THE NETWORKED CITY

6.THE NETWORKED CITY

The point here is not to criticise the CIQ, but to question the usefulness of the cultural quarter model and, more generally, local authority intervention in support of local music industries. What the Sheffield example illustrates is, firstly, the need to look beyond the provision of facilities — the need, that is, to take account of the ‘soft’ infrastructure, the people, the skills, the networking, the social context of those involved in the music industry. Secondly, that any cultural quarter must be conceived as part of the wider socio-spatial fabric of the city. The relevance of the Northern Quarter (NQ), Manchester, here is certainly not to assert that this has been ‘done better’ but to indicate that a large cluster of music-related busi- nesses and services have emerged without specific targeting by the local authority. Quarters are complex clusters of activities — they are networks embedded in a partic- ular place. Though there are some obvious reasons why clusters emerge in a particular place — cheap rents, city centre, nearness of a venue or other key services — this does not mean the place is an indifferent space (Larkin).The complex networks of activity and exchange are given a context — they take place.This place acquires a series of associa- tions which can be iconic (‘Bourbon Street’, ‘Carnaby Street’, ‘Kings Road’, ‘Haight Ashbury’) but are also spatially embedded social networks. As we argued above, it is these ‘scenes’, ‘milieus’, ‘happening places’ — rather than ‘facili- ties’ — which are the real context for a local music industry.The exchange of knowledge

and information is accompanied by a validation, a testing of product. 4 Networks are about the exchange of information (contacts, grants, funding opportunities, jobs, technol- ogy, etc.) They are about the exchange of experience — they act as reservoirs of previ- ous trial and error. Network entry points (very informal, usually — acquaintances, work neighbours, gossip) allow informal sharing of personal experience. They also allow the exchange or sharing of harder knowledge — how, who, what, when.

”Knowing Jockey Slut [magazine] helped a lot because they’d been through the same process two years before. So we were able to learn from their mistakes.They gave us

a lot of support. Similarly, Rob’s Records were really helpful, supportive, as they were the first record label we’d worked with. They have a track record of wanting to support Manchester-related businesses.They gave us work and that was very encour- aging. People generally — because of the nature of the city, people know what you’re up to. Y’know people say ‘hi, what you up to’ and people were interested even if it’s just to work out exactly what was going on. It didn’t ever really feel like we were working in a vacuum ...” (Emma Warren, Freestyle Promotions)

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”There is a distinct sense of collaboration ... At a [colleague/friend’s] leaving party, there were about three or four journalists there and three photographers, and we were just talking about the immense amount of collaboration, and people in London who they work with, can’t understand that there are writers from different publica- tions who talk to each other and actually help each other out, and if one person can’t do a bit of work, they pass it on to someone else ... the same thing happens with photographers. Because people have got those different specialisation’s (sic!) — that’s why it’s not competitive. And also because people know each other and see each other all the time.That competition isn’t as strong as it would be, say in London, where there’s ten people barking up every tree. Here it’s a lot more relaxed — there’s not that intense egocentric thing ...Which is really helpful and I think that’s helped a lot of people”. (Vicky Perrin, Events Organiser, Lifeline, interview by Dan Hill [DH])

But networks are also about validating and testing cultural capital. The networks, the milieus within which these operate, act as test beds for ideas.

”The family here is immense.We could test our minds for anything and come up with good interpretations. We are staying within the family and that is important”. (Mark Rae of Fat City)

As such, these networks are about social capital — but not based on the family as such. Indeed, these metropolitan milieus have historically been anti-family, bohemian, counter- cultural. What holds them together is a loosely structured, place-based milieu:

”You just go out onto the street and bump into people and start talking to people and drop notes through the doors. It’s just very informal. Even planners — you bump into them on the street and say ‘oh, I meant to tell you, this is starting on-site, blah blah, or what about a grant for cleaning that ...‘ It happens on the street really. It’s nice — it’s really nice. It’s a nice thing to have during the day, just to be able to go out and say hello, and have that sense of community spirit. There used to be communities in the old days where you lived, but it’s not the case anymore, I don’t think. People are much more isolated where they live. So, re-establishing that community thing is really good and I think people appreciate it and it does give us a certain sort of strength to the area”. (Dominic Sagar, Architect — DH)

”It is quite a bit of a community thing and the problem for me is that I can’t walk any- where without being sidelined, in the street, at the bus stop, in here, whatever ... when

I want to go to the bank and it takes me half an hour to walk down Oldham Street, so I try and hide and go down back streets ... Between us there is a big informal net- work because I talk to my neighbours, and they talk to their customers and it is really effective and you find that information gets out and about very quickly”. (Michael Trainer, Design Goes Pop — DH)

These clusters allow trust to build up in face-to-face contact.They allow a common iden- tification with a locale or local culture. This can frequently give common context to the cultural product — through a particular style or a more amorphous ‘attitude’.These clus- ters are place-based, place-centred networks, the knots that tie a series of networks — they are part of the soft infrastructure.They accumulate knowledge and experience; they generate and reproduce social and cultural capital in metropolitan areas (Banks et al. 2000).

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It is here in these very localised networks that the first real interface between the flow of global musics, images, ideas, styles become consumed, absorbed, embedded, repack- aged, rejected, reformed, reconstituted. It is here that the local music scenes are formed around a sense that they could do better, or as well, or at least do something. Local scenes, even the most basic, form a supportive, or inspirational context for this. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------