06 July 2012
Novy, J. and Colomb, C. In "International Journal of Urban and Regional Research" (2012)
In cities across the globe there is mounting evidence of growing
mobilization by members of the so-called 'creative class' in urban
social movements, defending particular urban spaces and influencing
urban development. This essay discusses the meaning of such developments
with reference to the hypothesis made by David Harvey in Spaces of Capital
about the increasing mobilization of cultural producers in oppositional
movements in an era of wholesale instrumentalization of culture and 'creativity' in contemporary processes of capitalist urbanization. After
briefly reviewing recent scholarly contributions on the transformations
of urban social movements, as well as Harvey's hypothesis about the
potential role of cultural producers in mobilizations for the
construction of 'spaces of hope', the essay describes two specific urban
protests that have occurred in Berlin and Hamburg in recent years: the
fight for Berlin's waterfront in the Media Spree area, and the conflict
centred on the Gängeviertel in Hamburg. In both protests artists,
cultural producers and creative milieux have played a prominent role.
The essay analyses the composition, agenda, contribution and
contradictions of the coalitions behind the protests, discussing whether
such movements represent the seeds of new types of coalitions with a
wide-ranging agenda for urban change. The essay finally proposes a
future research agenda on the role of artists, cultural producers and
the ‘creative class’ in urban social movements across the globe.