Here’s A Music & Cultural Cities Framework We Can All Adopt

FIRST: BE SAFE. STAY HOME. SOCIAL DISTANCE. NOW…

• This is the third article in a series I’m writing as a response to the crisis. If you’re new to this, it is probably best if you read the first two. The first is “The Value of Music in the Age of Coronavirus” and the second is “How This Crisis Can Remake Music and Cultural Cities Policy Everywhere”.
• I am working on a framework to address what I see as the failings of music, cultural, night time economy and creative economy policies in our cities, towns and places. This article introduces that framework. As always, please comment below, or email me if you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms or ideas.

This crisis is causing havoc in the creative industries. Here is what it is doing to in Portland, Oregon. In the UK, £14m of lost wages has been calculated by the Musicians Union, through a survey of members. In Philadelphia, the closure of bars and restaurants have taken away musicians’ second jobs. In a newsletter CMU, they state:

Many people in the music industry were immediately hit when venues started to close and festivals cancel as measures were put in place to restrict and delay the spread of the coronavirus in an increasing number of countries. A significant portion of the artist and music community rely heavily on live activity to make a living from music. Meanwhile, other strands of the business are now also being affected, including retail, physical distribution, studio work and music teaching.

Saying that, I’m taken by this quote, in The Conversation:

Making music provides a means to regain control.

Getty Images via Billboard

There is little good news here, although it is worth reading Stuart Dredge ‘Good News’ newsletter, outlining positive actions taken in the industry).

Here’s what this tells me:

1. The policies to support the creative sector & overall self employed are not fit for purpose.
2. Most cities & places are unaware of the economic value of their music, culture & night time economy activities. If they were, there’d be safeguards to protect the people whose work creates said value.
3. Music and culture are as important than ever. But the solution to support musicians in times of need is to treat the sector as a charity — set up GoFundMe’s, distribute small emergency grants etc.. This is necessary now in many instances but it should never have gotten this far.
4. We are beginning — as a society — to recognise that what we take for granted we do, indeed, take for granted.
5. In crisis, we seem as a group to be in favour of big government. The US just passed a $2tn relief package. In the UK, the support package introduced is the largest ever conceived. Both countries are run by right-of-centre governments. Many other governments, including France, Norway, Germany, Canada, Chile & others are guaranteeing wages of creatives & self employed.
6. Many of the most important jobs are the least paid. Where would we be without delivery drivers, care workers or (in my opinion) musicians right now?

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In order to propose change, we need a framework. Here is my first stab at what such a framework could look like. I preface this by saying I’m not in the business of predicting or blaming anyone or anything. And none of these thoughts are new.

To develop such a framework, we must accept the following:

• How we ‘fund’ culture (whether it is through tax, deferring tax, direct funding, incentives etc..) in our cities does not work.
• How we choose what we fund (across cultural disciplines) does not work for everyone. And if viruses don’t discriminate, why should we?
• How we govern music and culture (develop rules, abide by them, measure them) in our towns and cities does not work. This is universal. We either govern it wrong or not at all. Both do not work.
• Availability of data, tech and AI is part of the solution, but people come first.
• There’s an element of humility and acceptance that what we’re doing now hasn’t worked to bring about change. That takes leadership. You, reading this, got of this wrong. I did too. I hope we can find enough of us to accept responsibility, take this seriously and change.

My framework is based on these three questions.

1. What should a music and cultural policy framework address?
2. What changes should we expect?
3. How does it work?

Quick Note: This is abridged and is meant for debate, not adoption. Get in touch if you want to chat about this in more depth.

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What Should a Music & Cultural Policy Framework Address?

• Creation: The widespread structures to enable music & culture to be created by anyone, anywhere. This includes adequately funding music & cultural education and having it open to all genres and disciplines; developing public space in such a way so music & culture can be a part of it safely and respectfully; ensuring that there are music & cultural programs in places that would benefit from them such as hospitals, care homes, special education centres, libraries & areas in need of redevelopment; understanding of what buildings, spaces & places are needed for music & culture and ensuring policies are in place to provide the right incentives (financial, emotional, structural) to create them; acceptance that what worked ‘back then’ may not work now. Just because famous music comes from your town or city does not mean you are doing what you need to do to support music and culture now.
• Protection: Development and adherence to copyright and IP processes to ensure intellectual property is treated as property everywhere, with penalties when this is not the case; widespread rights management, focused at a community level (city registries, maybe?); inclusive growth policies and actions to ensure access to music and culture is for everyone; equal treatment of all venues & spaces where music & culture is disseminated and policies to respect that (an opera house and nightclub are equally valuable); Policies to protect basic rights of creatives (affordable housing benefits, pension, social security — we see the importance of this now more than ever). Inclusion of music in city master plans, area action plans and so on. If something is written in policy, it exists. If its seen as transversal, it is ignored.
• Monetisation: Recognition of the music and the creative industries as an industry like any other; understanding of its supply chain and impact on other sectors, including hospitality, tourism, logistics, manufacturing, finance and vice-versa; ensuring that any incentive program is made available for music & the cultural industries that is designed for economic development purposes (I wish this were the case, but it’s not); intentional use & strategy of music and culture in tourism; creation of music and cultural business networks; music and cultural recognition in chambers of commerce, BIDs and local enterprise partnerships. Looking at city artist compensation schemes or incentives to ensure music and culture is recognised as something that needs to be paid for. Free is expensive for someone.
• Maintenance: Yearly review of the value of music and culture in communities (only France does this); such a review must be economic, social, cultural and environmental; creation and maintenance of cultural / music infrastructure plans; budget for maintaining cultural infrastructure in times of need (creative pathways develop potholes that need filling, just like roads; recognition that sometimes, we all (as a state) must step in;
• Evaluation: Budget allocated to have the people and expertise to understand what works and doesn’t; placement of music & cultural experts across city departments, to better evaluate the impact of music and culture on other issues (health care, education, licensing, planning, regeneration, marketing, budgeting); recognition that the impact of music and culture in our communities requires an evaluative framework.
• Participation: Inclusion of music in intergovernmental and global networks like the SDGs, global regulatory frameworks and donor contracts. Understanding of current provisions (such as festivals, venues etc…) are for all members of the community. Recognition that access (physical, mental) must be strategized. A flight of stairs separates people are much as anything else sometimes.
• Celebration: This we seem to do quite well. Often without the others.

What Changes Should We Expect?

• Inclusion of music & culture in non music/cultural issues and more participatory democracy: You would be surprised how much easier it is to recognise issues before they become real problems by monitoring the role music & culture has in our places, towns and cities. In many places we can’t stop the negative impact of gentrification, but better understanding of how music & culture flows in places can be used to forecast — and implement — better growth policies around housing, health care, core services, transport. Here’s my argument there. We can learn from Shoreditch, Nashville, Austin, Williamsburg. We will recover and places will change. We need to stop losing what made them change in the first place and recognise the importance of those that made it happen.
• Better targeting of resources: We see it time & time again. Seven figures of incentives and public support are dedicated — in complex ways often — to developing a new arena or stadium in a ‘growth area’ (which often means a place with poverty and inequity). In many cases, resources are not committed to providing health care, community spaces or programming for those creating locally and jobs are imported, rather than germinated, tended to and harvested. This is often backed by bad policy; economic development often means building places; places do not create the culture that brings a place meaning. People do that.
• Equations We Can Use To Prove Things That We Should Never Need To Prove: My life is focused on creating a spreadsheet to prove that if you invest $1 in music or culture, you get $2, $3, $4 or $10 back over a period of time. I won’t stop doing that, but I’ve realised we are in search of these equations often to provide cover to spend taxpayer money on things that benefit specific groups of people. Amazon mastered this, where cities’ bids in the US essentially became their economic development policy. The tourism sector is equally guilty. Hotel tax often does not support those that make a place worth visiting (Austin is changing this). Often, tourism boards invest in promoting heritage rather than new talent (which I call living culture). We can still prove what we need to prove. We can do it differently.
• More People Focused Urban Development: There are so many buzz terms that need calling out. I take some blame here. What exactly is placemaking? People-centric design? Smart Cities? None of this matters when the places tasked with facilitating congregation are closed. When there are no places to ‘make’. We should not support this narrative in the first place, which to me outlines that if we are placemaking here, it denotes the fact that over there, they aren’t. We should start with places in the most need, but recognise that places seen as being ‘in need’ are rich in culture and creators. A framework on music and culture for urban development will improve development.
• A Commitment to Research: I have said time & time again that every city needs a music strategy. Time to go further. We need an accepted, bipartisan framework in each place to reimagine how to talk about, invest in, protect & preserve music & culture in communities. This requires research all the time. That requires money. There’s money for this. It’s just being spent on other things.

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Now, How Could This Work?

A global problem requires a global solution that is implementable locally. So I’ve started with the ‘general’ and worked down to the specific.

1. Outline that music & culture is part of a place’s core infrastructure; a human right. Like water, air, Broadband. From the UN to a small village, we can all do this.
2. Commit policymakers to recognising that the absolute basics to facilitate music & culture in communities be paid for out of core budgets (I know this works differently everywhere, but think generally here).
3. The basics are: education, IP registration & protection, commitment that any economic development and tourism policy includes music & culture, recognition of both as businesses & provision of staff & research capabilities to support it (here is the ecosystem argument — your ecosystem is different to mine, but it shares core characteristics)
4. Commitment that music & culture be included in all urban development frameworks — donor support, planning law, licensing, public health, tourism, permitting etc..
5. Commitment in all cases to genre agnosticism— all resources — large and small, financial or cultural — should be available to all genres and disciplines. Usage should be determined by the amount of people using it. This means some people will lose out. Sorry to say, but it’s time we view hip-hop, for example, the same way we view classical and opera in terms of funding, resources etc…
6. Review, review, review. This is a process. This is just the way it is now. Get used to it.

Moving towards the specific, each framework could then:

1. Ensure local planning, zoning, licensing frameworks are reviewed to remove ordinances, bylaws and structures that discriminate against music & culture. Or develop ones that intentionally and explicitly support, recognise and reference music and culture. Wherever you live, I bet there’s something in there that needs reform or something that doesn’t exist that should.
2. Create stronger local frameworks for infrastructure. Venues & festivals should have access to appropriate insurance that protects them; grassroots music venues should be seen the same way other theatres and concert halls are; Programs should be explored so musicians & creatives have access to local health care services, pensions and benefits; all incentive programs appropriate should be made available to the music & creative sectors; no publicly funded event should ever feature music without paying for it.
3. Ensure and state the fact that there’s no taking from one hand and giving to the other here. We are emotional beings. We see music as the music we like. We often regard culture as a ‘nice to have’. But it’s not. It’s a need to have. And it can function along other ‘need to haves’. Housing policy is improved by recognising music & culture in communities. We make places safer by ensuring access to music & culture. We can provide efficiencies in our health care systems through social prescribing.
4. It will stop making music & culture special. We’re not. We are simply a key part of a city’s governance structures and responsibilities. Being made special as an ecosystem has left us without much needed support structures. Providing clean water isn’t special. Paving roads isn’t special.
5. Recognise & outline in policy that music and culture are not simply about economic benefit. Some countries and cities do this better than others. I think in the times we’re in, this is increasingly apparent.
6. Commit to developing a global research & information sharing framework that all cities opt-in to. We can do better together.

There’s more. From draft ordinances that stop linking street performance and busking with vagrancy to policies focused on creating jobs that have no relevance to music and culture, there’s so much to change. Now is our opportunity. I hope this gets the discussion going.

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