Proximity Cultural Policies in the Paradigm of the Creative City: the case of civic centers program in Barcelona city

Abstract

From the late ‘80 cities experienced a “creative” turn. The concept of creativity, appears as a shaping force to the economic, social, cultural and urban planning policies in the postfordist context. In Barcelona, the so-called “Barcelona Model” has been deeply influenced by the creative city paradigm. The paradigm replication in the European context and its relationship to the neoliberal turn of cities since the ‘80s has been extensively analyzed, however, the impact of this trend on the cultural proximity policies, considered as the result of the interaction between local government and social actors, is a field to explore. The aim of this paper is to show, in the case of Barcelona city, the deficits and contradictions generated by the influence of the creative and entrepreneurial turn of the city in the cultural proximity policies implementation, considering the problem in relation to the participatory dimension and the democratic deepening objectives attributed to these policies in its genesis context. To reach this aim, we examine the socio-genesis, evolution and changes of a flagship policy for the social democratic agenda -the Civic Centers Program-, embedding its analysis in the city model, the municipal decentralization process and the role of key social actors such as neighbors associations during these 35 years of democracy.