The flow and flow out of culture: ”Aspect policy” in the city.

The celebration of culture expressed in notions of ”the experience economy” and alike involves a problematic tendency. On the one hand, culture is becoming more central to economy and policy making. On the other hand, culture is exposed to constraining economic and political claims. Especially noticeable on local and regional level, culture and cultural policy is in many cases integrated with an overall policy aimed at economic growth. The project is crucial for urban regimes using culture as a resource to stage the city as an attractive brand. However, when culture hereby is valued through what experience and attractiveness it brings to the city-as-brand, the very understanding of culture is negotiated.

This article has its focus on urban regeneration in Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden. My interest is here focused on how culture is viewed upon and valuated by city officials and how it is represented in policy documents. The article also takes a starting-point in the promotion of ”aspect policy” in the 2009 report of the Swedish Committee of Inquiry on Cultural Policy.

By this, the report stresses a need to integrate culture and cultural policy, as an aspect or dimension, in other policy areas, and to a lesser degree consider it to be an isolated sector. I will argue that such a view, well established in urban regeneration policies, tend to weaken the already precarious situation of the traditionally defined cultural sector. Furthermore, the same logic has profound democratic and, in the broadest sense, cultural implications regarding citizenship. When the city-as-brand is staged it is primarily promoted as a consumerable product for markets outside of the city. Meanwhile it invokes a certain ”way of life” among the public by shaping a culture and citizenship founded on the commodofication of place.