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Short abstract:

By investigating the notions of curation, compliance, and consolidation, this paper critically analyzes the mechanisms of developing and governing “controlled environments” in the form of seemingly transformative creative urban districts within the local sociocultural context of Munich (Germany).

Long abstract:

In current urban development, planners and local governments have embraced creative districts as a popular approach that is usually presented as exploring holistic and powerful out-of-the-box answers to social, economic, and ecological urban challenges by bringing together actors from diverse sectors, including art, culture, and technology (Chapain 2020).

In a comparative paper, I investigate the explicit and implicit mechanisms of governing creative districts as spaces of urban future-making in Munich (Germany) and Bristol (UK). For this panel, I zoom in on the urban development projects of Munich, critically reflecting on the nuances of “controlling” who gets to participate in its creative districts, and how this shapes the respective transformative agenda. Specifically, when drawing attention to actors from the arts and subculture sector whose origins lie in counterculture and respective practices of disruption, I observe the paradox effect of creative districts in Munich: Instead of fostering an experimental space for critical interrogation and transdisciplinary approaches to urban transformation, Munich’s urban governance mechanisms reign in any potential subversion. Exploring the notions of curation, compliance, and consolidation, I lay out how said control mechanisms protect the existing understanding of urban innovation based on the economic success of big tech companies, and sideline alternative ideas rooted in social reform and communal practices.

While this paper is less concerned with urban technologies of control, it provides an empirical study on the politics of developing a “controlled environment”, and what it does (not) allow for in the form of creative districts in a local sociopolitical context.