From Urban Consumption to Production: Rethinking the Role of Festivals in Urban Development Through Co-Creation

Festivals infuse art and culture into the physical transformation of public spaces to support economic development, social capital, and urban vibrancy. Although these impacts align with urban planning, these projects typically engage actors outside the field such as community organisations, businesses, and artists, reflecting cultural and creative economies, where different values, motivations, and practices are continually negotiated through processes of co-creation. However, institutional planning practices have not yet effectively engaged with cultural production processes to maximise the social, cultural, and economic impacts of arts-led development. To explore this potential, this research uses participatory, co-productive methodologies to analyse the Bristol Light Festival, a collaborative partnership between business interests, city staff, and creative producers. The article begins with a discussion of the often contradictory role festivals play in urban development, followed by a discussion of creative and cultural ecologies and an overview of the co-creation process. Drawing on festival participant survey and interview data, the article discusses how the festival generated new forms of belonging in the city and other impacts that are often invisible within dominant arts-led development strategies. The article concludes with a discussion of findings relating cultural ecologies and co-creation to urban planning practice

Under Water: A Novel with Critical Introduction

Under Water is a literary novel that follows the life experiences of Jess, a solo female scuba diving instructor living and working on Roatan, an island off the coast of Honduras. She learns of the death of her father on the same day she is responsible for the death of a diver under her care. She leaves the island shortly thereafter, only to return five years later at the disappearance of George, a friend and father figure. In the Encyclopedia of Utopian Literature, Mary Ellen Snodgrass defines utopia as a search for a "good place," or "a longing that haunts the unconscious . . . [a] desire for respite, a stopping place." Similarly, Jess' search for a "good place" structures her quest make a home for herself in Honduras even after experiences of trauma and loss. The critical introduction to the novel includes two research articles in the field of nineteenth-century women's travel narratives and transnational utopian fiction. The first, "Nation as Utopia in Pauline Hopkins' novel Of One Blood; Or, The Hidden Self and The Colored American Magazine," takes an intratextual approach to Hopkins' serial utopian novel in order to resituate African American serial texts within a larger network of national utopian thought. The second, "Science, Utopia, and Mary Kingsley's Narratives of Travel in Africa," expands upon imperialist considerations of nineteenth-century women's travel writing to show how Victorian women travel writers deployed utopian discourse as a means to negotiate their gendered subject position. The primary aim for both my critical and creative work is to contribute to ongoing efforts to show how women writers deployed utopian thought as a means to situate themselves within circulating national, scientific, or literary communities

Assessing the independence of state parties : issue ownership and morality politics in US state party platforms

This study uses party platforms to assess the degree of independence between state and national political parties in the United States in light of issue ownership theory and morality politics. Utilizing a coding scheme adapted from the Comparative Manifesto Project, I analyze the ideology and content of 80 Democratic and Republican state party platforms from 2008-2010. I uncover substantial variations among state party platforms and findings suggest that state parties manage to maintain a significant level of independence from the national parties. Some of the findings suggest our current understanding of state party politics is inadequate. For example, contrary to expectations, Republican state party platforms show more ideological variation than their Democratic counterparts. In contrast to national patterns, Democratic state party platforms conform more consistently with issue ownership theory than their Republican counterparts. And Democratic state party platforms are significantly more likely to balance their progressive policy preferences with conservative party interests

Arts industries do not cause gentrification- they tend to chase it.

Gentrification has been long thought to be sparked by artists and artistic businesses that move into poorer areas. But new research from Carl Grodach, Nicole Foster, and James Murdoch finds that we need to rewrite the story of arts-led gentrification. In a study of the 30 largest US metros, they find that art industries generally do not cause gentrification and the associated displacement of poorer residents. In fact, gentrified places tend to attract the arts, the reverse of the traditionally assumed relationship

The importance of neighborhood context in arts-led development

This article contributes to the creative city–community development arts policy debate by examining the association of arts organizations to various neighborhood contexts in New York City. Results from multivariate regression analyses show that arts organizations regardless of type are positioned to serve the creative class rather than play a community development role. Notably, only a small subset of locally focused organizations and organizations with smaller expenditures locate in disadvantaged and immigrant neighborhoods where they might play a direct role in community development. Instead, most arts organizations tend to locate in the most highly urbanized, amenities-rich areas with young working singles and creative industries. These findings raise important questions for incorporating the arts into neighborhood planning efforts

High-tech business location, transportation accessibility, and implications for sustainability: Evaluating the differences between high-tech specializations using empirical evidence from U.S. booming regions

© 2019 Studies on the accessibility needs of high-tech firms often draw on agglomeration economies and creative class assumptions that emphasizes how transit and walkability encourage clustering, knowledge exchange and innovation. As a result, some argue that knowledge-led economic development aligns with sustainability planning, especially as high-tech industries become increasingly tied to smart city agendas. However, due to the new logistic revolution, global e-economy, rise of online workers and urban land values, it is likely that some tech industries prefer strong highway systems, potentially leading to higher GHG emissions. As such, the relationship between the knowledge economy and sustainability outcomes remains unclear. This study addresses these gaps by quantifying the geography of high-tech zones in North Texas and Northern California, measuring their specializations, and exploring their differences in terms of transportation infrastructures. Our results only partially support research suggesting high-tech industries prefer dense, walkable, transit-accessible places. For instance, we found large numbers of high-tech firms (e.g. IT and aerospace) are still attracted to peripheral, auto-centric spaces, which is at odds with sustainable transportation policies. Hence, policymakers may need to revisit their growth strategies to not only succeed in growing their knowledge economy, but also secure sustainability goals