The costs of putting Valencia on the map: the hidden side of regional entrepreneurialism, ‘creative city’ and strategic projects

《The costs of putting Valencia on the map: the hidden side of regional entrepreneurialism, ‘creative city’ and strategic projects》

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作者单位: Departament de Sociologia i Antropologia Social, Facultat de Ciències Socials, University of Valencia, València, Spain;Departament de Sociologia i Antropologia Social, Facultat de Ciències Socials, University of Valencia, València, Spain

摘要: Strategic projects based on culture and sports have been one of the vectors of regional development since the 1990s. Accordingly, local and regional governments have drawn up entrepreneurial strategies to project their image internationally and foster investment and tourism. These developments have been described in Spain as ‘The Calatrava Model’ for putting a city/region on the map and for boosting tourism. However, from the study of the case of Valencia and four strategic projects (The Fifth World Meeting of Families, The America's Cup, Formula 1 and The City of Arts and Sciences), we will show how there is a hidden side to this paradigm, which boils down to an unsustainable, top-down system whose sole purpose is to gain and maintain political hegemony. We will also assess the medium and long term impacts of these projects in terms of: opportunity costs, snowballing debt, corruption, and an utter breakdown of democratic controls as a result of Valencia’s poor regional governance.