2006) – and smaller or mid-sized cities do actually have an advantage to create successful and sustainable cultural economies. The success or the importance of cultural industries does not necessarily correlate with cities with large population or territory as repeatedly theorized by a number of urban sociologists or economic geographers, but relates to mid-sized cities as well7.

An example would be the economic growth of European Cultural Capitals, which are often not the biggest or capital cities.

With the focus on cultural industries, the discussion on the ‘rise of the B-cities’ (or the so-called second-tier cities, as discussed by Markusen, 2006) will be addressed where Bratislava, as a small, but fast-growing European city, belongs to. Authors that have been studying Bratislava’s changing role as a national economic force are Divinský (1999), Ondroš and Korec, (2006), etc.Most of the studies or analyses on economic transformations of cities come from the Western societies, which often overshadows the small number of studies or research on other places – such as the former socialist countries and their urban systems. Different theories and literatures were used for writing this thesis, where both Western and East-European thinkers are incorporated. However since not much has been written or researched on this the issue of cultural industries and economy in Bratislava or other CEE cities, more information was gained from a number of sources and contacts by doing semi-structured in-depth interviews on a one-to-one approach and observations of the city. All of the interviews were conducted within three days in the second week of June 2008, in Bratislava. Finding and establishing contacts for these interviews was not difficult; the total number of interviewees is 11 (eleven). All of the respondents were chosen on the basis of non-probability sampling as the interviews are in-depth expert interviews and particular qualities – such as knowledge and a clear opinion about the cultural economy in Bratislava – had to be met. Six (6) the interviewees were chosen on the basis of purposive sampling and about a five (5) on the basis of snowballing - the original interviewees’ recommendations. The interviews lasted on average 50 minutes, with the shortest one 32 minutes and longest almost two hours. A wide variety of actors influencing cultural industries or the cultural economy in Bratislava has been included, belong to various professions and sectors: two social-science academics (Ľubomír Falťan, Miroslav Tížik), three young artists and art academy graduates (Petra Feriancová, Illah van Oijen, Matej Vakula), one representative of a grass-root organisations focused on urban/cultural issues (Zuzana Duchová), three representatives of formal organisations focused on cultural economy (Katarína Martinková, Ivan Jančár and Zora Jaurová) and two policy makers at the Magistrate (Dana Drobniaková, Michal Babiar). The list of interviewees is attached in the Appendix. As already mentioned earlier, the interviews were on an in-depth expert basis, and semi-structured. This means that there were specific points drawn for every discussion, and the basis for these discussion points were the research questions stated above (e.g. Bratislavian distinctiveness, situation of producing/exhibiting/selling art/culture and a possibility for clustering, roles of policy makers, scholars, public, collaboration between various disciplines within cultural industries – on a local, national or international scale, role of culture on the city’s political agenda with regard to the Lisbon Agenda 2010, etc.). 14

For the reader who has never been to Bratislava, a number of photographs (taken during the period of interviews in June 2008) have been included in this thesis to illustrate some of the places or institutions that are described and discussed in the following chapters. A map with locations of photographs taken is to be found in the Appendix. Lastly, statistical data on culture from the Eurostat (mostly using Urban Audit) and the Statistics Office of Slovak Republic are used and analysed. Even though the former institution is receiving data from the latter, none of the information were overlapping but actually fulfilling each other.These data relate mostly to participation in cultural activities of the people in Bratislava and the employment rate in the cultural sector compared to the neighbouring Vienna and two emerging cultural cities in Slovakia – Košice and Žilina. Comparing the data with these cities shows us the current trend and development and Bratislava’s position in the cultural economy. On March 31, 2008, the European Commission proposed naming 2009 the Year of Creativity and Innovation and this has been recently confirmed8; therefore connecting this study to not only European Union’s 2009, but also the Lisbon Agenda (meeting the goals of innovation and competitiveness) may be interesting. In this thesis, the main aim is not to define the cultural industries in Bratislava, analysing sectors or occupations, but rather open up and draft a new chapter in the city’s cultural economy. This study is mapping rather than evaluating the role of cultural industries in Bratislava. Throsby (2008) and Markusen (2006) write in their articles that it is important to identify alternative approaches to modelling the cultural industries, their classification, etc. and that we not straighten themselves with words and categories for definitions, but see creativity and culture, as well as their corresponding industries, as something not deterministic, but a ‘flowing’ concept where boarders are rather blurred9. In the following chapter, an analysis of existing theories, tools and concepts regarding cultural industries and their connection to the local development and economy of Bratislava will be described. First, the notion of cultural industries will be defined. Then, a brief historical development of Bratislava will follow, adding on the concepts of clustering and competitiveness (with relation to distinctiveness). See: <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/081389&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr> (Last accessed on September 29, 2008) 9 Similarly, Zukin theorizes culture on “fluidity, change and resistance to control” (Zukin, 1995:289) 8

The third chapter will include data collected from Eurostat, Statistical Office of Slovak Republic and a number of existing studies on the cultural economy in Bratislava. These data will be analysed and (where possible), compared to the situation in Vienna - Bratislava’s closest ‘competitor’ and ‘partner’, and two smaller cities in Slovakia – Žilina and Košice, both gradually pursuing a strong cultural policy and economy (for geographic clarification, a map with the location of all the above mentioned cities is attached in the Appendix). Chapter four will analyse qualitative information extracted from the interviews as well as various literatures on the topic of cultural industries, which will subsequently be connected to the case of the post-socialist city of Bratislava. The information will be analysed in the form of discussions on the current and historical Bratislavian trajectory. A conclusion and outcomes will follow, answering the main and sub-research questions and summing up all the important points presented in the thesis. As concluding observations, possible further research options will be briefly described.

PART I ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK: CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

The concept of cultural industries has been studied extensively during the last few decades, mostly because of its reference and relevance to today’s knowledgebased societies. 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 culture10 and arts play an important role. The main unit of analysis – cultural industries in the post-socialist Bratislava – will be looked at from a path dependent perspective (Scott, 2007; Tilly, 1992; Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; Mahoney, 2000; Kloosterman and Lambregts, 2007; Musterd et al., 2007; Szelenyi, 1996) - its historical trajectory leading to current developments in the city’s urban economy. Understanding history allows us to view the present and the past of economic and social activities around culture in Bratislava, respectively their relationship to each other. It also provides a viewpoint to separate the misperceptions and the fundamentals not only how cultural and creative industries in Bratislava work, but for instance also what post-socialist (or post-communist) cities mean in today’s economy. Two main concepts and theories will be looked prior to studying and mapping the trajectory of cultural industries in Bratislava’s economy; the concepts of clustering (agglomeration economies) and competitiveness (with reference to distinctiveness, as an example).

Here, and throughout the entire thesis, culture is understood in a functional (including activities such as the practice of art, cultural goods and services) rather than an anthropological sense. According to Throsby (2008:45), three characteristics can be attached to ‘cultural’ activities: they involve some form of creativity in their production; they are concerned with the generation and production of symbolic means; their output potentially embodies at least some form of intellectual property. 10

Both areas – cultural industries and post-socialist cities – have been vastly studied and discussed (in their works, authors like Vanhuysse, 2006; Kador, 2003; Webb, 2002; Howard, 2003 and Szelenyi, 2001 try to answer: What did the rapid shift of two very different political regimes, communism and capitalism, bring? etc.). Especially with the former one, new publications and expertise are growing with the trend of cities implementing culture into their policies and infrastructures (e.g. within education in the form of specialized schools or courses, apprenticeship programmes, etc.). The terms, however, may create notions of fuzziness (What do they mean? How do we measure the impact of cultural industries in a local economy? Which occupations belong to this sector? What is a post-communist or post-socialist city? Is the term directed to spatial or social dimension of urban systems? Etc) Studies on cultural industries in post-socialist CEE societies are a rather rare phenomenon (Primorac, 2006; Musterd et al., 2007; Mihalicova & Paulenova, 2007), nonetheless none so far has been conducted with focus on Bratislava. In this chapter, I will ﬁrst introduce the concept of cultural industries, as understood in a number of (mostly) Western literatures11, followed by the concepts and tools of path-dependency, clustering and competitiveness which are often theorized hand-in-hand with the symbolic or cultural economy of the cities.

1 CULTURAL INDUSTRIES 18

The term ‘cultural industry’ - in its singular form - was first introduced in the late 1940s by two Frankfurt school scholars Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer who expressed their fear of the emergence of film, recorded music and magazines – items of reproductive, commercial and 11 Both writings and studies on the phenomenon of the cultural / creative city and its economy are growing on a rapid pace. However, I have thrived to include and study from materials varying in the periods they were written as well as in opinions and viewpoints they we carrying. 12 This brief definition of cultural industries is used in the ‘The Economy of Culture in Europe’ study, published by the European Commission (2006)

commodified art (Adorno and Rabinbach, 1975). When studying cultural industries in cities, one may have a rather broad picture encompassing a lot of different things, fields and sectors such as visual (literature, film) and performance (music, etc)12 arts. The notions of culture and creativity in the city have been widely discussed and a number of scholars (Markusen, 2006; Peck, 2005; Throsby, 2001 Pratt, 2008, etc.) have troubles with the fuzzy concept of both creative and cultural industries, due to their somewhat divergent interpretations. They have been trying to define what creative and cultural industries are, which sectors and descriptions correspond to the terminology. Pratt (2008) tries to clarify the relationship between the concepts of creativity, culture and the creative industries. Confusion and disagreement among scholars grows when the terms are shifted into political contexts. There seems to be a wider practice (and popularity) of theorizing creative industries (which is also due to the popularity of the term in the last two decades13) compared to cultural industries, and hence a better general understanding of their role in an urban economy. Pratt argues that “for neo-liberal governments, creative industries made a convenient ‘bedfellow’, plus ensured economic, commercial and individualist dimensions” (2008). Further, the definition of culture or creativity seems unclear or even incoherent, as the terms are highly contextual per country and hence difficult to define in consent. Cultural industries, many argue, is a subset of creative industries, with a defined specificity of occupations (KEA, 2006; Throsby, 2008). The term ‘creative industries’ is certainly broad, encompassing lots of different sectors and occupations ranging from an IT professional to an art academy graduate. According to “The Economy of Culture” study, “creativity is a complex process of innovation, combining some or all of the following dimensions: ideas, skills, technology, management, production processes as well as culture” (KEA, 2006:36). Throsby (2008) has analysed six different but widely accepted models of cultural industries (UK-DCMS model, Symbolic Texts model, Concentric Circle model, WIPO Copyright model, UNESCO Institute for Statistics model and the The term ‘creative industries’ – compared to ‘cultural industries’ – is more popular, appealing and even politically responsive, Pratt (2008) argues. His question “Who does not want to be ‘creative’?”, serves as a rather obvious justification. The term ‘cultural’, on the other hand, does not carry such positive associations, mostly because reference to the socalled ‘high culture’ (such as theatre, opera, etc) may create “antipathy, suspicion or even exclusion” as Pratt (2008) writes, or “old-fashioned elitism and conservatism” as Throsby (2001:117) claims. The second reason of the intimidating effect of the term ‘cultural industries’ is that, especially among the artists, it may indicate a commercial, mainstream activity. Of course, nowadays when we talk about cultural industries, we do not mean reproductive art the Frankfurt school Adorno and Horkheimer feared of. “The shift of terminology is not semantic, but highly political”, Pratt (2008) argues. 13

Americans for Arts model), which all have rather different definitions (e.g. there is a clear divergence between the North American and the European understanding of ‘culture’ and/or ‘arts’14) and emphasis (e.g. the WIPO model is focusing most from all on intellectual property rights). Nevertheless, after analysing all of them (Throsby did so with three models) some sectors were appearing in parallel: advertising, film (and video), music, publishing, television and radio (performing arts and architecture did only miss in the Symbolic Texts Model). Similarly, in ‘The Economy of Culture’ report, sectors encompassing traditional cultural industries are cinema, music and publishing. Hence these sectors may, in a wider acceptance, be the core defining cultural industries. The concentric circles model (Throsby, 2001) and the UNESCO model15 have a strong top-down approach, with creative arts as the main agent of cultural industries in the urban economy (Throsby, 2008:227), describing cultural industries as those which: “combine the creation, production and commercialization of contents which are intangible and cultural in nature” (UNESCO, 2006). Both of these models (Throsby’s concentric circles and UNESCO’s description of cultural industries) hold a strong perception on the importance of galleries, museums and informal cultural initiatives which generate a symbolic value in a city’s economy. Pratt (2008) brings in an interesting observation and simultaneously a critique on a number of articles devoted to cultural industries and their role in urban economies, claiming the economic geography ignores the productive dimensions of the cultural industries. He argues that attention is focused too much on the cultural policy of consumption (Florida, 2001; Lawrence & Phillips, 2002) and there ought to be more attention on the cultural and activities around it: “Cultural industries are such an emblematic site of debate and practice; they are a practical example of the hybrid and complex relationships between production and consumption, the symbolic and material” (Pratt, 2008). A similar thought (linking cultural production to consumption) is shared by Scott (1999, 2000) and Evans (2004). Another interesting remark to the production versus consumption focus on cultural industries has been disclosed in “The Economy of Culture” study saying that: 14 15

For instance in the US model even zoos are included in their deﬁnition of cultural industries See http://www.unesco.org/culture

“culture is not analysed as a source of final consumption (as in the case of films, books, music, cultural tourism, etc.) but as a source of intermediate consumption in the production process, most of the time the final product being functional (to the contrary of works of arts or to the output of cultural industries).” (KEA, 2006:36) Throsby (2008) and Scott (2000) claim that commodification of culture is still happening16, but has a different meaning and understanding when it was expressed by the Frankfurt School thinkers mentioned earlier, who failed to see the positive sides of capitalist cultural production and consumption – imposing symbolic values in today’s economy and shaping new historical and social trajectories.

SUMMARY

The increasing importance of the cultural forms of the urban economy, including cultural industries, has been growing continuously in Western Europe. A number of authors and scholars have been – since Adorno and Horkheimer’s rather worrying introduction on ‘commercial’, reproductive cultural products – studying and theorizing not only the deﬁnition, but also the meaning and role of this phenomenon in today’s world. Although the former seems to be still rather unclear (and is by a number of authors meant to be kept a ﬂuid term, p. 14), its meaning and role is often linked to consumption practices, where the production, or a mix match of them, seems to be understated by a number of scholars. Although the role of cultural economy seems to be a global urban phenomenon, a most of the studies focus on large cities in Western countries with (relatively) stable political regimes. The next chapter will analyse the development Bratislava, a (rather) small Central-Eastern European capital with a diverse political past, which is important when discussing the value of culture as a symbolic capital. There is cultural production focusing on economising costs by standardised production processes on one hand, and cultural production based on competitiveness, experimentation, cultural process and constant product differentiation (Santagata, 2002; Markusen and Schrock, 2006b, Scott, 2006) on the other.

2 BRATISLAVA’S URBAN ECONOMY FROM PAST TO PRESENT

Historical image and the urban development of Bratislava have been evolving since the time of antiquity and a number of geographic and natural factors stimulated the stability of the town’s location. The long-term process – the historical transition of Bratislava being a settlement located on a crossroad of transcontinental journeys during Roman times, formerly the coronation town of the Habsburg Monarchy17, then the capital of an independent state18 – will be viewed from a path-dependency perspective (Tilly, 1992; Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; Mahoney, 2000; Kloosterman and Lambregts, 2007; Musterd et al., 2007, Szelenyi, 1996). This perspective is useful when creating a framework as it analyses different factors and how these are revised, while taking into consideration the possibility of deviating pathways within transition of post-socialist cities. Hence, this tool will not provide us with a theory, but rather a concept. Path dependency is probabilistic (Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; Mahoney, 2000), but not deterministic – actors and actions (where notion of city agency is present) are limited by existing resources, which may follow one path or another. While restricting some pathways, this also creates prospects and sources for new pathways. Although the tool of path-dependency is very popular among historical sociologists and economists studying political mechanisms as a geo-historical circumstance and among urban economists when analyzing cultural industries, it often omits ruptures in development 17 Being a Hungarian royal town, a number of emperors have been ofﬁcially coronated in Bratislava (or Pozsony, in Hungarian), from which the most famous one was Maria Theresia (1741). 18 The city became gradually attractive to visitors with its employment opportunities and cultural heritage. There are two main fundamental economic developments during this period that formed and transformed the structure of Bratislava: (1) creation of an administrative, political and industrial centre and (2) a new place of opportunities with a number of job openings and cultural opportunities.

paths (Bathelt and Boggs, 2003)19. Without any doubt, the argument historical sociologists stress - “history matters” – is important, although one should look beyond this rather general reasoning. Ruptures in the socio-cultural and –political development (the inﬂuence of the communist regime) of Bratislava, being a second-tier city not only on a supra-national EU scale, but also compared to CEE cities such as Budapest (during Austria-Hungary) and Prague (during the period of Czechoslovakia) have created a unique trajectory forming the platform for socio-economic and -cultural developments in the city.

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

When looking at the case of Bratislava, we not only need to be aware of the importance of its geographical location, but also the various political systems and ideologies that have passed through it in the last hundred years. The city is almost literally located on the western tip of Slovakia, touching the borders of Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary, whose capitals are within the radius of approximately 350 kilometres. Until 1918, the city was a part of Austria-Hungary, enjoying the status of a coronation town and being economically rather open, compared to the coming decades (Howard, 2003). Concerning its urban development, as of 1937, a period of reconstruction and modernisation of the town started, which is rather a common European phenomenon at that time with two views opposing each other: one being in favour of constructing new buildings and destroying old ones and the other in strong favour of preserving old, historical buildings instead of pursuing new, modern architecture (Webb, 2002).

Bathelt and Boggs (2003) are discussing the transformation of a speciﬁc cultural cluster in a post-socialist city of Leipzig from a path-dependent perspective. Authors, however discuss the notion of ‘ruptures’ in path-dependency and the so-called ‘windows of locational opportunity’ (Boschma and Lambooy, 1999), which are somewhat small and temporary detours from the evolutionary trajectory of an urban system. Authors argue that sociologists or economists using the tool of path dependency often forget about these ruptures and do not include them in their analysis. In the case of post-socialist cities, political situation is a very crucial factor of the cities’ transformation, which was often slowing down the whole process of urban and socio-economic development (where for instance politicized-decision making, corruption played an every-day role). 19

The former has taken place, mostly outside of the old town centre, with a claim that Bratislava as a capital, needs to revive its spirit by getting rid of small, mouldy dwellings and replace them with modern, hygienic ﬂat. After the First World War, Bratislava and the whole country of Slovakia has experienced a number of rather extreme regimes – ﬁrst having a right- wing government (which was though to be necessary to strengthen and nurture the country’s national identity after the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the blooming years of multi-nationalism and –culturalism20) which subsequently transformed into fascism (during the period of World War II) and which was later forcefully changed by a Russian-led socialist regime. Especially through the years of communism (right after the World War II until 1989) the economy in Czechoslovakia was highly centralized (Spulber, 1956) and the country, a so-called ‘satellite state’, followed orders from Kremlin. Contradicting to what happened in the Western world at that time, Slovakia found itself in a regime that not only blocked its civilians from the outside world, but also it’s market economy.

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

In the post-World War II or Socialist period, in 1946, the city’s territory was extended by a joint of eight surrounding villages, which enlarged Bratislava’s size from 68. 58 km² to 187. 88 km², which established the development of a ‘neighbourhood’ or even ‘suburban’ fundament of the city. This was a development that started the building of the ﬁrst blocks of (social housing) ﬂats, typical for the socialist period21. In 1968, several new villages became a part of Bratislava, enlarging its size to 367. 49 km² in 1971. Several authors (Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Swyngedouw, 2004; Brenner, 2004) analyze the social systems of productions and/or modes of economic coordination from a path-dependent perspective. According to Spulber (1956) who made several studies on the economies in communist CentralBratislava has a history of being a multi-lingual city, with Slovak, Czech, German, Hungarian or even Jiddish widely spoken among its inhabitants) 21 Tížik (2005) calls this a period of ‘asocial children of asocial socialism’. 20

Eastern Europe, modes of economic production were divided into two categories – state (socialist) and private (capitalist)22. Even though capitalist forms of production were present, the market was not free – it was strictly controlled by the state, having a bureaucratic administrative control structure. Hence, we can say that both in Bratislava and Prague (as the capital of Czechoslovakia), the main economic actor coordinating institutional arrangements was the state, lead by the authoritarian Soviet Union. According to Hollingsworth and Boyer’s taxonomy of institutional arrangement, Czechoslovakia fits well into the vertical coordination of power (Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997:9) whose main motive is purely self-interest of the state officials and in state-owned as well as private enterprises, hierarchical division of powers was strongly present. Decision-making was highly politicized; economic coordination was divided among the ‘elite’ (Szelenyi, 2001) and adherents of the regime. However, when the country’s political arena changed in 1989, it very quickly affected the behaviours of the city as well. The post 1989 transition in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) has had a major impact on Bratislava’s transformation not only because of a new political situation in Slovakia, but also because of its new role as a capital of Slovak Republic since 1993. When considering the transition of Bratislava after 1989, it not only meant revitalisation of institutions and practices of communism, but also of the ‘leftovers’ of communism23. Authors (Hohenberg & Hollen Lees, 1995; Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Amin, 2000; Herod, 2003; Savitch & Kantor, 2004; Martin, 2006) analysing changes in western world claim that the switch from Fordism to Post-Fordism is simultaneously a switch from one specific set of modes of economic governance to another. Under Fordism, Hollingsworth and Boyer (1997) write, social systems of production were disembedded from the local level and became increasingly organized at a national and global scale. Some authors 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 (Ondroš & Korec, 2006). Hollingsworth and Boyer write that “institutional mechanisms that coordinate the market economy are structures of firms or state and its policies” (1997).

22 It is interesting to notice, that already during the socialist period, economists and state ofﬁcials often looked and took ideas from methods in accounting or economic production from Western literature; that is why we see and recognize capitalist modes in economy (which was mostly observed in the agricultural sector where for instance private enterprises hired labour) (Spulber, 1956). 23 Not only visual sights such as the anonymous facades of the socialist buildings, but also the intangibles such as legacies, modes of production, social systems (behaviours of citizens), etc. are important when studying transition of urban systems.

In the case of Slovakia, it was already after 1989 when the state redistributed its power in economic decision-making, acknowledging the role of the regions (due to decentralization and regionalization) and the foreign institutions active in the market economy of Slovakia. Hence, a combination of different modes of economic coordination is present in Bratislava, as in whole Slovakia. From a macro-perspective of the city’s development, both state- and private-owned institutions were highly centralised (by the state and the supra-institutional government of Kremlin, as already indicated) was after 1989 followed by major decentralisation. Similarly to Swyngedouw (2004), Brenner (2004) argues that state rescaling is either upward (creation of supranational institutions such as EU) or downward (towards the regional or local levels); and regional and local economies are being for the first time recognized in the 1980s to have their own specific developmental trajectory and problems rather than being viewed as parts of a national economic space. Scalar systems of economic production or governance are not fixed, but are highly contextual. Some authors (Hohenberg & Hollen Lees, 1995; Brenner, 2004) argue in their works that the ‘city’ or the ‘state’ are not fixed entities, but rather processes and ‘depersonalization’ of social dynamics, where a historically specific view (path-dependency) is used. The notion of a new term – glocalisation – arises (Evans, 2004; Swyngedouw, 2004), meaning that a new spatial layer is superimposed upon the sub-national political geographies. Santagata and Evans argue that today’s economy (not only of the developed Western, but also of the emerging societies) is based on glocalisation (a local response to globalisation), and that competitive qualities are extracted from cultural production – both tangible and intangible – driven by human creativity and intellectual activity (Santagata, 2002:9; Evans, 2004: 76). In the case of Slovakia, it was already after 1989 when the state redistributed its power in economic decision-making, acknowledging the role of the regions (due to decentralization and regionalization) and the foreign institutions active in the market economy of Slovakia. Hence, a combination of different modes of economic coordination is present in Bratislava, as in whole Slovakia. From a macro-perspective of the city’s development, both state- and private-owned institutions were highly centralised (by the state and the supra-institutional government of Kremlin, as already indicated) was after 1989 followed by major decentralisation. Similarly to Swyngedouw (2004), Brenner (2004) argues that state rescaling is either upward (creation of supranational institutions such as EU) or downward (towards the regional or local levels); and regional and local economies are being for the first time recognized in the 1980s to have their own specific developmental trajectory and problems rather than being viewed as parts of a national economic space. Scalar systems of economic production or governance are not fixed, but are highly contextual. Some authors (Hohenberg 26

& Hollen Lees, 1995; Brenner, 2004) argue in their works that the ‘city’ or the ‘state’ are not ﬁxed entities, but rather processes and ‘depersonalization’ of social dynamics, where a historically speciﬁc view (path-dependency) is used. The notion of a new term – glocalisation – arises (Evans, 2004; Swyngedouw, 2004), meaning that a new spatial layer is superimposed upon the sub-national political geographies. Santagata and Evans argue that today’s economy (not only of the developed Western, but also of the emerging societies) is based on glocalisation (a local response to globalisation), and that competitive qualities are extracted from cultural production – both tangible and intangible – driven by human creativity and intellectual activity (Santagata, 2002:9; Evans, 2004: 76).

DEALING WITH THE PAST

The city of Bratislava was affected by a new political situation and with adjoining changes of the society; new relations in the market economy were established (formal deregulations in removing trade barriers, etc.), property right laws have been revived and new restitutions were created. Therefore, the central and most inﬂuential change was a transition from a central state system to a decentralised system which has largely inﬂuenced the economic production. What is also novel in this period is the boom in the private sector housing (largely due to privatisation, as one of the results of decentralisation). However, private ownership was in the period after 1989 complex and lacking transparency (Hankiss, 2000). Ambiguity of asset ownership was possible because of weak regulatory institutions (Hankiss, 2000), corrupt managers or owners who had access to information and decision making, and who had the power to take advantage of weaker associates. As of 1994, new and stricter demands for the country’s development were established, especially with an application for Slovakia’s membership in the European Union, when legislatures have been changed and adjusted, affecting the economic development. We can say that not only the post-1989 transition, but also joining of the European Union and other networks of economic, social and cultural value has had a major impact on Bratislava’s transformation, which has become to a large extent a subject to globalisation. 27

SUMMARY

History and developmental trajectories can tell us a lot when studying the presence. Bratislava in the last century has gone through a number of rather different regimes – ﬁrst following a multi-cultural policy with an open market economy, then taking strong right-wing measurements, followed by a centralised socialist approach which ended in 1989 and lastly an open democratic regime. What is, however, also important to take into consideration is Bratislava’s rather strategic position in Central-Eastern Europe, forming a triangle with two other capitals – Vienna (Austria) and Budapest (Hungary). This triangle, as discussed in this chapter is not only important because of a common political and cultural, but also its geographic, territorial past.

3 AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES: BREEDERS OF CULTURAL MILIEUS

Studying cultural industries in a specific area is often carried out hand-in-hand with the process of clustering or a socio-economic activity trajectory of a certain agglomeration. Scott claims that ‘geographic underpinnings are decisive for understanding processes of creativity and innovation in the cultural economy’ (Scott, 1999:807). These processes are for instance often characterised by specialisation (by means of capabilities and resources) and density (where there is lots of heterogeneity and diversity of knowledge) (Nooteboom & Woolthuis, 2005). In a dense and market-specialised environment, knowledge (both tacit and codified) and information - fluctuating among numerous actors – may generate innovation. These actors, referred to as creative or cultural workers, are nowadays forming an important market in today’s cities and local governments in many Western cities are competing to attract these people. Scott (2000, 2006) talks about the notion of the creative field as a hub for creativity and innovation or interrelationships encouraging individuals to creative acts; which also holds some kind of critique to Florida’s definition of the creative

city. Creative field refers to an atmosphere and a common set of resources, creating a platform for creative and innovative activities (Scott, 1999:809), whereas Florida’s creative city (2002) is a result of attracting the so-called ‘creative class’ who -supposedly- express their talents and energies, reviving a string economy. Scott’s critique lies mostly in the statement that “communities of skilled and socialized cultural workers are one thing – mobilizing them into patterns of productive labor is another” (Scott, 1999:810). He further argues that the “entire local system of production, employment and social life makes up a geographically structured creative field that under appropriate conditions acts as a fountain head of learning and innovative effects.” Scott argues in his work that “qualities [of a cultural worker] are [not] always submerged in the anonymous apparatus of commodified production, but they are mobilized and channelled by the manner in which the apparatus works, including the ways in which specialized but complementary workers come together in the tasks of cultural production.” (Scott, 1999: 808) A number of authors (Scott, 2006 and 2007; Savitch and Kantor, 2004; Jacobs, 1961; Storper and Venables, 2002; Malmberg, 2002) theorize and focus their analysis on big cities, claiming that inter-firm localisation economies play an important role in small or mid-sized cities, while diversity prevails in larger cities. Scott argues that one common characteristic of today’s cultural economy is that they are concentrated in specific places, “based upon dense networks of producers combined with a dependence on complex local labour markets” (Scott, 1999:807). Similarly Poon and Lai argue that “the sources of agglomeration advantages lie in more specialized activities (or localisation economies) for smaller cities, while the benefits of urban diversity and a wider range of goods and services are associated with larger cities” (Poon and Lai, 2008: 2275). Cultural economy is typically an environment of buzzing inter-firm contact – face-to-face communication (Storper and Venables, 2002; Malmberg, 2002), co-operation between different actors and organisations, tacit know-how and togetherness, which is a part of for instance Jacob’s (1961), Santagata’s (2002), Saxenian’s (2006) or Scott’s (2007) research. Currid (2007) talks about the importance of social networks in a creative and exuberant city, following upon the widely acclaimed theory of Granovetter’s weak ties. Amin (2000), Hollingsworth and Boyer (1997) and Storper and Venables (2002) also talk about the importance of weak ties, face-to-face contact, social bonds, trust, associations, communities and obligations, which often form the non-economic domestic 29

(social) institutions, being crucial factors of success in the international marketplace. In his article “The Strength of Weak Ties” (1973), Granovetter presents a model of interpersonal networks, which compared to many other theorists is not focusing on strong ties, but contradictorily – on weak ones. Within this thesis, they are here seen as essential to individual’s chances and to their interplay with communities; strong ties, according to Granovetter lead to general fragmentation24. Communities in a cluster create and enhance intense, direct ties to one another, but often the weakly formalized ties are the bearers of the creative dynamics of a city. “Place-based communities are not only foci of cultural labor in the narrow sense, but are also vortexes of social reproduction in which critical cultural competencies are generated and are circulated.” (Scott, 1999:809). Hence, when we talk about clusters and cultural economies, we see their connections in locality or place-speciﬁcity and density, creating some kind of a vibrant community . Agglomeration economies not only nurture efﬁciency, in a wider socio-economic sense, but also create a good environment for a creative, cultural milieu.

SUMMARY

The concept of agglomeration economies has been widely studied in the last couple of years, and is often referred to as the ‘new centrality’ theory26. While larger agglomerations are praised for their density, smaller ones are referred to as being more specialised, forming a cluster of niche markets. And this is what it often goes about in today’s knowledge-based / -intensive economy – to be competitive means to innovate and not to imitate (Porter, 2007:266). He claims that weak ties are bridges between the individuals and communities; hence being ‘dyadic’. These ties form short but numerous paths, creating a substantive social cohesion (and hence the important linkage between the micro and macro). These weak ties may represent a kind of meso-stage in society – in between the macro and micro levels. Granovetter’s analysis provides a great step forward in a number or spheres, where human trust and enthusiasm towards political institutions may be (re-)established. He states that only thorough these ‘weak ties’ both social cohesion and mobility are affected; these are the channels through which ideas, inﬂuences or information socially distant from the ego may reach another person. 24

4 MODES OF COMPETITIVENSS

Path-dependency tool provides us with an overall perception of a transformation, with relations to changes in the country throughout the history. The question, however, a number of scholars, urban planners and policy makers ask themselves is: how will a city be able to increase or sustain its growth and competitiveness, where innovation, quality and uniqueness will be a more permanent attribute? In this chapter, attention will be put on a number of forms that have been strongly associated with the notion of competitiveness in today’s urban agglomerations: diversity, density, innovativeness, distinctiveness and authenticity.

DIVERSITY / DENSITY

A number of authors are suggesting the importance of symbolic capital in today’s neo-liberal economy (Herod, 2003; Sheppards, 2000; Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Florida (2001), etc.) as a generator of competitiveness in a city. Sheppard (2000) also debates whether locality or entrepreneurship is more crucial in a highly competitive economy. With rising competition among cities and regions, new strategies need to be implemented. Primorac says that “rapid economic growth has been mainly concentrated in capital cities, which has resulted in the uneven development that is only now starting to develop towards decentralization” (2006). However, others argue that with a greater focus on the symbolic capital, especially the cities or regions of a smaller size are able to keep up with the speed of faster growing cities and with globalization (Markusen, 2006; Scott, 2006 and 2007; Poon and Lai, 2008). Poon and Lai further claim that “cities with diverse amenities Source: Christian Schmidt (urban sociology lecturer at ETH Zurich) during his lecture “Trouble with Henri: From Theory to Research” on 12 November 2008, Conference: Rethinking theory, space, and production: Henri Lefebvre today, TU Delft

have become more attractive places to live in; this generates demand for creative activities like the arts” (Poon and Lai, 2008:2276). Similarly, Jacobs (1961) argues that diversity is essential for sustainability of cities. Author’s diverse and dense urban environment creates random and spontaneous interaction among people. This also facilitates a better circulation of (tacit) information among the creative people, tastemakers27, etc. Four conditions for an ‘exuberant diversity’ are multi-functionality of a district and cities’ parts, the possibility to use different walking paths and ‘opportunities to turn corners’, mixed buildings in age and condition and dense population (Jacobs, 1961:150). Jane Jacobs also distinguishes between primary and secondary diversity, where the former refers to those that bring people to a speciﬁc place (ofﬁces, dwellings, education, entertainment, etc) and the latter as serving the primary uses (Jacobs mentions for instance shopping districts or vibrant streets/districts), hence arguing that both public and private bodies are responsible for creating diversity.

SURVIVAL OF THE “INNOVATEST”

A number of scholars (Herod, 2003; Sheppards, 2000; Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Florida, 2001) argue that in today’s neo-liberal economies, cheap labor (price) is not important anymore; it is knowledge, innovation and quality that matters. The economy is hence becoming more symbolic. This does not necessarily mean that that all the traditional industrial activities diminished in the developed countries (Pratt, 2008; Sassen, 2001), they just moved away to cheaper (and more suitable) properties and labour resources. Brenner argues that it is no longer the nation-states that secure the economic growth and national prosperity, but the cities (or regions). He further argues that cities and regions concentrated with high-value added activities are leaving other regions/cities in the risk of being marginalized (Brenner, 2004); less competitive and/or developed regions are hence closer to the risk of marginalization or negative lock-in (Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; ). 27 Sometime referred to as gatekeepers, Scott (1999) argues in his article that we should be careful with the ‘gatekeeping model’ as it acts as a ﬁlter where not all cultural products pass on to the ‘demand’ (or consumption) side of economy.

Another disadvantage of high-value added activities in cities is that they could result in rapid, short-term projects (where uneven spatial development may appear), rather than an ongoing, gradual, long-term socio-economic growth. Scott claims that “… when individual agglomerations come into head-on competition with one another, some will stagnate and decline as their outputs become locked out of markets by more efficient and appealing producers. Others, however, will find it possible to evade the worst effects of this competition by focusing on specialized niche markets, and this will be notably the case for cultural products agglomerations that already enjoy some local monopoly of style or expressiveness”. (Scott, 2000:19) Martin (2006) says that innovation is very important and he’s trying to describe it through Darwinist thinking – “survival of the fittest”; meaning that who has unique ideas and knowledge, shall survive in today’s competitive economies. All in all, Martin (2006) holds the idea that local externalities are important to an economic success of a region or sometimes even the whole state.

IT’S ALL IN THE MIX: DISTINCTIVENESS / AUTHENTICITY

Florida (2001) deﬁnitely created some kind of hype around the creative city, his books serving as ‘the guide to revitalization’. Although he received various critiques (Markusen, 2006; Peck, 2005, 2007; Scott, 2006 and 2007, Pratt, 2008)28, one cannot deny his work’s novelty and importance in the 21st century. 28 The critique is directed on the impact of Florida’s model on the urban-political agenda of many cities world-wide (Peck, 2005), author’s focus on the middle class (Peck, 2005) which is lacking of connection to economic inequality, poverty, social exclusion (Scott, 2007:1474; Peck, 2007:757); neglecting the complex interrelationships in a creative environment (Scott, 2006:11 and 15); lack of historical perspective – cities are subject to path-dependent growth trajectories (Scott, 2007:1477), ignorance of ‘production’ process in the cultural and creative economy (Pratt, 2008) and on the normative assumption that only highly-educated individuals create the ‘creative economy’ (Markusen, 2006)

Florida’s ‘manual’ to creativity in an urban system includes three main indicators which ought to be present - Talent, Technology and Tolerance. Similarly Currid (2007), who is one of Florida’s students, argues that success in cultural industries depends on technological advances and economies of scale, but different from other industries; it particularly relies on a skilled network. The Dutch representative of the ‘Richard Florida Creativity Group’, Roy van Dalm, added the fourth ‘T’ during his lecture on Creative Cities - trademark29. To some extent, this refers to the notion of distinctiveness (Santagata, 2002; Scott, 2006) and that cities are more engaged in the creative and cultural economy when they can claim the traditional ‘Made in’ as a brand name. With their concept of a ‘distinctive city’, Markusen and Schrock deny the possibility of a ‘generic resurgent city’30 (Markusen and Schrock, 2006:1301) (at least in the case of the US cities) and propose a framework of three dimensions that can help us to analyse urban distinctiveness: 1) productive structure, 2) consumption mix and 3) identity. Similarly, Jacobs (1961) claimed three decades ago that cities will only succeed by making most of their own assets (where reproduction of other cases is possible, but not a key to success). In order to stay competitive, cities need to distinguish themselves from other cities (domestic and international) to attract ﬁrms, workers and residents. It is important to make the best out of what there is and not act as ‘charity to nurture dying sectors’ (Van Dalm, 2008) or rely exclusively on connections with other cities (such as Vienna, Brno, etc in the case of Bratislava). Scott (2000) argues that ‘particular places sometimes acquire durable reputations for the distinctiveness and quality of their products, so that only those places can be sources of the authentic or real thing, while imitations or alternatives from elsewhere are necessarily in some sense doomed to appear as imperfect substitutes’ (Scott, 2000:14) Van Dalm, even though a follower of Florida’s theory, has created his own concept of a creative city. He claims a city needs to be

Lectures organized by Dutch Centre for International Cultural Activities (SICA) in Amsterdam on April 25, 2008, see <http://www.sica.nl/pdf/080509_verslag_creative_cities.pdf> and <http://www.sica.nl/pdf/080404_%20programma_creativecities.pdf>. 30 Similarly, Scott claims that surges of urban economic growth are not applicable to all cities, but have strong roots in the cities’ transformations and in it capabilities to exploit circumstances in their own beneﬁt (Scott, 2008:549). 29

authentic (do not engage in anything that is not ‘you’), activating (not only focusing on cultural tourism but also on the resident’s activities) and all-Inclusive (referring to Jacob’s ‘diversity’ and Florida’s ‘tolerance’); hence, presenting us a Triple A, instead of a triple T, creative city. Although some scholars do have a problem with - yet another - fuzzy term authenticity, Van Dalm presents a clear interpretation – do not play on anything that is not ‘you’. Zukin elaborates on this notion is her article ‘Consuming Authenticity: From outposts of difference to means of exclusion’, where she says that even though the question of authenticity is peculiarly modern31, in Western world, this notion came to life already in Middle Ages philosophy, when one wanted to think about being an open and truthful person, an ‘authentic’ self’ (Zukin, 2008). Authenticity, in this sense, can be also connected to the notion and the problems of the term post-socialist or –communist city. Although there are scholars who accept this terminology (Howards, 2003; Vanhuysse, 2006), some find it problematic or even loosing its relevance (Ferenčuhová, 2007; Szelényi, 1996, Ondroš and Korec, 2006) and propose to use the term ‘Central Eastern-European city’ or a subtype within CEE rather post-communist or post-socialist city (How can we generalise a definition of a post-socialist city as some individual CEE cities are experiencing different developmental trajectories and how does it effect the lives of ordinary citizens?). Zukin claims that “the more connected we are to [a neighbourhood’s] social life, especially if we grew up there, the less likely we are to call a neighbourhood authentic”; in a Lefebvreian thinking she calls it a space of representation rather than a lived experience, “born of the conflicts and solidarities that develop when different social groups share space” (Zukin, 2008). The author prefers objectiveness of Lefebvre’s space of representation to one’s subjective experience of a neighbourhood. As the specificity of everyday (living) experience in a ‘post-socialist’ city is not only difficult to study or even measure, the term in this thesis will be analysed through reference to history, geographic locality, political and social changes.

Brooks (2000) argues that there are certain ‘new words’ (terms with a longer history with newly prescribed meanings) that today’s neo-liberal ‘bourgeois bohemian’ society like to use - such as authentic, unique, organic, etc (p. 83) 31

SUMMARY

To be and maintain being competitive, and especially to draw people in a city means of course not only offering diversity, being innovative, and being profoundly unique compared to what ‘the rest’ is doing, but also having the capability to do so. This has to do a lot with the technology and the skills. Locked-in cities should realize this before its too late, too late to catch up (as in the case of many post-socialist cities like Bratislava) with the forward thinking – competitive – cities.

5 CONCLUSION: HOW DO THE THEORIES AND CONCEPTS WORK?

In this chapter, a number of concepts have been presented, which are useful tools to understand the function(ing) of culture, as a part of symbolic economy, in Bratislava. As already indicated in the introduction, we have a research question consisting of three main parts – 1) the (historical) development of Bratislava, 2) deﬁning which cultural industries affect the city’s development, and ﬁnally 3) evaluating what the roles and outcomes of these actors’ presence in the city. We, hence have a framework of inter-related tools which are vastly used in urban sociology and economy (namely the concepts of path-dependency including ruptures, agglomeration economies and distinctiveness) to explore the pre- and/or ab-sence of the ever more increasing importance of the cultural economy in the 21st century city.

Even though culture and creativity have been characterised as fluid, flowing concepts earlier, and some scholars propose and encourage alternative uses, means and forms of them (Zukin, 1995:290), in order to be able to study or even theorize cultural industries, we who observe and write about cities need factual information, statistical data with categorisation that is sufficient for further analysis, national or international comparison. In the following chapter, the existing data collected from national (Slovak) and European (EU) sources will be presented and analysed in order to investigate the roles and effects of the cultural economy in Bratislava.

PART II QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS: BRATISLAVIAN CULTURAL ECONOMY

In the analytical framework, the concepts of agglomeration economies, competitiveness and cultural industries have been briefly discussed. In this chapter, collected data from sources such as the Eurostat (Urban Audit), Statistical Office of Slovak Republic but also from a document carried out by the Ministry of Culture (Proposal for development of local and regional culture, 2008), are presented in this chapter and analyzed. While many countries in Western Europe (especially the UK, the Netherlands and Finland) promote and put lots of resources and public attention to both formal and informal cultural industries, in Bratislava and a number of other mid-sized CEE cities , the role of this sector as a crucial component of not only local, but also national economies, is often not understood (van den Berg et al, 1999) and hence not recognized. Throsby in his article argues that “studying of the economic contribution of the cultural industries is useful as a means of locating the creative sector empirically within the overall macro-economy” (Throsby, 2008:225). And he adds “arts now can be seen as a part of a wider and more dynamic sphere of economic activity, with links through to the information and knowledge economies, fostering creativity, embracing new technologies and feeding innovation” (Throsby, 2008:229). One of the most evident obstacles when analysing cultural industries in Bratislava is the statistical material, which is often not clear and precise. Data from Statistical Office of Slovak Republic for ‘cultural industries’ are not recognized as a separate field, they are usually put into the category of ‘other industries’ or data for employment in the cultural sector fall under ‘Recreational, cultural and sporting activities’. Cities of Košice, Žilina and Vienna have been added into Bratislava’s analysis for a comparative and critical view, where although categorisation of statistics is coherent (mostly thanks to the Eurostat), missing data do cause problems when analysing the cultural sector (a lot of data on the cultural sector prior to 1999 was not documented with all of the compared cities, including the main unit of analysis, Bratislava). 37

The starting point to compare and analyse the current situation of formal (because of inclusion in the Eurostat) cultural industries are three sectors from the Urban Audit database: cinema, theatre and museums.

1 CULTURAL INDUSTRIES IN SLOVAKIA: WHOSE POTENTIAL?

It has been mentioned earlier, that some scholars believe that large cities or capitals do have an advantage over other cities when it comes to establishing and nurturing a ﬂourishing cultural economy. However, in a number of data comparisons, the city of Žilina (a middle-sized Slovakian town) shows a rather strong position within the cultural industries sector compared to both Bratislava and Košice (the second biggest city in Slovakia). The city, although not large in size , has a similar density to the one of Bratislava, hence equally having a chance to create a cluster economy. For Bratislava, as the capital, this number is rather worrying as it has been shrinking over the years and is about three times lower than the population density of Vienna /Table 1/. Population density - total resident population per square km City/Years 1989-1993 1994-1998 Bratislava 1202.9 1230.4 Kosice 964.6 991.0 Zilina Vienna 3710.5 3844.3 Table 1 - Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat

1999-2002 1166.1 968.3 1067.5 3735.2

2003-2006 1156.6 967.9 1065.9 3855.2

The claim from the agglomeration economy model presented in the previous chapter says that the denser a city is the more tacit knowledge, collaboration, face-to-face contact there is. Amin similarly writes that the ‘city through its physical structures and proximate links, facilitates faceto-face contact in order to build trust’ (Amin, 2000:122). Trust evokes tolerance and safety, as Jacobs (1961) and Zukin (1995:275-76) are writing; but how does this mirror in the Bratislavian everyday life? According to the surveys from 2006 published by the Urban Audit, Bratislava 38

scores lowest in ‘feeling safe in the city’ (74.9% compared to 80.7% in Košice and 92.4% in Vienna) (Table 2). Feel safe in this city (Percentage) (2006) Value/City Feel safe in this city (synthetic index 0-100) Always Sometimes Rarely or never No reply

Bratislava 74.9 31.7 41.4 24.5 2.4

Košice 80.7 4.3 38.9 19.0 1.8

Vienna 92.4 62.2 30.0 7.6 0.2

Table 2 - Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat

Another survey from Urban Audit, 2006 shows how foreigners are integrated into the cities’ environments (Table 3). Even though Bratislava scored in the previous table lowest with regard to safety, it scored better with regard to trust and tolerance towards foreigners, even compared to the capital of the neighbouring Austria. Foreigners here are well integrated (Percentage) (2006) Value/City Satisfied (synthetic index 0-100) Very satisfied Rather satisfied Rather unsatisfied Not at all satisfied No reply Satisfied (rather+strong) Unsatisfied (rather+strong)

Bratislava 75.1 4.8 46.1 14.3 2.6 32.2 50.9 16.9

Košice 82.8 9.2 44.5 9.2 2.0 35.1 53.7 11.2

Vienna 30.8 7.6 21.0 39.9 24.2 7.4 28.5 64.1

Table 3 - Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat

2 FACILITIES AND PARTICIPATION IN THE CULTURAL ECONOMY

When looking at the data from the three earlier-mentioned sectors (cinema, theatre, museums) included in the Eurostat database, city of Žilina here, again, is very close to the situation of the Slovak capital, and manifesting a strong development towards culture. Although the annual attendance of theatres per resident (Table 4) is decreasing in both Bratislava and Žilina, the numbers are very similar (especially between years 2003 – 2006). Annual attendance of theatres per resident City/Years Bratislava Košice Žilina Vienna

1999-2002 1.51 0.64 1.22 1.61

2003-2006 1.06 0.43 1.03 1.54

Table 4 - Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat

Similarly, the number of theatre seats per resident are decreasing, and it is again noteworthy to look at the numbers for Žilina, which is rather close to the number of the capital (Table 5). Number of theatre seats per resident City/Years

1999-2002

2003-2006

Bratislava Kosice Zilina Vienna

9.38 5.28 1.22 1.61

8.67 4.48 1.03 1.54

Table 5 - Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat

However, when we compare how many theatres there were in 2006 (Table 6) in Žilina (four) and Bratislava (twenty) - hence one offering a more diverse cultural economy than the other - the numbers become ever more worrying for the city of Bratislava. The number of theatres City/Years Bratislava

1999-2002 18

2003-2006 20

Kosice Zilina Vienna

7 2 41

7 4 44

Table 6 - Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat

Other interesting numbers are shown in the table below (Table 7), where Žilina exceeds Bratislava with visits to museums per resident per year. Annual visitors to museums per resident City/Years Bratislava Kosice Zilina Vienna

1989-1993 1.04 0.86 6.14

1994-1998 0.94 0.79 -

1999-2002 0.79 0.37 0.55 4.47

2003-2006 1.10 0.41 1.36 5.54

Table 7 (Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat)

This is quiet striking, as Žilina has a much lower number of museums (one) compared to Bratislava (ﬁfteen) (Table 8).

Number of museums City/Years Bratislava Kosice Zilina Vienna

1999-2002 8 2 1 91

2003-2006 15 2 1 104

Table 8 (Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat)

When we look at the case of Košice, which now plays a relatively crucial role in the cultural economy, being one of the 2013 Capitals of Culture, the numbers corresponding to cultural participation are worryingly low and in fact decreasing. Although the second largest city is not a big competitor to Bratislava with regard to the creative and cultural economy, this could (and has a high potential to) change as of 2013. Some of the numbers are relatively high in the case of Bratislava, even compared to the more metropolitan Vienna, for instance the number of cinema seats per resident33 (Table 9). Number of cinema seats per 1000 residents City/Years Bratislava Kosice Zilina Vienna

1999-2002 20.5 7.67 14.05 23.68

2003-2006 22.96 8.99 14.07 19.50

Table 9 (Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat)

This rise and higher number compared to for instance Vienna may be due to opening of at least two (Polus City Center, Aupark) US type of shopping malls

Bratislava also scores highest with cinema attendance among the Slovak cities (again, compared to Žilina and Košice), with an average of 3.08 visits a year per resident in the years 2003 – 2006 (Table 10). Annual cinema attendance per resident City/Years Bratislava Kosice Zilina Vienna

1989-1993 3.774 3.117 2.768

1994-1998 1.563 2.579 2.451

1999-2002 2.669 0.878 1.221 3.620

2003-2006 3.080 0.644 1.588 3.345

Table 10 - Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat

A study carried out by the Ministry of Culture in 2006 concluded that not only does the (ﬁnancial) amount given to support arts and culture decreases with the size of a city (the bigger a city, the smaller the cultural ﬁnancial support/development), but also the average spending on culture/arts per inhabitant does decrease with the size of city (Table 11). In bigger cities this may be due to the decentralization of culture as mentioned in the previous chapter; similarly the intention to socialize and create the feeling of altruism is bigger in smaller cities, hence supporting cultural activities grows. Although the report does not mention which characteristics do describe large or mid-sized towns; the latter was associated with a lower participation/consumption in cultural activities. Size of a city (number of inhabitants)

% of ﬁnances given on culture from the city’s total budget

Average spending of inhabitants on arts/culture (in Euros, in 2006)

> 500 500 - 1000 50.000 – 100.000

16.3 2.3 0.9

52.78 9.23 2.79

Table 11 - Source Ministry of Finance, Slovak Republic

According to the Eurobarometer 2006 survey34, Slovakia as a whole was doing very well in cultural participation compared to other EU-27 countries; data specifically for Bratislava are however missing. Only 17% if respondents indicated not to have participated in any artistic activity (after Sweden, Estonia and Luxemburg). With regard to cultural consumption, the country scored lower (this was mostly reasoned as culture being ‘expensive’ (45%) and poor quality/limited choice (34%). General cultural participation and consumption (various activities ranging from playing a musical instrument to reading a book) was found highest with young, urbanized and higher-educated individuals. The following table shows us the satisfaction of inhabitants with their cities’ cultural facilities (it is only unfortunate that we cannot see the numbers for Žilina, as culture is gradually increasing in the city’s overall infrastructure). Even though Košice did not score very well with afore-presented cultural statistics, in the survey conducted by Eurostat, more people are satisfied with cultural facilities (83.2%) than in Bratislava (78.9%) (Table 12). Satisfied with cultural facilities in 2006 Value/City

Bratislava

Satisfied (synthetic index 0-100) 78.9 Very satisfied 12.6 Rather satisfied 56.8 Rather unsatisfied 15.9 Not at all satisfied 2.6 No reply 12.2 Satisfied (rather+strong) 69.3 Unsatisfied (rather+strong) 18.5 Table 12 - Source: Urban Audit Survey, Eurostat

Kosice

Vienna

83.2 17.9 54.0 13.8 0.8 13.6 71.9 14.5

96.1 71.7 20.8 3.4 0.4 3.6 92.6 3.8

Source: <http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_278_en.pdf >

The notion of culture and arts has a strong connotation on a national base (Eurobarometer 2006 survey), although when we look at local developments, numbers start to look differently. A study by the Ministry of Finance of Slovak Republic from 2006 concluded that the smaller the city, the more ﬁnances (from both the local government and citizens) are spent on cultural activities. Žilina and Košice, which are compared to Bratislava smaller in population, are gradually gaining very similar proﬁle with regard to cultural industries as the capital. Hence, Bratislava has to adopt new or improved policies to tackle competition on the national scale.

3 EMPLOYMENT IN CULTURAL INDUSTRIES

A number of scholars (Throsby, 2008; Pratt, 2008; Poon and Lai, 2008) write about the roles and importance of cultural employees in today’s urban economy. The KEA study from 2006 shows that employment in the cultural sector has been rising in the developed countries. Similarly, Scott (2000) argues that cultural industries have a growing importance in both employment and the national income (even the situation in Slovakia conﬁrms this in Table 13). Throsby further writes that “cultural industries – ranging from heritage, performing arts to museums and galleries are magnets for tourism, high-tech content-creating industries as signiﬁcant contributors to regional incomes and employment” (Throsby, 2008:229). The number of cultural industry workers in Slovakia is rather low (ration of one worker per thousand residents)35 and in fact one of the lowest in EU-2736. Source: Study conducted by the Ministry of Culture in March 2008 Bulgaria and Luxemburg scored equally (1,8%) and only Poland (1,7%), Portugal (1,4%) and Romania (1,1%) scored lower (Source:<http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-77-07-296/EN/KS-77-07-296EN.PDF>) 35 36

According to Eurostat, in 2005 only 1.8% (40,300 employees) of the total number of employed people in Slovakia was in the cultural sector37.

1 600 000,00

Turnover of own output and goods of recreational, cultural and sporting activities at Thous. EUR

1 400 000,00 1 200 000,00 1 000 000,00 800 000,00

Thous. EUR

600 000,00 400 000,00 200 000,00 0,00 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Table 13 (Source: Statistical Ofﬁce of Slovak Republic)

Nevertheless, the data of the Statistical Ofﬁce of Slovak Republic show that the overall number of employees in the ‘recreational, cultural and sporting activities’ has been rising since 2003 (Table 14). One of the problems with analysing and evaluating information based on these data is with classiﬁcation.

The average number in EU-27 was 2,4%, with the Netherlands and Iceland having the highest proportion of 3,8%. (Source:<http:// epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-77-07-296/EN/KS-77-07-296-EN.PDF>) 37

Leadbeater and Oakley claim that we cannot characterise today’s cultural workers into “neat categories” (Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007), which could be one of the reasons why using employment statistics in researching these groups is rather difﬁcult. It is expected that a number of cultural workers are self-employed or freelancers and hence may not be included in the overall data collected (Thorsby, 2001:114)

Number of employees of recreational, cultural and sporting activities in Slovakia 13 000 12 500 12 000 Persons

11 500 11 000 10 500 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Table 14 (Source: Statistical Ofﬁce of Slovak Republic)

2007

Even though historical data of both the Slovak and Bratislavian situation are missing for a more thorough and critical comparison, the proportion of Bratislavian cultural employees (Table 15) seem rather stagnant (for instance compared to Žilina, whose number doubled within a period of seven years).

Proportion of employment in culture and entertainment industry City/Years Bratislava Kosice Zilina Vienna

1999-2002 0.034 0.016 0.005 -

2003-2006 0.036 0.012 0.011 -

Table 15 (Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat)

There are creative talents in Bratislava and the number is growing, although slowly (Table 16). One of the biggest challenges for Bratislava in the coming years will be to keep the leading role as a cultural and possible creative city of Slovakia. The number of employees seems to grow dramatically in Žilina, and even though the data in the table below do not look too promising for Košice, the city is going to experience a boom in establishing and growing its cultural industries as a 2013 European Capital of Culture. Number of persons employed in the culture and entertainment industry City/Years Bratislava Kosice Zilina Vienna

1999-2002 10686.0 1989.0 290.0 -

2003-2006 11154.0 1530.0 615.0 -

Table 16 (Source: Urban Audit, Eurostat)

Although data are presented on a national level, there is a clear growing national income from goods and services of the cultural sector (Table 13) in Slovakia, resulting in growing wages of employees in this sector (Table 17).

Average wage of employees in recreational, cultural and sporting activities in Slovakia, in Euros 800 700 600 500 400

EUR

300 200 100 0 2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Table 17 (Source: Statistical OfďŹ ce of Slovak Republic)

Employment in the cultural sector has been growing over the last couple of years, forming a potential and strong cluster in the market economy on both the local and national scale. This development, hence, strongly invites policy makers to adopt new measurements.

4 CONCLUSION

In this chapter, the Bratislavian situation with regard to cultural economy in the last twenty years (since 1989) has been examined. Data provided by the Eurostat and the Statistical Ofﬁce of Slovak Republic show that participation cultural activities in Bratislava are strikingly low compared t o the numbers in smaller cities such as Žilina and Košice. Even though density in Bratislava is not growing – which is an important factor for an evolving cultural economy (Scott, 2007 and 2008), Bratislava does have one advantage over these cities, and that is its proximity to Vienna, forming a cluster (Lehner et al, 2005; Cheshire, 2006:1239) – hence allowing the city to grow into a CEE metropolitan character. The city may gain a lot socio-economic advantages by being a part of different networks, where a better engagement with international issues is being created and its competing position is developed and strengthened. The data and numbers provided in this chapter will be more thoroughly discussed in the following chapter, where the above mentioned notion of altruism, Bratislava’s potential as a cultural city, cultural employment and the city’s location will be addressed.

PART III QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OUTCOMES & DISCUSSIONS

In the previous chapters, main concepts, tool and theories such as path dependency, cluster economies, competitiveness and defining cultural industries were introduced, followed by a quantitative data analysis with reference to Bratislava’s cultural economy. Below, a broader discussion will follow – how does the post-socialist city of Bratislava fit into the theoretical knowledge of the topic? How could or does theory work in practice? Moreover, information from semi-structured in-depth interviews are incorporated and analysed in this chapter. Topics, that will be discussed in this chapter may resemble an extended theoretical part and quantitative analysis of this thesis. Factors that influence and create the cultural economy of Bratislava will be here dealt with: civic involvement, environment of large- or smallsized entreprises, clustering, competitiveness, pre-/ab-sence of cultural industries, promotion, and last but not least employment / participation.

1 RE-EMERGENCE OF THE CRITICAL MASS

Bratislava is a city, which has gone through not only an economic, but also a cultural, political and social change after 1919 and 1989, opening to international markets and globalisation. Different aspects such as open market regulation, changes in property rights, internationalisation, social polarisation, etc. reflect the outcomes of various processes including the urban development of the city. Studying scholars discussing developments in the Western world, the social systems of production seem to be similar to the former Easter-Block, as already indicated earlier. During Fordism, standardized production (Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997) took precedence, as well as it was during communism. What is striking is that the amount of money spent on culture, education and research was much higher before 1989 than it is nowadays. Today, we live in a market economy that is no longer profitable with cheap and standardized labor. More flexibility, but most importantly innovation and knowledge is needed. Agreeably with Hollingsworth and Boyer (1997), the role 51

of knowledge and education in today’s social systems is increasing. One would think that today – an era of transformation and strengthened economic role within the European continent – Slovakia’s knowledge-based institutions would be established, expanding, experimenting, fluctuating, etc. Unfortunately this is not completely so (Hankiss, 2000, ); there is a rather limited platform for artists, scientists or young talents to present themselves and their aspirations do not seem to be acknowledged and appreciated by the (local) government(s). The country (similarly as a number of other ‘new EU’ member states) is missing an assertive attitude38 of individuals, with new thoughts, initiatives that not only enrich the nation itself but its position in the world. Another factor playing an important role when talking about knowledge and thinking forward is that Slovakia as many other new EU countries are still on their way to catch up with the older EU states, from a social, political and economic point of view. The country has been trapped in the process of modernisation after 1989 – the country became decentralised, evolving its regions with a poor stature and role in the country’s politics. What also contributed to a ‘deformed modernisation’ (Hankiss, 2000; Novosad, 2003) were also existing classification systems, snobbery, corruption, often passive low- efficient society. Similarly, a number of CEE scholars agree that one of the main challenges will be to bring creativity into post-socialist societies - new ideas, better know-how and more think-tanks. A number of scholars (Kador, 2000; Urry, 1999) have expected post-socialist societies to be strong and vibrant (bringing novel, unique or outstanding models), however some talk about the weakness of civil societies in CEE (Howard, 2003; Vanhuysse, 2006; Szelenyi et al., 2001). A creative society is lively, buzzing, thinking aloud – in a positive sense. Participation in the public sphere or NGO associations is rather low in CEE countries in general (Howard, 2003; Vanhuysse, 2006). The post-communist disappointment and decades of involuntary membership in communist organizations have created a deep mistrust and antipathy in joining organizations or participating in the ‘civic life’. Bratislavian intelligentsia may have brought a new level in certain public discourses in the period of 1960s and the 1980s, but it definitely does not reach that level now (Novosad, 2003; Szelenyi et al., 2001). The deficits in the development of the civil society have created a so-called mute society (Hankiss, 2000), where an assertive attitude of individuals, new thoughts, initiatives or even values (such as civic obligations) are missing. 38

In Slovak, the expression ‘Nech sa paci’ (English translation would be ‘here you are’) is I think very eloquent, expressing a rather passive, ‘anything goes’ or ‘it does not matter’ attitude

Even politicians have troubles leading a so-called ‘civilized public discourse’ (Hankiss, 2000) where rationality and consideration rather than narrow-mindedness are substantial components. Howard (2003) argues that there are two ‘cures’ for this: either a generational change or a more supportive role of the state. Although both methods represent improvement, is there an alternative to foster a lively civic society? Markusen (2006) suggests that where civic involvement is missing, artists may be characterized as nurturing public debate and civic participation. Hence, establishment of centres of artistic practices would help in this sense. A number of authors (Currid, 2007, Florida, 2001, Scott, 1999) argue that creativity only happens when there is a community involved and that artists can in this sense act as key actors (Markusen, 2006). When more people are involved in the city’s economic development ,and hence a bottom-up approach is supported (Scott, 2006), more space for creativity and dynamics will exist. Similarly, with nurturing and creating more SMEs, not only large corporations will be involved in economic development.

2 HEADQUARTERS VS SMEs AS SPACES OF ECONOMIC PRODUCTION

Having a number of advantages towards other European cities - available space, resources (human capital, infrastructure, etc), costs, etc – the capital has experienced a strong shift of multinationals setting up their offices in Bratislava. In this sense, it is the market segment of office space that is nowadays most developed and sought after in the property market in Bratislava. Approximately 1.1 million m² of office space is available in Bratislava39, from which about a third are of quality standards in Western Europe. Source: <http://visit.bratislava.sk/en/vismo/dokumenty2.asp?id_org=700014&id=1085&p1=2511> (Last accessed on October 16, 2008) 39

Most of the office buildings were built during communism and these often do not meet the standards of their tenants. Nevertheless, in the coming five years, the municipality has made a plan to increase the number of high-quality office space building in Bratislava of about 50%. An interesting point Taylor brings up, is the localization of organizations’ headquarters, claiming that they are less important than for instance regional centres, because headquarters are ‘usually a product of history, the origin city of a firm’ (Taylor, 2000:26). Even though Bratislava has no history of hosting bigger offices or headquarters (due to having played the second or third fiddle after Prague or Vienna during the times of Czechoslovakia and Austria-Hungary), it is one of the fastest growing cities in Central Eastern Europe in terms of growing number of offices and foreign organizations having settled there (e.g. becoming the finance headquarter for DELL EMEA40). A number of scholars have stressed in their works no relevance between the number of headquarters of large corporations a city has and its economic growth. Sassen41 claims that cities are not about the number of headquarters, but about their capabilities and similarly, Markusen (2006) and Jacobs (1961) have expressed a similar opinion. At the moment, the main focus of the Magistrate of Bratislava is to attract as many corporations as possible, even neglecting or underestimating the role of SMEs in the city. Even though the city has the space to offer for new building projects (aimed at the knowledge-intensive and service industries), Bratislava’s green areas and spaces for cultural and creative production remain to be very modest. Small enterprises or SMEs (which Jacobs, 1961:145, claims are generating diversity) do not seem to be important or associated to be the driving forces of the economy for policy makers in Bratislava at the moment; big organizations mean big players, and those mean big (and quick) money. Large corporations seem to create a rather static, rigid and unsustainable environment, whereas small and medium sized enterprises bring a healthy dynamics of innovation and competitiveness, creating spaces of not only economic, but also cultural and social activities. Therefore, Santagata and Leadbeater and Oakley for instance urge the local governments to support small firms and start-ups (Santagata, 2002; Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007:300) Porter argues that such microeconomic business environments (Porter, 2007:264) are often formed into clusters, where buyers, suppliers and other institutions operate close to each-other. Even though Bratislava does not follow a policy of supporting small or middle-sized entreprises, the following chapter will show us that Bratislava is indeed part of a cluster, and whether or not it has to do anything with the cultural economy. 40 41

See http://www.job.dell.sk/buxus/generate_page.php?page_id=398 (Last accessed on September 9, 2008) During her lecture in Utrecht, April 28, 2008

3 BRATISLAVA IN A NETWORK ECONOMY

Both of the institutions - the state and its capital - have a rather short history (the on-andoff existence of Slovakia as an independent state from 1939-1944 and from 1993 till today counts for a mere 20 years, while Bratislava exists as a capital of an independent nationstate for almost 16 years now). When analysing scales from a historical perspective, it is difficult - if not impossible - to place Slovakia in the traditional scaling system of states. The discourse that the traditional ‘meso’ (or national) level of the state is disappearing (Swyngedouw, 2004) and that the role of supra-national and global or regional scales is growing, is a worrying one in Slovakia. While coping with the „burden” of the past (problems which has been unresolved in earlier periods of the history like relations with minorities or building national consciences), the Slovak society has to deal with the new challenges posed by globalisation. Nevertheless, rescaling took a more significant turn after 1989, when the scales became more downward (towards the regions and cities) as a result of decentralisation. Subsequently, the role of the cities strengthened not only internally (within a nationstate), but also externally (as a part of European city-network, etc.). Also, in the period of 1990s (when for the first time foreign investors showed interest in establishing their businesses in Slovakia) and after 2004, there was a different shift in state rescaling, which could be characterized as upward (towards supra-national institutions such as the NATO, EU, etc. and adhering the challenges of globalisation)42. Brenner (2004) also talks about the creation of various new institutions and policies having a role in urban governance (such as the European Union’s Structural Funds, the Committee of the Regions, etc.). Hence, from socio-political perspective the national conscience is (or should be) strengthened through politicians and grass root movements, while the role of foreign partners (inter-national and global) is growing in economic terms. Slovakia has a rather young history of a national scale, and a rather lengthy existence of adhering to a supra-national scale throughout the history (e.g. during Austria-Hungary, Soviet Union) and today (e.g. the EU, NATO).

Bratislava has been in the past prevented from any kind of outward development by iron curtain of the totalitarian regime, but nowadays as a NUTS III region (meeting the standards of the EU); it is able to enhance its territorial and service-related relations with other cities within a network. When we talk about post-socialist cities forming city networks, the comparison to world city networks and their trajectories will look confusing at the first glance (mainly when looking at the size and a rather short or at some stages slow developmental trajectory). Although comparing Bratislava or its surrounding region(s) to global agglomerations may seem difficult, some similarities with Saxenian’s analysis of global regions (2006) and Taylor’s study of world cities (2000) can be pinpointed. Saxenian (2006) concludes in her study that it is often the world regions that are the major source of the socio-economic development and wealth of a nation-state. Taylor (2000), on the other hand, analyses different cities, categorizing which cities are ‘world cities’43, which are potential ones, etc. An interesting shift we can observe in the case of Bratislava is the shift towards network economies (e.g. city-networks, cross-boarder regions) which opens a special category in the discourse of (re)scaling. Bratislava holds clearly a strategic position within Central Eastern Europe. With Vienna and Budapest in a perimeter of 200 km, the city faces a challenge of positioning itself in the European network of big cities. There have been a number of initiatives taken by the Bratislavian and Viennese municipality (e.g. with regard to better transport connection between the two or co-operation in cultural events, development of horizontal co-operations where scholar, student and artists-in-residence exchange programmes are nurtured); the city also belongs to the CENTROPE region, a cross-boarder polycentric urban region with Brno (Czech 43 Taylor (2000) and Sassen (2001) call these cities which dominate the flows and trans-state processes in the global economy, where quality (unique knowledge) prevails quantity (standardized services). World cities, according to Taylor do not necessarily need to be large in population (for example Calcutta or Lagos are referred to as mega-cities) and even post-socialist cities like Prague, Budapest and Warsaw are included as the smallest world cities of today. Bratislava, in his list, is represented as a city with ‘some evidence of a world city formation’ (Taylor, 2000:15) - in the same category with Birmingham, Rotterdam or Oslo for instance.

Republic), Győr (Hungary) and Vienna (Austria)44. Clearly, an example of such a network breaks the barrier of traditionally divided geographical relations of ‘local’, ‘regional’, ‘national’ and ‘global’ (Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Malmberg, 2002) and verifies the development of new inter-levels of cross-border regions and city-networks (Kloosterman and Lambregts, 2007). With building and maintaining its networks with other cities and regions, Bratislava may regain its metropolitan character from the beginning of the 20th century, when Slovaks, Czechs, Hungarians, Germans and Jews were living and working together45 (Image 3). Representatives of this polycentric region are busy developing creative and cultural industry strategies, figuring out how to support organizations active in the field. On the other hand, a critique to the viewpoint of regional polycentricism would be whether citynetworks or a poly-centric spatial layout46 is indeed strengthening and forming a unique cultural and creative character of this rather small and young capital? Meijers (2008) has looked at a Dutch example and concludes that the least polycentric (or the more monocentric) a region is, the more cultural amenities it can provide, reasoning on the presence of more specialized services and diversity. One of his strongest points was that:

Image 3: Bi-linguality in the city: Čistiareň – Putzerei text on an old building’s façade in the centre of Bratislava. The building of a new building (lower in the image) may symbolise the trend of standardisation, decreasing diversity.

See: http://www.centrope.info One of the few spaces of this multi-national pre-WWI is still to be felt at the Žilinská marketplace, in central Bratislava, where Hungarian farmers from southern regions of Slovakia sell their home-grown fruits, vegetables and similar products. 46 Polycentricity means plurality of centres and a lack of strong hierarchy in a given area, no city dominates over another with regard to economy, culture, etc. 44 45

“policy-makers assume that taking a set of small or medium-sized cities together opens up possibilities for regional economic growth. Taken individually, these cities fear being overlooked, but taken together try would be able to ‘play in the major leagues’ of national or international competition” (Meijers, 2008:2323) Similarly, Scott (2000) and Evans (2004) argue that polycentric regions are characteristic of high levels of product differentiation (because of highly agglomerated activity systems): “ … if at one stage in the recent past there seemed to be much evidence, both empirical and theoretical, in favor of the view that cultural production and consumption throughout the world was becoming more uniform, more massified, more Americanized, there are now indications to suggest that contrary trends are occurring, and that the further intensification of globalisation processes may well be associated with a markedly more polycentric and polyphonic system of cultural production than has been the case in the recent past” (Scott, 2000:20) In any case, co-operation in this sector and region is in its infancy (Lehner et al., 2005); however, is there an actual potential for this? Currid (2007) argues that the “ability to transform culture into a product for the marketplace requires clustering of creative production”. An interesting question for the future may be: ‘will there be a central creative or cultural hub in the former Eastern Block, or will cultural industries be nurtured by creation of a cluster – a region where Western (in this case Viennese) influence will serve as inspiration or a trend setter?’ Although the platform is smaller compared to other cities, and ‘cut & copy’ practices do not (and should not) work, a study of the Österreichische Kulturdokumentation47 from 2005 showed that the production-oriented areas in the Slovakia and Hungarian parts of the region create a solid milieu for cultural talents, and hence nurturing a more content-oriented environment. The study concluded that the structure of the Central European Region forms very good prerequisites for cross-border cluster formation in the areas of music, film and design. Boschma and Lambooy (1999) argue that spatial formation of a new industry is determined by chance (random events)48 and necessity (agglomeration advantages), respectively a ‘window of See http://www.kulturdokumentation.org/eversion/publik_proj/centrope.html Boschma & Lambooy’s (1999) chances are accidental, unpredictable notions, emerging from triggers determining socio-spatial patterns. Similarly, Gladwell (2000) talks about ‘tipping points’ which are small, random ‘pushes’ or ‘triggers’ to changes with bigger or sometimes even major impacts on the development of a certain event.

47 48

locational opportunity’, meaning that spatial formation of a new industry is not a deterministic process, but with an unconscious influence of human agents (Boschma and Lambooy, 1999:425). Newly emerging industries provide an opportunity for lagging regions to escape the vicious circle of former exclusion effects. Although regions and cities have the capacity or ability to adjust or renew their economies, “intangible and uncoded assets, information linkages and supportive institutions are hard to copy and difficult to transfer into other areas” (Boschma & Lambooy, 1999:415). The problem here is the negative lock-in, which explains inflexibility and the problems of adjustment (Boschma and Lambooy, 1999, Scott, 2000). Cheshire argues that the assumption that a polycentric region embodies more efficient urbanism is lacking testing (Cheshire, 2006:1239). The author, however, mentions Bratislava and Vienna as one of the most ‘persuasive and interesting examples’ of urban regions (Cheshire, 2006:1244). Both neighbouring cities behave, at the moment, as equal partners, which actually enhances their competitiveness (Saxenian, 2006). Even though the city is slowly getting its foot in the door of today’s globalising world, by adapting some of its policies and adopting new economic measurements, Bratislava visually does not resemble a European cosmopolitan capital. As a visitor, you will not find a high street, typical in many Western cities for its exclusive retail premises. Instead, you will find a number of shopping malls and hypermarkets spread on the edges of the city centre. Similarly, you will not find a so-called cultural district49 similar to the ones of the neighbouring Vienna or Budapest.

Santagata distinguishes four models of cultural disctricts: industrial-, institutional-, museum- and metropolitan- cultural district (Santagata, 2002:11)

4 COMPETITIVENESS

BRATISLAVIAN TOURISM AND GENIUS LOCI

In order to become and stay ‘active on the European map’, hence the market economy, the city of Bratislava needs to pursue competitive strategies. Even though the previous chapter described the advantages of co-operating with the city of Vienna, a certain measure of competitiveness (resulting in Bratislava’s advantages) exists, which will be addressed here. Although the ‘classic’ authors of cultural and creative economies such as Jacobs (1961) and Florida (2001) write about the importance of diversity, civic involvement or tolerance in order to create a sustainable urban environment, two aspects which seem overshadowed, however applicable to the case of Bratislava, are the notions of activeness and distinctiveness. Both are very important when studying Bratislava and may be an interesting case for other medium-sized cities or capitals in Europe. Bratislava is known to be a ‘one-day city’ for visitors, both foreigners and Slovaks. Is it usually an optional package-trip destination for tourists in the near-by Vienna, a sort of ‘escape from the metropolis’. But it is not only the visitors that should feel there is a lot to see and experience50, but also its inhabitants. An interesting initiative in this sense is a recent publication of A4 called “BA! Od Ufa k Ufu” (“BA! From Ufo to Ufo”), promoting Bratislava’s ‘forgotten’ but unique places, serving as a kind of alternative tourist guide not only to Bratislava’s visitors, but also to its residents. The publication nurtures an alternative tourist of the city – both the resident and the visitor, establishing the activating effect (Van Dalm, 2008). From the perspective of a city being activating and all-inclusive, the feeling of tourist experience can be generated. For this, cultural Cities are not called for nothing as generators of the ‘experience economy’, or called ‘city as entertainment’ 50

institutions can be a crucial motor. Tourism has been growing in the city and Bratislava slowly starts to follow the path of an ‘activating city’ Van Dalm (2008) proposes. Although official numbers from Eurostat for the most recent years on tourism in Bratislava are missing, an article in one of the leading daily newspapers says the number has been growing dramatically every year, counting up to 735.183 tourists51 (both foreign and from other parts of Slovakia) in 2007. Although Bratislava was already discovered by young Britons who invade the centre for stag parties and drunken weekends, it is only a matter of time when the city, as other second-tier and less-known post-socialist CEE cities (such as Ljubljana or Brno) will be discovered in order to avoid an over-crowded cultural and historical experience52. Bratislava needs to strengthen what its good at, which brings us to a fundamental question: What is the specialized economy in Bratislava?, What are the embedded economies in Bratislava?, What is the specificity of economy that is taking place? or What has fed Bratislava in economy overtime? These questions are difficult to answer, as not much theoretical background, empirical work and evaluation of economic development practices exists (not only in the case of Bratislava, but for many other cities as well). Nevertheless, the concept of distinctiveness is being valued as one of the preconditions of a sustainability and competitiveness in urban sociology literature (Zukin, 1995; Markusen and Schrock, 2006). With regard to the first pre-condition of distinctiveness, Markusen and Schrock (2006) propose – product differentiation, Bratislava has a long history of being a wine-producing region, although according to one of the urban sociology interviewees, the number of vineyards is diminishing. Also, without any statistical evidence, we cannot characterize Bratislava with a special consumptive pattern (such as choice consumers make with regard to product, price, place of origin, etc)53. However, a number of the respondents claimed that what makes Bratislava most distinctive is its identity, historical and cultural heritage. Some of the interviewees said Bratislava is not particularly special and is copying and catching up with other cities. Nevertheless, it has a good position from which it could extract; the city lies on the Slovak boarder where Anglo-Saxon (Austria), Slavic (Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine) and Finno-Ugric (Hungary) cultures meet, which is important for identity awareness formation. Unlike architectural practices or mainstream consumption practices, cultural heritage (Throsby, 2001:51) is a unique intangible that is not possible to replicate and creates a special atmosphere of a place – a genius loci. Source: <htp://bratislava.sme.sk/c/4093889/zahranicni-turisti-v-meste-lamu-rekordy.html> Only in Slovak) As of 1 January 2009, when Slovakia will adopt the Euro, it is expected to be even easier and more attractive for foreign visitors to come to Bratislava. 53 An interesting point Zukin (2008) gives us which I could connect with Bratislava’s office space boom, is that she claims alternative ways of consumption are endangered by the extent new office buildings and constructed. 51 52

SIZE DOES NOT MATTER

A few keywords or phrases have been used often with several scholars (Harvey, 2001; Martin, 2006) – uniqueness, authenticity, aesthetic experience – as important drivers or factors in a successful competition nowadays. These phrases can mean a lot of things and can be highly contextual, but are applicable to cities no matter what size or developmental path trajectory. Although Jacobs (1961) argues that larger cities offer more diversity and hence are more sustainable, however Bratislava – as a rather small capital with 426.09154 inhabitants – does have a potential and even some advantages over big cities to become a sustainable urban economy where cultural industries may play a big role. In their articles, Markusen and Schrock (2006), Porter (2007) and Poon and Lai (2008) endorse and explain the advantages of mid-sized cities and the attractiveness of cultural industries to their symbolic capital and localisation economy. The authors talk about city’s size and its agglomeration as an advantage – mid-sized cities with the feeling of ‘togetherness’, existence of ‘weak ties’55 (Granovetter, 1973, Hollingsworth and Boyer,1997, Amin, 2000), ‘face-to-face contact’ (Amin, 2000, Storper and Venables, 2002, Malmberg, 2002), where a solid and well-developed infrastructure and civic involvement are equally important ingredients of a creative and cultural hub. Even thought Jacobs’s diversity is more embraced in bigger than small or mid-sized cities, the feeling of ‘togetherness’ (Jacobs, 1962:62) she describes is stronger in the latter. Bratislava has a big city rush and a small town atmosphere at the same time. The city is so small, that people know each-other, through weak-ties (common acquaintances, existence of inter-disciplinary co-operation, etc.) They may not have met or are not meeting often, but the connection exists. The interviews conducted in Bratislava for this research prove this fact - all of the interviewees knew each other or at least heard about each-other. And if they did not know, then they had a common friend or acquaintance. Source: Statistical Ofﬁce of the Slovak Republic, 31.12.2006 Weak ties, however, can be also criticized as reproductive or distancing, or even excluding marginalised or not-networked entities (some humans, of which artists are a good example – are resistant to socialisation). 54 55

Also, as Bratislava was a rather small (but very picturesque and hence calling) city core, people often do ‘bump’ into each other – eat lunch at the same or near-by places, walk to the same little streets, etc. The issue of ‘walkability’ in Bratislava is very important here, as you can really walk almost anywhere in the city. Gladwell (2000) describes the phenomenon of hundred and fifty employees (where a company would not hire more than this number of employees, and if it was expanding it would open another office, and so on). The point here is not that a city should follow a similar strategy and once it reaches a maximum, it should open another ‘branch’. This does not happen in reality (although now when looking at certain suburban areas, this idea fits to a certain extent). Gladwell’s point, however, was the smallness, togetherness which creates a certain knowledge-network, where people know what is happening. Storper and Venables (2002) argue that hard inter-firm input agglomeration tend to be found in mid-sized cities, whereas soft knowledge-based input urbanisation economies are found in large cities. This statement is disproved by both Markusen and Schrock (2006) and Poon and Lai (2008). Their articles reason why not only large cities seize the knowledge-based economies; creative activities are not absent from second-tier cities – “when information is highly uncodified as is with the performing arts industry, face-to-face interactions and the social networks that develop as a result may be even more important” (Poon and Lai, 2008:2275). Storper and Venables however do agree that “social networks arising from face-to-face contacts create more efficient partnering, increase co-operation and reduce the free-rider problem”56 (Storper and Venables, 2000; Scott, 2006:12). One of the fundamental questions when mapping and researching cultural industries in a city, is to ask whether the city has a solid cultural and creative platform, and if so, what or who drives its economy? Slovakia has a well-developed art scene, although rather weakly incorporated into the everyday civic life. The culture, arts and creativity, are not (anymore) necessarily linked to the capital Bratislava (as argued earlier in this thesis, both cities of Žilina and Košice, are slowly in the position to compete with Bratislava for the creative talents). Bratislava used to hold the status of the cultural capital in the country since it is the capital – people from surrounding villages and regions came to the capital for culture – theatre, concerts, and exhibitions. In the 21st century, the competition is growing and the city simply cannot sit back and do nothing. Bratislava has to develop and create its own path as it not only has to compete with surrounding European capitals such as Vienna, Budapest or Prague, but also with Slovak cities such as Žilina or Košice. The previously mentioned passive, non-participant behaviour can be associated with ‘zeal’ or the ‘free-rider problem’ (More on the notion of ‘zeal’ in Olson, 1965 and Coleman, 1990). 56

As already mentioned earlier, artists and other creative talents are often missing places where they can work or present their works. It is building of new business centres and ofﬁce architecture that the city focuses on and nurturing a creative environment in such an environment will be difﬁcult, unless a better (and more effective) cultural agenda supported both by the municipality and local institutions (such as design centres, museums, galleries, etc.) will be created and supported. The reason there are so many new projects in building these multi-functional business centres is the available space to build, strategic (central-European) location (proximity of Vienna, Budapest, Prague), cheaper property and land prices and less strict real estate laws (compared to the older-EU states). There is, however, a debate among urban economists whether accessibility and resources (affordable facilities, etc) or human capital are primary conditions for a lively city with an economic growth. Poon and Lai argue that “affordable facilities, existing audience development, existing public opinion and presence of local cultural history” (Poon and Lai, 2008:2280) are equally important when localizing cultural economies into mid-sized cities. Hence, both - localisation economies and availability of creative-related workers – are important elements.

IS BRATISLAVA ATTRACTING URBAN CREATIVES?

Primorac (2006) in her study argues that it is capital cities that have a leading role in their country with regard to cultural industries. This is, however, largely being challenged by smaller cities in Slovakia, hence Bratislava having rather serious competitors in this sector. One of these cities is Košice, the second larger city in Slovakia, located in the eastern part of the country, hence a geographical antipole of Bratislava. Košice, is one of the 2013 European Cultural Capitals57, and has invested already a lot to its plans to incorporate the idea of a creative city into its infrastructure. Pratt argues that even though Together with the French city of Marseille; see:<http://www.kosice13.sk/index.php/util/changeCulture/culture/en> (Last accessed October 1, 2008) 57

“the ideas of the creative class and the creative city should not be confused with the city of culture (a policy pursued by the European Commission), … concepts do have one commonality: they are instrumental policies which seek to use culture or creativity to achieve specific non-cultural ends”. (Pratt, 2008:107) Two interviewees, represented in a formal Bratislavian organization focused on cultural economy independently from each-other, expressed their view that the reason why Bratislava has not progressed with their application to the second round competing with other candidate cities for this title in Slovakia, was the poor campaign of the city government which automatically assumes that culture is embedded in Bratislava as the biggest and capital city in Slovakia, hence not much is needed to promote or position itself in this area. “I do not believe Bratislava did not consider to become the European Cultural Capital in 2013; it just behaved in a rather naive and unprepared way which was smartly taken advantage by other candidate cities”, said one of the interviewees. Another city ‘breathing on Bratislava’s neck’ is Žilina, located about 200 kilometres north-east. The city is unique being the first city joining the Trans Europe Halles58 network of independent cultural centres with their cultural platform Stanica59 (the second existing centre of this kind is located in Košice, called ‘Kasárne Kulturfabrik’60). Both Košice and Žilina are strong cultural competitors to the capital, providing a diverse cultural infrastructure and attracting creative talents. Jacobs (1961) would probably ask: “Is Bratislava turning away from nourishing culture and creativity? Does the city think it can survive without any special effort – just because it is having a historical and well-known name ‘Pressburg’ or ‘Poszony’?” Cities such as Žilina and Košice are putting lots of effort both through formal and informal institutions to nourish their capabilities and foster the economic and social growth through culture. Bratislava simply has to realize its local talents (will) have better opportunities either abroad (for instance the near-by Vienna) or in the newly setting ‘creative cities’ Žilina and Košice. “What ultimately perpetuates creativity is the influx of a new guard” (Currid, 2007:13). And she continues: “Creativity is fundamentally about generating new ideas and new forms, and much of this is dependent on new labour pools who bring forth fresh ways of interpreting the world” (Currid, 2007). It is important to find out how cultural workers experience cities that they work in, and how their urban surroundings contribute to the development (and transformation) of creative industries. See <http://www.teh.net> See <http://www.stanica.sk/main.php?page=NEWS&lang=EN> 60 See <http://www.kasarne.sk> 58 59

Throsby (2008) talks about the concept of the cultural production chain, with seven phases: “1) creation, 2) production, 3) dissemination, 4) exhibition/reception, 5) consumption/participation, 6) archiving/preserving and 7) education/training” (Throsby, 2008:225-226). One of the interview questions, for young artists or students of art, was whether they feel there is enough space for them not only to present or exhibit/perform their works, but to create and possibly even sell it? With regard to the half-way stage of Throsby’s production chain process – presenting and exhibiting finished art (products), the problem is not that serious. 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 Factory61 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 (Image 4) 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. Similarly, the Magistrate thinks some neighbourhoods need to be revitalized, with spaces being culturally and symbolically enhanced62.

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See <http://www.designfactory.sk/index_en.php?a=1&b=2&c=0> (Last accessed on September 9, 2008) An example for this is an integrated project of the city and students; ‘Gardens for everyone’

Image 4: GUMON building (June 2008) has been demolished in August 2008 without the approval of the local government. A new business district Eurovea will stand on its place.

In her article “Urban development and the politics of a creative class: evidence from a study of artists” (2006), Markusen argues that the establishment of centers of artistic practices is needed because artists do act as creative agents of economic development in cities. Young artists have space for exhibiting at the Gallery of City Bratislava, gallery of the Art Academy ‘Medium’, and have the possibility to make themselves known and seen with (even a nomination to) the prestigious Oskar Čepán Award, or awards of bigger banks, such as VUB or ING. The answer to this question becomes more problematic when we talk about available studios and the possibility to actually make money with art. At the moment, possible places to sell or put art on the market are Soga63 and Sotheby’s in Slovakia. Zukin says that “auctions and the publicity surrounding them set a new career model for aspiring artists” (Zukin, 1995:142). Even though these are platforms for both well-established and young artists, these rather high-brow auction associations offer a limited platform to a limited audience. Some artists use, for instance, the close-by Viennese ‘Kunst-Messe’ which broadens their doors. With earlier reference the path-dependent perspective and modernisation of Bratislava’s architecture and infrastructures in the 1940s-1970s, we can say that history not only matters, but also repeats. What is happening in today’s urban space of Bratislava, is that old (especially) industrial buildings are being torn down to be replaced by high-rised buildings designed by internationally renowned architectural studios (Image 5). 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. 63

See http://www.soga.sk (Only in Slovak)

SUMMARY

Image 5: Area (close to the central bus station Mlynske Nivy and the former Gumon building) which has been already ‘cleared off’ the old industrial buildings, waiting for a new real estate project for servicebased industries, shopping and living.

In this chapter, three issues have been tackled with regard to Bratislava’s compatitiveness in both the international and national cultural economy. Bratislava has been as a rather popular one-day trip destination in Central Eastern Europe, competing for tourists with mostly Vienna and Budapest, both within a 200 km radius. The city should become more ‘activating’ not only to attract tourists and visitors, but also new – creative – residents. Its advantages in this could be: 1) its multi-cultural background, with a strong Central European historical heritage which represents a symbolic, intangible but sustainable asset, and 2) size which allows face-to-face contact, feeling of togetherness, trust and circulation of tacit knowledge. The following chapter will describe in more detail the meaning of culture and the role of the cultural sector in Bratislava – ﬁrst today and then in the past.

5 WHICH BRATISLAVIAN CULTURAL INDUSTRIES?

The definition of culture or cultural industries has a rather political context in Slovakia, due to the decentralisation of culture after 1989, hence appearing somewhat formally and tensely in the legislature and policy-making agendas of local governments. In March 2008, the Ministry of Culture presented a proposal for the development of local and regional culture64, which is rather critical65 to the current national situation with regard to supporting arts and culture66. This document, first one since 1989, is defining the importance of those actors in culture which are outside of the institutional (or governmental) sphere and is referring numerous times to competitiveness of cities and regions, role of the human capital, sustainable urban development, pinpointing the importance of volunteers and the public (civic participation) and introducing the terms creative and cultural industry for the first time in a national governmental document. Culture, according to the document is a ’phenomenon which covers aspects of a sustainable and urban development, quality of life, cultural identity, historical and societal continuity. Culture and cultural heritage of every town or city should create the feeling of home, security, but also increasing the attractiveness of its territory, for its inhabitants, local firms as well as for visitors or possible investors’ (p. 3 – 4).

In Slovak: “Navrh Koncepcie rozvoja miestnej a regionalnej kultury” (See http://www.rokovania.sk/appl/material.nsf/0/ D30CA7D0917EBC7C12573B7004C4C38?OpenDocument) 65 Some of the critical points were weak civic consciousness of the importance or value of culture for local and regional development and improvement of quality of life, meaning of architecture is undervalued, inadequate education in cultural marketing and management, inadequate societal evaluation of cultural activities of individuals, collectives, institutions and local councils 66 The cultural sectors this proposal covers are not fully determined or deﬁned, as it only mentions: “adult education, museum and gallery activities, theatrical activities, audiovisual activities, preservation of cultural heritage, library and other activities in the cultural sector” (p. 3). 64

Even though the political conceptualisation of culture exists in Slovakia’s regions and cities, it is rather difficult of analyse cultural industries as such, as the term does not seem to be well-understood67. Primorac in her paper argues that creative industries (hence culture too) are city-centered: “there are two levels of centralization in process as far as culture and creative industries are concerned. Historically state funding has been centralized in the region. And now private investment, in companies of all kinds, is drawn to the capital cities of the region. Not only are the creative industries businesses concentrated in the capitals of the region, but also is the cultural infrastructure, such as cinemas, theatres, concert halls, clubs and so on.” (Primorac, 2006:34-35). The main focus of today’s culture in Bratislava is aimed at state-funded institutions, such as the Academy of Fine Arts and Design68 and the Academy of Performing Arts69. Therefore, it is important that grass-root cultural initiatives are willing to make decentralization happen. In the case of Bratislava, one of the most important examples as an actor of decentralization is the organization ‘A4 – Nultý Priestor’70, a centre for contemporary culture. ‘A4’ has a community atmosphere, building on relations and co-operating mostly with students and people in need (mentally, physically disadvantaged or citizens with financial problems). ‘A4’ is residing in the very centre of Bratislava (Image 6), occupying an old and previously unused building belonging to the Ministry of Culture. In this sense, A4 is – thanks to the Ministry’s grants and other funds - financially surviving. The organisation is a clear example of an actor having an influence and support of the national government, while fostering a critique on the current situation of cultural industries in Bratislava, and to a certain degree creating cultural politics in the city71.

This information is deducted from the in-depth interviews conducted; often even a general understanding of the terms ‘creative economy’ or ‘cultural industries’ was missing. What is more, the latter evoked mistrust from various actors – a young graduate from an art academy, policy maker from the magistrate and two sociologists. 68 See <http://www.vsvu.sk/3> 69 See <http://www.vsmu.sk> (Only in Slovak) 70 See <http://www.a4.sk> 71 The organization regularly organizes debates ranging from cultural to urban issues in the city, nurturing a healthily critical environment. Besides this, the organization has a strong publicity in the media. 67

There is a tendency for artists and musicians to share the same space and to merge their work and social lives marks today’s cultural economy as well (Markusen, 2006; Scott, 1999, 2001; Bathelt and Boggs, 2003; Kloosterman and Stegmeijer, 2004). Are there networks or cultural clustering in a geographic range also in Bratislava? Artists and creative people do seem to form some kind of an informal community72 and often help and support each others’ activities. It is a similar phenomenon Saxenian (2006) describes in her article “The New Argonauts”. Scott (2006) and Currid (2007) claim that in cultural industries, the notions of co-operation (including free ﬂow of information) and competition cover the creative production. Being a part of the cultural industries is hence not a hierarchical supply-demand process, but rather a “heterarchical peer review” (Currid, 2007:224), a ﬂowing process of creation (Pratt, 2008) and ultimately consumption (Florida, 2002). Currid (2007) argues that in order to create and ensure a sustainable cultural economy in a city, there needs to be a “critical mass of diverse creative producers” (Currid, 2007:129), who are working, living together or connecting through other activities (these can be incubators, but also clubs or even the streets – ability to ‘’run into each other’). Even though Bratislava is rather small and ‘walkability’ and weak ties play an important role, the so-called ‘critical mass’ is missing and should not only include artists, but also scholars, policy makers, members of diverse disciplines and last but not least – the public. 72

Deducted from in-depth interviews

Image 6: Entrance to A4 in central Bratislava (Námestie SNP / Square of the Slovak National Uprising), residing in a former building of the Ministry of Culture which was empty and dysfunctional for a while.

Although Pratt (2008) shows us some thoughtful constructive critiques on the hype around commodiﬁcation of arts and culture, he categorizes creativity as an individualistic and not social activity. The act of producing or even consuming culture may happen on an individual basis; however outcomes of such activities can be associated with collective activities, such as civic participation, joining associations, social experience, etc. Similarly, Leadbeater and Oakley claim that cultural workers (whom they call the ‘Independers’), do have individualistic values, but have highly collaborative working practices (Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007:303). The line between top-down and bottom-up decision making – between formal (policy makers) and informal (inhabitants) decision making should be blurred. Hence, as Howard (2003) would argue – new engagement from the city residents’ side is needed and a new input from local politicians - new kind of politicians, who create public space for debate, facilitating discussions, where grass-root organizations (such as cultural initiative A4 and others) are equally important to create a robust public arena for discussion. Some authors (Zukin, 2008; Pratt, 2008; Throsby, 2008) suggest that cultural industries (galleries, art museums, informal cultural initiatives, etc) do create social spaces which subsequently enhance civic life (Image 7 and Image 8a and 8b). Having now a clearer picture of the creative / cultural sector in Bratislava, how did this actually evolve and look like in the past? During the Habsburg reign, Bratislava belonged to a mono-central region, where Vienna dominated over other bigger cities or towns, being one of the most cultural and 73

artistic cities of the early twentieth century (placed next to London, Paris or Berlin). After 1918, not only Bratislava but other cities were facing a continuing challenge to sustain their artistic and scientiﬁc tradition and creativity within a politically (hybrid mismatch of Marxist and Fascist powers) and culturally (leaving German, Hungarian and Jewish intelligentsia) narrower environment. “Academism prevailed over innovation; personal creativity and the anxieties it addresses were out of fashion” (Webb, 2002). Interestingly, the Socialist relation to culture and arts was to a certain degree very similar to the Fascist; both regimes were fond of heroic and monumental representations. Both created distrust among institutions and individuals, praised science and unsustainable technology73 but repressed other forms of creative thinking and practice. It is amazing how much was produced during the Fascist and Soviet era – in the former mostly weapons for the Germans and latter all kinds of industrial production emerged – steel, machines, building infrastructures. However, since all these large manufactories were state-owned, there was no need to be innovative, compete with other. As a consequence, the quality of products decreased, development of technology slowed down, and the connection between science and technology and product manufacturing started to vanish. Infrastructure was similarly unsustainable; during communism, roads were built to accommodate the needs of the population of that time. Roads were built with the thought that there will be one car for every tenth person (at that time, one had to be on a waiting list to buy a car and they were very expensive, counting up to a few-year salary). Due to increased automobilisation, the former Jewish quarter in Bratislava was partially destroyed by building an unnecessary highway bridge in central core under the castle, today an icon on most of Bratislavian postcards. 73

Image 7: This is a window of one of active private art galleries in central Bratislava, Nova Design Store at Venturska street

There was, in fact, no room left for ‘l’art pour l’art’, arts had to present ‘the good’ of the state. Until the 1968, one probably would not hear about ﬁlms, literature or music criticizing the regime. And if one would, this piece would get censored and its author been imprisoned, best case kept abroad as a political dissident. When the country was freed from arts repressing communism, the ‘new blood’ or generation of artists longed for arriving curators from Western countries, who would discover the unique character of their work, evolving with the inﬂuence but no restricted collaboration the non-Socialist world74. Soon it was realised that such a passive-aggressive behaviour of the Bratislavian arts scene does not bring anything but cynicism. It was mostly the capitalist ability to ‘sell oneself’ that the post-communist atmosphere was lacking. Knowing foreign languages, how to present and sell ones works are essential skills in today’s globalized cultural economy. Hence, the somewhat passive humbleness (‘nech sa páči’) ought to be replaced by somewhat more assertive and spontaneous behaviour in Bratislavian culture and arts scene, creating a fructifying society as a whole, with new thoughts, perceptions, institutions or even answers (Novosad, 2003). Bratislavian culture and arts were during the last 150 years a matter of dislocation – artists and talents being displaced75. Nowadays, even though dislocation of artists and talents still happens (due to decreasing mobility barriers), nurturing existing and settling new cultural industries in the city should be more effective. Trust, diversity76, technology and human capital are not only important for the ability to adjust to new socio-economic realities (Boschma & Lambooy, 1999), but also to creating a sustainable cultural economy and environment (Jacobs, 1969; Florida, 2001, Santagata, 2002:10).

74 Although arguable, some scholars say that the transition in CEE did not bring anything, but disappointment (not being able to show inspiring, new, novel ideas, abilites, etc), the artistic value –which is less known abroad - transition brought is for instance the so-called ‘Action Art’ (Umenie Akcie), which served as a defence against the political system, and was present in music, theatre, fine arts and poetry from 1960s -1980s. Another unique artistic path the system created was for instance in photography. 75 During Habsburg times, the norm for the intelligentsia was to study in German; hence they left for studies, and during Fascism and Communism fled because of the suppressive regime. 76 Ability to be flexible, as a prevention against negative lock-in.

Images 8a & 8b: One of the active private galleries in Bratislava, Bast’Art Contemporary (Stetinova Street), owned by one of the interviewees of this thesis Petra Feriancova. Feriancova lives with her mother (right) and daughter on the ﬁrst ﬂoor of a few storey building, while the gallery is situated underneath (left), the basement are of the building.

SUMMARY

6 PROMOTING BRATISLAVA’S INTANGIBLES

Bratislava did not, and still does not have a thriving creative environment, where culture and arts are acting as generators of the local economy. Although there are initiatives stressing the role of symbolic, intangible assets, the local government still seems to neglect and not understand the output of such development. One of the important elements of understanding is spreading the knowledge. The next chapter will address on the encouragement of the cultural sector – both as a top-down and bottom-up approach. When asking who contributes to creativity and culture in the city, actors such as artists or cultural policy makers are not the only ones to mention or to be held accountable. Interesting, but also pivotal actors are various NGOs, grass-root cultural and informal organisations, as well as the media (Internet, press, etc). Of course, one of the key institutions is the European Commission, who is without doubt the largest ‘donor’ and supporter of nurturing European culture77. In Bratislava, few of the biggest organizations are the British Council, Cultural Contact Point Slovakia, A4, who are all (directly or indirectly) contributing to the Lisbon Agenda of 2010, strengthening the city’s competitive and innovative features. According to KEA, a Brussels-based independent cultural and creative industries consultancy, “cultural investment is also associated with the promotion of the city, its image, its heritage and a means of attracting tourists” (KEA, 2006). Similarly, Leadbeater and Oakley argue that the role of culture in city branding and hence attracting “students, inward investment and tourists” (Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007:304) is more important than ever before. The discourse and the ‘trend’ of supporting and decentralizing the role of cultural industries in Bratislava is growing slowly, but steadily. 77 From that perspective maybe it is not such a big surprise that the European Commission has appointed 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. Creativity and culture encompass multiple social, political and economic functions. Culture can be regarded as an ‘ambassador’ and as a vehicle for European values (tolerance, diversity, pluralism, etc.). The European Union is promoting itself as culturally diverse, but should also create better and more coherent European policies for culture, where cultural products will not be seen as mere tangibles but symbolic products deserving a special attention.

A number of debates, seminars organized by grass-root non-governmental institutions and supported by governmental institutions (EU and/or national) have been organized in the past months, although without a major press coverage or promotion among scholar, politicians, students or even civilians from various disciplines that would mix and create a dialogue. Poon and Lai argue that there is a need to integrate the public and civic involvement into the “promotional mix of a city” (Poon and Lai, 2008:2286). Zukin adds on the importance of media in promoting a city: “When a critical mass of these spaces was established, it was publicized not only by word-of-mouth but also by an alternative press – or today, the websites. This buzz draws on a much larger market, some of whom come as consumers and remain residents”. (Zukin, 2008:730) In Bratislava, there is still a considerable lack of debate how creativity can contribute to the development of the city, and more attention in the media is therefore needed. Gladwell (2000) writes about an epidemic when things or events are reaching the peak of a discourse. He writes that a small movement needs to happen in order to generate a ‘tipping point’, as the eponymous book states. And it is not only one epidemic focused on one thing only, but lots of them. This is, when a discourse is becoming a word-of-mouth discussion, or appearing in the media. Hence, the role of an ‘interested’ journalist is important. These actors do not necessarily need to be the ‘tastemakers’ or ‘gatekeepers’ as Gladwell (2000) suggests, but people who promote and generate the flowering of a contemporary urban and cultural economy instead of unnecessarily filtering it. Within the cultural industries, these actors could be exhibition curators, fashion columnists, book reviewers, film critics, etc. The City Gallery of Bratislava (Image 9) is trying to promote the culture through educating the youngest ones78, which may not only contribute to economic (higher cultural production and consumption in the future), but also social development of the prospective Bratislavian population79.

Project ‘Umenie zblizka’ (rough translation: ‘Art Close Up’) has been established in 2006, this year having launched its second year. See <http://umeniezblizka.gmb.sk> (Only in Slovak) 79 According to Throsby, formal education activities in museums may yield both private and public beneﬁts in the form of an individual’s human capital and future private economic beneﬁts – for instance higher productivity, earnings, etc (2001:36) 78

Bratislava is promoting and marketing itself as the “Little Big City”, which often stays loosely in interpretations, being a bit fuzzy and broad. According to Zukin, “… our visual images of cities are ﬁltered through the cultural products that we consume as well as by our memories and daily lives.” (Zukin, 1995:287). Arguably, branding is important for the city’s distinctiveness and hence competitiveness, although one should be careful with slogans that do not say anything about cities, a feeling, a sphere with regard to the city is important to express and strengthen (Van Dalm, 2008). It is rather unclear how the city is trying to position itself – and as what. Bratislava is promoting and labelling itself as the ‘little big city’, which hangs a bit loosely and is unclear how the city wants to be perceived not only by its visitors but also its citizens. According to Castells “the process of historical transition experience by European cities leads to an identity crisis in its cultures and people” (Castells, 2000:7), being a part of the ‘new urban experience’. This idea ﬁts very well especially with

Image 9: Entrance of the City Gallery Bratislava, Panská street

post-socialist cities such a Bratislava. It is a city where people from other parts of Slovakia ‘migrate’, which results in naming Bratislava a ‘big village’. The ‘Little Big City’ is situated on the border of three countries and is in search of its identity in Europe. In his essay, Tížik has a problem to categorize Bratislava – is it a metropolis or a city? Or is it, despite being the capital of Slovakia, a village? A suburb of Vienna? A city, in his words is “a sphere of plurality, freedom, of open public spaces, a world of surprises and unexpected situations, heterogeneousness and of inevitable tolerance” (Tížik, 2005). When trying to analyse these characteristics on the example of Bratislava, here again – the path dependency is a useful tool. When the country’s political arena changed, it very quickly affected the behaviours of the city as well. During the authoritative regime, intolerance became present, people being mistrustful, hiding their identity (within the context of this period, people were for instance concealing their religions, political stance, etc). In this sense, the city gradually transformed itself into a culturally, ethnically and politically homogenous, however a socially intolerant place80. Bratislava, even though as a rather homogenous city has to be able to cope with heterogeneity coming from the outside, or even with the small heterogeneity it has – namely the immigrants from abroad but also ‘immigrants’ from different corners of Slovakia. Bratislava and ‘her’ idea of tolerance must be compatible with the European. It will be therefore important to support the trend which will enable and facilitate multi- or bi-linguality again, as it used to be a societal standard before the First World War. Formerly called Pressburg (German), Pozsony (Hungarian) and Prešporok (Slovak), after the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy and the establishment of the ﬁrst Czechoslovak Republic in 1919, it adopted as rather Slavic sounding name ‘Bratislava’81, trying to fade away its Germanic and Hungarian inﬂuence and re-establish its Slavic image. Even nowadays, we can distinguish two main groups of Bratislava’s inhabitants, dividing the city into a pluralistic Prešporok and monoethnic Bratislava82 (Tížik, 2007). Bratislava is from a number of aspects a hybrid city. Appadurai (1996) claims that the ‘central problem of today’s global interaction is the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenisation’. The name was created in the 19th century as a joke by a group of students of the Faculty of Lutheran Theology, who called it the ‘brothers (brat) of fame (slava)’, inserting a vowel ‘i’ to make it able to read. 82 Even though the socialist regime tried to reduce the use of the former Hungarian or German names of the city and institutions, old residents but also some new ‘emigrants’ proudly call themselves ‘Pressburgers’. They usually comprehend all three languages of the old city, often preferring the ‘traditional’ German or Hungarian. This ‘multilingualism’ hence distinguishes them from ‘Bratislavians’ (Slovaks or Czechs) coming mostly from the countryside. 80 81

The question is how – if actually possible - can Bratislava incorporate this broad and intangible ‘asset’ of multi-nationalism into its competitive urban economy? O’Connor (2007) claims that cultural policies are connected to promotion of culture in a city. Similarly, Newman argue and Smith that it is the role of the local government to promote cultural industries to the residents, by getting them involved in training programmes, embedding such development in the local economy (Newman and Smith, 2000). Zukin, in her work talks about the so-called “cultural” strategies of economic development (Zukin, 1995:271) that (some) cities call attention to. This can be done through focusing on museums, preservation of architectural landmarks, or giving attention to local SMEs and supporting artists. However, the Slovak National Gallery does have the ambition to create a small museum cluster in the city centre83, although this seems as an idle or delayed aim. At the moment, Bratislava does not seem to have a cultural strategy of its own84 and only the coming years will show whether such a framework will become a window of locational opportunity (Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; Bathelt and Boggs, 2003), creating a cultural hub on a European level.

SUMMARY

The city’s positioning in the international and national economy and encouragement of the cultural economy are playing an important role in the development of arts and culture in the city. As there is not much of a strategy from the ‘top’, initiatives from grass-root organisations to promote a new type of economy should be supported. One of the most crucial elements in this, will be discussed in the following chapter – and that is the cultural workers and other ‘contributors’. Source: http://hnonline.sk/3-19473900-kni%9Enice-k00000_detail-6a (Article in Slovak, published on 9 November 2006) (Warhol? Dobra reklama) 84 This is deducted from the current developments of tearing down post-WWII industrial buildings and failing to accept the value of these architectural landmarks, and hearing from the Magistrate of the City which follows the policy of boosting and attracting large multinationals rather than investing in small and medium sized enterprises or even independent cultural entrepreneurs. 83

2001:341; Zukin, 2008), or as Brooks calls them ‘bobos’, bourgeois bohemians 7 EMPLOYMENT Sassen, (Brooks, 2000). This is very much so happening in all European smaller or larger cities, a trend of organic food shopping (Ley, 1996:306-308; Zukin, 2008), working part-time to AND spend more time bringing up your kids and enjoying the joys of life . Even thought we are through a global financial crisis, we still do have the money and courage to spend it, PARTICIPATION living living the ‘quality life’. Scott (2000) argues that one of the most significant changes brought by post-Fordism was a completely new employment environment, due to the rising imporIN THE tance of cultural-product industries. As we are becoming more knowledge-processing and critical (due to living in an information society) , we often feel bored with the mainstream CULTURAL shopping and free-time activities. The employment in the cultural sector fits well into this context, where, for instance, Scott ECONOMY A number of scholars have been studying the new and growing middle class (Ley, 1996;

argues that “labour market in cultural industries is instable – more likely to be caught up in temporary, part-time and freelance modes of labor” (Scott, 2006 and 2007:1469), supported by Throsby (2001:102) and Leadbeater and Oakley (2007). Authors like Markusen and Zukin stress the artists’ dependency on the government’s grants and subsidies, as there is a signiﬁcant lack of possible full-time employment for the cultural entrepreneurs and workers (Zukin, 1995:143; Markusen, 2006:1422). Even though there is a lot of discussion among the scholars in CEE countries about brain drain (young highly-educated people living and working abroad), this is not the case of Scott calls it a new kinds of hedonism (Scott, 2008:558) It was earlier mentioned that the shift to post-industrial institutional mechanism in Western societies is similar to the shift to post-communism in CEE, and both can be characterised with the following anecdotes: “Work, don’t think” being replaced by “Think, don’t work.” 85 86

Bratislava or even Slovakia as a whole. The problem here lies more in the methods in teaching at schools and universities which has been evaluated and criticized in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study by OECD87. The conclusion of this whole-European study was that students are not taught how to think critically and to reflect upon the amount of knowledge (which is often much higher than in Western states) they learn. However, is such an environment breeding new ideas, innovation and knowledge that is being analyzed and not only taken for granted? Throsby is his book makes a reference to education as a catalyser of demand for cultural activities and arts, claiming that the taste for these goods is cumulative (Throsby, 2001:115) and “is acquired through education and experience, and hence stronger and more discriminating tastes for the arts are likely to be shown by the better educated and by those who have already become consumers” (Throsby, 2001:115). When considering the role of path-dependency, presence and supportive establishment of institutions encouraging innovation is crucial in a region. Although Bratislava does not have a long history of knowledge-based institutions, it may soon evolve in the field of innovative technologies88. Also, going back to the idea of ‘brain drain’ which from time to time pops up in popular journals to scare rather than to offer possible solutions, in the case of Bratislava I would implement the term ‘brain circulation’ (Sassen, 200789) or even ‘talent circulation’, which would create a so-called knowledge network of professionals and creative people, the Artist-in-Residence programme being an example. Pratt (2008) claims that everyone can duplicate modern art galleries or construct cultural centres, but what is it that attracts the staff? Leadbeater and Oakley in their work argue that today’s’ cultural workers - the ‘Independers’ – are a new kind of workers, who are not money- and capital-driven (Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007). They prosper and often arrange employment through informal networks, or weak ties, which policy makers seem to neglect: “One of the main findings of this research is that there is a large ‘missing middle’ in public policy at a national level, and also, critically, at the regional and local level, where it most counts. Policy-makers know little about this new generation of entrepreneurs – how they work, where they come from, what makes them tick, their distinctive needs – nor how to interact with them.” (Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007:300) Source: < http://www.statpedu.sk/buxus/docs//projekty/PISA/pisa2006nsprava.pdf > (Document only in Slovak) December 2007 Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, research and development in Bratislava’s universities had a high priority. After years of cutting resources for education and R&D, the city has slowly decided to take a different turn and revitalize its knowledge potential. For some time now, the building of the ‘Central European Park for Innovative Technologies’ (CEPIT) has been planned, although the project stagnates. See <http://www.cepit.info/?id=101> 89 Lecture in Utrecht, 28 April 2008 87 88

Currid (2007) argues that people want to live in a culturally vibrant place, hence culture often playing a role as a contributor to a vibrant creative community, an atmosphere that draws people in. Arts and culture hence can be a crucial competitive advantage, not only forming a unique sector but also cultivating a high human-capital focus. Leadbeater and Oakley claim that cultural industries are people-, rather than capital-driven (Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007:301). Similarly, Poon and Lai (2008:2283) argue that cultural industries are idea-intensive industries, encouraging local talents (not only artists, but also educated people). Therefore, since residents gradually prefer a greater variety of cultural services in a city, nurturing creativity is one of the keys to promoting a region’s competitiveness.

8 CONCLUSION

Having combined theories and concepts of path dependency (which is connected to the notion of civic involvement), clustering, competitiveness (connected to the topic of environment of large- or small-sized enterprises) and cultural industries (where the concept of promotion belongs to as well), with existing data on participation and employment in the cultural sector, a chapter of discussions has been brought together. The city’s past and subsequently its developmental trajectory and its location play a very important role when assessing its current place in both the national and European market economy. We have seen that the city has a rather informal cultural economy, where grass-root organisations like A4 play a crucial role, however with a missing city’s cultural strategy, its position is likely to be marginalised and existance treatened (as most of the cultural centres and initiatives, as A4 or even the City Gallery of Bratislava, rely and are restrained on grants and subsidies from the government or provate sponsirship). A new cultural strategy, both on a national and local level is urgently needed, in order the city will be able to stay competitive in today’s idea-driven world, hence become and have a sustainable economy. The following, closing chapter will address more concretely on the research questions, following upon and concluding the analysis and discussions. 85

PART IV CONCLUSION: OUTCOMES

In the case of Bratislava, there is both empirical and theoretical evidence that culture and arts can be characterised with regard to a ‘ruptured’ evolvement in the last 100 – 150 years, where overlapping and different layers were forming its trajectory. Some layers have existed, some have vanished and then came back, and some are completely new (such as for instance the slowly progressing trend of revitalizing and transforming abandoned manufactories into cultural industries). A number of authors have been researching different cities’ cultural and creative economies (Currid, 2007, Florida, 2001, Markusen, 2006, etc), where often its was not numbers and statistics that were important, but rather simple questions to like: “Is there some kind of a ‘bohemian’ atmosphere in the city?, How are policies around culture regulated and created?”, and so on; the list may be endless. The main research question of this thesis “What role do cultural industries play in the current transformation of the post-socialist city of Bratislava, and which actors are involved in this and what kinds of resources are deployed by them?”, has been studied through theoretical concepts of path-dependency, clustering economies and competitiveness and will be processed by answering the following sub-questions: - Are cultural industries “new” to Bratislava, or is it indeed a re-emergence of older competencies that were submerged during the communist regime? Although not an easy question, it ﬁts well into the concept of a path-dependent perspective of urban systems, and hence will be answered with this tool’s help. As already mentioned in chapter 4, towards the end of 1900s and beginning of the 20th century, Bratislava belonged to a mono-central region, where Vienna dominated as one of the most cultural and artistic cities (at that time even on a European scale). After collapse of the Habsburg reign, Bratislava was facing a challenge to sustain its rather small (compared to ‘capitals’ such as Prague, Vienna 87

and Budapest), but still existing cultural and scientiﬁc tradition and creativity within a politically (hybrid mismatch of Marxist and Fascist powers) and culturally (leaving German, Hungarian and Jewish intelligentsia) narrower environment. There was, in fact, no room left for ‘l’art pour l’art’, arts represented ‘the heroic’ state (p. 68). When the country was freed from arts repressing communism, the new generation of artists rather passive waited to be discovered by the West. It indeed took a number of years to cross the border of humbleness to a more assertive, ‘selling’ behavior. The development of cutural industries is in this thesis, represented as re-emergence of something that has been existing in the city, with repressive political regimes as slowdowns of development. - What makes Bratislava (from a historical perspective) a distinctive city? According to a number of scholars, uniqueness, authenticity and distinctiveness of urban areas are important elements of today’s (economically and socially) sustainable cities (Harvey, 2001; Martin, 2006; Markusen and Schrock, 2006b; Currid, 2007; etc). Bratislava has several ‘unique selling points’ it can offer or even create from existing resources. Even though a number of the interviewees claimed Bratislava is not particularly special and is copying and catching up with other cities, other responded that what makes Bratislava most distinctive is its identity, historical and cultural heritage. Similarly, Throsby argues that cultural heritage is a unique intangible that is not possible to replicate (unlike tangibles like architecture, in the form of new ofﬁce and multi-functional buildings) and creates a special atmosphere of a place – a genius loci (Throsby, 2001:51). - What makes Bratislava a creative or cultural city? To some extent, culture seems to be embedded in the capital in the eyes of many, including the local government. However, the meaning and possible outcomes of culture and arts in the urban economy, do not seem relevant or interesting enough to explore. Bratislava could have been called the cultural city in the beginning of its short existence as a capital of a state because of its capacities (because of the existing technology and skills, and institutions such Academy of Fine Arts and Design and the Academy of Performing Arts), and hence ‘producing’ a creative mass, and having the validity to label itself as a ‘cultural city’ of Slovakia. There are creative talents in Bratislava and the number is growing, although slowly, as seen in the quantitative analysis earlier. The city will not only need to keep up with the growing cultural competition not only on a international or European scale, but also on a 88

national scale. The second biggest city of Slovakia, Košice has been only recently announced as one of the two European Cultural Capitals of 2013 (together with the French city of Marseille), and hence will boost its cultural economy in the coming years, and another (also university) town Žilina, has a growing cultural / creative environment as seen from the statistics. Therefore, in the past it has been the capacities and the status of the capital andlargest city in Slovakia, that claimed its embeddedness in the cultural sector. Bratislava, however, will have to change this „strategy“ to beat the challenges coming from smaller cities such as Košice and Žilina - Who contributes to creativity and culture in the post-socialist city of Bratislava? Having concluded from the analytical parts (chapter 3 and 4), actors or agents who form a creative and cultural environment in the city of Bratislava are informally organized (such as A4) and privately sponsored institutions (such as City Gallery of Bratislava). Even though this seems as a strong bottom-up approach with a positive tone, the organisations often survive just on the edge (as in the case of A4, Tranzit, or other informal set-ups, including individual entrepreneurs). Also, having concluded from the data on participation in cultural activities, the level of altruism seems low and residents are rather little involved in the city’s cultural economy. Both, the authorities and residents seem to understand little about the role of symbolic capitals such as arts, in the city. - Is there awareness (mainly from the side of the municipality, but also the individual cultural institutions) of transforming symbolic capital into income and of the potential and relevance of cultural industries in a city’s socio-economic and –cultural development? As indicated earlier, the city does not seem to practice a speciﬁc cultural strategy (Zukin, 1995), and the economic potential of the symbolic, intangible assets of the city is almost seen as a ‘worst-case scenario’ for economic development in Bratislava, observing its mushrooming business, consumption and living spaces. The city of Bratislava does not seem to understand and see the importance neither of traditional cultural industries and small- and medium-sized entreprises, nor of independent ‘cultural entrepreneurs’. A number of authors (Zukin, 1995; Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007; etc) are calling the local governments to give more economic support to smaller groups. 89

- What are the roles of different institutions (both governmental and non-governmental) in creating and supporting culture and arts in the city? A few things can be said about nurturing culture and arts in Bratislava. Unfortunately, the city does not have a cultural strategy, which would affect and change a number to current deficiencies in this sector. A number of authors and studies argue an up-to-date and forward looking urban cultural agenda is needed, where cultural industries are equally incorporated with other domains such as urban revitalisation, education, employment, environmental issues or nurturing small enterprises (Throsby 2008; Markusen, 2006; KEA , 2006). In order to incorporate culture into city’s infrastructure, more research on the economic clustering of cultural activities is needed. It is therefore important to develop statistical tools to measure, analyse and evaluate the role of cultural economy in the city. Slovakia, and hence Bratislava too, should not only follow but also be a part of creating a trend and method to measure the impact of cultural industries, so that information (definition and division of corresponding sectors and activities) are comparable on a European or even global level. Currid (2007) and Sassen (2001) argue that policy making should foster for instance density or an open social sphere, to sustain the city’s cultural economy. Bratislava needs a cultural policy and incorporate culture and arts not only in the city’s political agenda, but also its infrastructure, serving as a tool for social and economic development. Also, the employment in the cultural industry is growing both locally and nationally, hence putting culture high on the political agenda is needed to sustain Bratislava’s economic growth. Hence, Bratislava needs to be open to the flows from both the public and private sectors – where not only local government, NGOs and private organisations, but also artists, academia and the public nurture each other, work and communicate together. Organisations supporting culture and arts in the city are also deploying resources of a more assertive, opinionated and critical mass. - Do these different actors co-operate? Is there exchange of knowledge and ideas? Interestingly enough, the city’s size has an important say in answering this question. The fact that most of the cultural institutions (ranging from educative to exhibiting ones) are located in the central core of Bratislava, many of the ‘cultural workers’, hence concentrate themselves at the same places. They know each other, exchange knowledge and often help each other and collaborate in multi-disciplinary works / projects. ‘Walkability’ of the city, is hence on of the factors creating weak ties or informal networks that 90

work. Even though co-operation exists in a weaker form, what is interesting, is that all of the interviewees (including policy makers knowing artists, sociologists knowing policy makers, etc) in this thesis knew each-other, either on a personal or a word-of-mouth basis. This is an important and positive development, creating cohesion and trust. There is deﬁnitely some kind of clustering, although as it was already mentioned – an informal one. The city is missing a speciﬁc product or service characteristic for the area, a so-called museum or cultural quarter. A study carried out by the Österreichische Kulturdokumentation in 2005 concluded that the cross-border region of Bratislava and Vienna forms a ‘solid milieu for cultural talents’ (p. 52), and only time will show whether the city will use this ‘change’ (as meant by Lambooy and Boschma, 1999) in its own advantage. *

The idea of Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer from the 1940s about commodiﬁcation and commercialization of culture may be applicable now, but cultural industries should not be only associated with consumerism, culture today is more ambiguous (Zukin, 1995:113). Throsby (2008) argues that production is also important and the whole process of nurturing, creating, exhibiting culture should not be neglected. The deﬁnition of cultural industries is not that welcome among artists themselves, as it used to describe cultural (re)production. Therefore, a new perception, different and a better image of the term ‘cultural industries’ is needed among the artists and creative talents. Cultural sector is developing at a higher pace then the rest of economy. Cultural industries are not only a source of urban renewal and economic diversity (Poon & Lai, 2008) and may also serve as generators for a number of other sectors of the economy, most notably innovation and ICT. We live in a post-industrial knowledge-based society, where the cultural industry rationale lies beyond producing (‘l’art pour l’art’) or consuming. Cultural industries have many direct or indirect impacts; fostering the cultural sector does not only meet with economic objectives, but often results in re-established and regenerated social and cultural values. This means, that civil engagement, tolerance and trust may be increased by incorporating and promoting cultural industries in the city. Culture nurtures and strengthens an assertive and opinionated society, where the free-rider problem (Storper and Venables, 2002; Throsby, 2001) are being minimized. Several scholars (Himanen and Castells, 2002; Santagata, 2002; Scott. 2007) claim that the sphere of openness and trust is needed in an economically and culturally evolving city. Nonethe91

less, Scott claims that a ‘reconstruction of urban society that go well beyond simple pleas for openness, tolerance and diversity – they do not guarantee transcendence of social isolation, fragmentation and inequality’ (Scott, 2007; Scott, 2008:559). He argues that when cities become facilitators of knowledge-based and cultural economy, the notions of “solidarity, sociability and mutual aid” (Scott, 2007:1478) will gain a new meaning and be ever more important. Similarly, the Magistrate stated that public involvement is missing in Bratislava, participation in public meetings and communication is rather weak and more activities for Bratislavians, co-operation of residents and neighbourhood is needed. Similarly, one of the interviewees, Ľubomír Falťan, a Bratislavian urban sociologist expressed his worry that the city is missing an informal structure of decision making and spontaneity, endogenous resources and candid interactions90. We need to go beyond Florida’s creative city and the creative class as the solutions for economically stagnating or decreasing cities. Cultural industries – production and consumption of cultural activities - offer a symbolic value with a diverse character and are not only enhancing the city’s innovation and know-how, but also socialisation and human altruism (Throsby, 2001:36). Leadbeater and Oakley claim for instance that ‘cultural entrepreneurs can play a critical role in promoting social cohesion and a sense of belonging. That is because art, culture and sport create meeting places for people in an increasingly diversiﬁed, fragmented and unequal society’ (Leadbeater and Oakley, 2007). The city hence needs more heterogeneity, where diverse groups meet and co-operate. The role of NGOs (establishing different projects for artists, residents, etc) and media is hence very important.

90 One of the challenges of Bratislava is utilisation of its space – what are its symbolic values and meanings? This question is not only relevant to Bratislava, but also other postsocialist cities, such as Budapest, Soﬁa or Warsaw, whose spaces and places were highly politicized during communism, where norms overruled spontaneity, and where visible became hidden. In this sense, Bratislava needs to unravel itself – as not only a capital of a young nation, but also as a modern European city.

WHAT NEXT?

This thesis, as I already mentioned earlier, is a study mapping the cultural economy in the city of Bratislava, rather than presenting a constructive analysis or evaluation of the current and past trajectories with expectations for the future. Would this study be expanded, issues to research and critically approach would be the work of art museums and galleries (is the number of visitors growing?), deeper insight into the city’s cultural politics and policies evolving over the past few years - incorporated with studying the period of communist regime as a rupture (Bathelt and Boggs, 2006) or a comparison of other post-socialist or CEE cities bringing a wider and more general knowledge of the role of culture and arts after communism. Scholars studying CEE countries and their policies around culture and possibilities implementing cultural industries into the local or national infrastructure may allege that there is no real creative hub in the post-communist Europe, but its only a matter of time and (cap)ability which city will be not only ﬁrst, but strong enough to compete with Western-European cities and towns. Although each case study with a spotlight on one instance is unique, it could have a potential to be implemented in other similar instances as indicated above. One last remark: is – coming back to the title of my thesis – bringing Warhol to Bratislava a utopian idea? Theoretically, on a symbolic understanding, this is not impossible, as was (hopefully) clearly shown in this thesis. Practically, as a concrete and tangible concept, Warhol is present through his works in two restaurants in the historical city core and will - hopefully – be present through a lent exposition from the Andy Warhol Museums of Modern Art from Medzilaborce91. Bratislava, respectively the local city government, hopefully will realize how culture and its functions are important for the sustainable development of a city, not only economically, but also socially – creating a community that is innovative and perceptive. Source: http://hnonline.sk/3-19473900-kni%9Enice-k00000_detail-6a (Article in Slovak, published on 9 November 2006) (Warhol? Dobra reklama)

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SZELENYI, IVAN et. al (2001), The Utopia of Postsocialist Theory and the Ironic View of History in Neoclassical Sociology, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 106, No. 4, pp. 1121-1128, The University of Chicago Press SWYNGEDOUW, E. (2004), Globalisation or ‘Glocalisation’? Networks, Territories and Rescaling. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 17, no 1 (April) , pp. 25-48.) TAYLOR, PETER (2000), World Cities and Territorial States under Conditions of Contemporary Globalization. Political Geography, 19, pp. 5-32. TILLY, CHARLES (1992). Coercion, Capital, and European States AD 990-1992, Blackwell, Cambridge TIZIK, MIROSLAV (2004). Sloboda a mestska klima (Freedom and city climate) <http://miro.eltime.sk/?pg=socio&socio=sloboda> THROSBY, DAVID (2001), Economics and Culture, Cambridge University Press, UK THROSBY, DAVID (2008), Modelling the Cultural Industries, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Routledge, Vol. 14:217-232 VAN DEN BERG, L. (1999), Urban management in a Creative City – The Case of Rotterdam, In: Verwijnen & Lehtovuori, Creative Cities: Cultural Industries, Urban Development and the Information Society, p. 114-126 VANHUYSSE, PIETER (2006), Divide and Pacify, Central European University Press, Budapest, p. 49-71 VERWIJNEN, JAN & LEHTOVUORI, PANU (1999), Creative Cities: Cultural Industries, Urban Development and the Information Society, University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland UNESCO (2006). Understanding Creative Industries: Cultural statistics for public policy-making, <http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ﬁles/30297/11942616973cultural_stat_EN.pdf/cultural_stat_EN.pdf> UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) (2007). The 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics (Draft) < http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/pdf/cscl/framework/draftdoc_EN.pdf > URRY, JOHN (1999). Globalisation and Citizenship,Journal of World Systems Research 5(2): 311 - 324 WEBB, ADRIAN (2002). The Longman companion to central and eastern Europe since 1919, Longman, London Website of Bratislava (with documents of the urban plan adopted in 2007) <http://www.bratislava.sk/vismo/dokumenty2.asp?id_org=700000&id= 80478&p1=51737> and <http://www.bratislava.sk/vismo/zobraz_dok.asp?id_org=700000&id_ktg=11006061&p1=11033201> ZUKIN, SHARON (1995), High Culture and Wild Commerce in New York City, In: The Cultures of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 109152 ZUKIN, SHARON (2008). Consuming Authenticity: From outposts of difference to means of exclusion, Cultural Studies, Vol. 22: 724-748

APPENDIX 1 SHORT PROFILES OF INTERVIEWEES

BABIAR, MICHAL M.Sc. /Magistrate of Bratislava/ is an urban economist and working at the urban planning department of Bratislava. During our interview, he thought Bratislava should not focus on nurturing SMEs, but attracting ‘big players’ (organizations). Working space: loft-office in the historical core centre of Bratislava DROBNIAKOVÁ, DANA M.Arch. /Magistrate of Bratislava/ is the head of the urban planning department; her main tasks include co-ordination of urban, environmental and socio-economic issues (when working on the city master plan of Bratislava); main expertise is aimed at creation and evaluation of city development concepts, testing and applying trends in urban development, co-operation with experts, up-to-date information and research are important for creation and evaluation of city development plans. Working space: loft-office (same building as Mr. Babiar, one floor higher) in the historical centre of Bratislava FALŤAN, ĽUBOMÍR PhD. /Slovak Academy of Sciences/ is one of the few urban sociologists in Bratislava. <www.sav.sk/index.php?lang=sk&charset=&doc=org-user&user_no=2789> FERIANCOVÁ, PETRA MA /Gallery Bast’Art/ is an artist, a mother and the director of Bast’Art. And –also important- she is the finalist of the Oskar Cepan Award 2008. <http://petraferiancova.com/index.html> and <www.bastart.sk>

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DUCHOVÁ, ZUZANA Bc. /A4/ is the editor and creator of the ﬁrst alternative tourist guide of Bratislava ‘BA! Od Ufa k Ufu’ (‘BA! From Ufo to Ufo’) and a PhD. student at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. <www.a4.sk> and <www.34.sk> JANČÁR, IVAN M.Sc. /City Gallery of Bratislava/ is the director of the best gallery of Slovakia in 2007 (this is an ofﬁcial award). <www.gmb.sk/en//SID=f334d326c67857712b2f4369fdd9728a> JAUROVÁ, ZORA /Cultural Contact Point Slovakia/ is the director of Cultural Contact Point (CCP) in Bratislava, also ‘leading’ the City of Košice to have successful cultural year in 2013; one of the few cultural/creative industry gurus in Slovakia <www.ccp.sk> MARTINKOVÁ, KATARÍNA /British Council/ is the coordinator of the Creative Cities project. <www.britishcouncil.org/slovakia-common-projects-creative-cities-2.htm> VAN OIJEN, ILLAH /photographer/ is a young Dutch photographer who moved to Bratislava a few years ago and is involved in a number of cultural projects. <www.humanlanscapes.sk> and <www.mestskezasahy.sk> TÍŽIK, MIROSLAV PhD. /Comenius University/ is a researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Sociology of Comenius University in Bratislava. Although he wrote a manuscript on sociology of religion, he is involved and interested in urban sociology, mostly working on and discussing about Bratislava. <http://miro.eltime.sk> VAKULA, MATEJ BFA /art academy graduate/ is a young urban artists, from Žilina but studying and living in Bratislava. 101

2 LOCATIONS OF IMAGES

102

3 MAP WITH THE LOCATION OF BRATISLAVA AND OTHER CITIES OF ANALYSIS

103

Bratis lava, c ul post-s ocialis tural indust r t city, urban ies, econo The fo my cus of t

his the ist city sis lies of Brat o is city is at the lava, its pote n the socio-e heart o conom n been c tial of c f it ic onside rably le s new econo ultural indus challenges cities. and ro t m rie In ss ic les each o today’s post analysed an proﬁle and s, as a part of crea of the post-s -indus ther, th deserv d rese t tiv r oc a e e ia A very r popula concept of k l economy, ched as com s a special a e economy. ialw Th nowled tte r and e p has be here c ge ffe ities ar ared to othe ntion: its ca e en r CEE se has e thrus arts an localizing a ctive ‘tool’ to -based and ca t in c nd inte d grating revitalize urb reative indus a whirl of r pitals and (when culture play iva an trie an S cu attract lovakia joine important r ltural indust economies s appears c lry with ing lots ole in u d the E ries int in man ontinu ou o y U r o high p roﬁt-m f foreign inv ), the relativ ban growth a the cities’ in Western so sly. c a f e e rastruc nd cha ieties king re stors a ly youn as em ng tur be alnd g urban dding cultura estate proje the local go and mid-siz e. After 1989 e, where ed ec ct ve l a interna onomy, Brat initiatives in s, overshado rnment has city of Bratis nd 2004 the loc islava wing a tional c b la e va h e nf will ha ases. ve to r al economy. ctivities with ocusing on f as been a ethink I a its con n order to ge long-term v st and cept o a n lu e rate e, s f comp etitiven a sustainab uch le ess an d learn from