Is Sydney a cultured city?
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World Cities Culture Report 2012 - selected measures (source: WSJ)
London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson, released the World cities culture report 2012 yesterday, a survey he commissioned comparing the cultural strength of 12 international cities on 60 variables.
One of those twelve cities is Sydney and, of course, London’s there too. The others are Berlin, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Mumbai, New York, Paris, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo
The Financial Times says the survey puts the UK capital at or near the top on measures such as number of museums and art galleries. London comes out with 173 national and other museums against New York’s 131 and Paris’s 137.
The Guardian sees Paris as the benchmark for London. It reports Paris has three times the number of cinemas as London, twice as many public libraries, far more bookshops, theatres and music venues. London, on the other hand, has more museums, restaurants, night clubs and green spaces.
The Wall Street Journal reports NY led in seven categories, including dance performances and theatre performances. New York has more theatres than any other city but Paris has the most music performances.
There are some surprises too. According to the Journal, “Johannesburg has the highest number of rare and secondhand bookstores, with 943, and Istanbul—along with Paris and Shanghai—has more cinemas than New York.” Tokyo has the most bookshops.
Sydney doesn’t top any of the 60 categories but is only marginally behind Singapore – and well ahead of the rest – on the percentage of public green space. Sydney also does pretty well on festivals and the number of libraries and bookshops per head of population.
Here’re some examples put together by one media outlet showing which cities “came top” on selected measures:
National museums: Shanghai
Percentage of public green space: Singapore
Public libraries per 100,000 population: Sydney / Tokyo
Cinemas (per million population): Paris
Restaurants per 100,000 population: Tokyo
Michelin-starred restaurants: Tokyo
UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Paris
Other historical / heritage sites: Istanbul
Theatrical performances per year: New York
Comedy clubs: New York
Art galleries: Paris
Rare and second-hand bookshops: Johannesburg
Nightclubs, discos and dance halls: São Paulo
Having a long history, large numbers of tourists and an advanced economy seems to help, but as with almost all of these sorts of “benchmarking” exercises, the survey shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Yes, culture does matter – both in terms of the economic value of creative industries and in terms of a city’s ability to attract tourists and skilled residents – but this survey doesn’t really tell us a lot about the differences between these cities beyond the obvious.
A key problem is it defines ‘culture’ extraordinarily broadly. It uses a multi-dimensional definition embracing (a) culture as aesthetic forms and practices, (b) culture as a way of life, and (c) culture as a resource for supporting human development. That’s so all-embracing it’s very hard to operationalise.
So it’s not surprising the selected measures have many imperfections. I’m not going to go into their failings, instead I just want to mention some of the thoughts that occurred to me when I read the report.
One is you need to be careful about what these indicators mean. I doubt Johannesburg’s pre-eminence in bookshops and Tokyo’s in restaurants signifies these are among the most cultured cities in the world. It’s probably got more to do with factors like how many Johannesburg residents can afford new books.
Another is size matters. Although lots of the data is frustratingly presented in absolute terms rather than per capita terms, it matters that Paris has many more theatrical venues than Sydney. Sydney does better in per capita terms than many of the measures indicate, but bigger cities (and the effective populations of many are bolstered by tourism) simply provide more scope for specialisation.
Assuming the measures are right, another observation is Sydney does surprisingly poorly on some of the more popular cultural activities. For example, Sydney has 69 live music venues compared to Paris’s 423 (and Istanbul’s 91) and 432 comedy performances per year compared to London’s 11,388 (and Johannesburg’s 508). Perhaps the quality is higher in Sydney (something that’s not captured well by the measures).
I think a couple of the key challenges facing the 12 cities identified in the report are important for Australian cities too. We don’t have the history of London or even New York, but a relevant one nevertheless is “striking a balance between tradition and modernity.”
Some cities’ international image is very much shaped by their historic buildings and heritage, yet they need to find a way to make sure their contemporary culture is recognised and vibrant – a question Paris is interested in. On the other hand, the international images of, say, Tokyo and Shanghai tend to overlook their historic quarters and buildings.
Another that’s also relevant to all our cities is establishing and maintaining a sense of the local in a globally oriented world.
As ideas and people move more and more freely across borders, it may become hard to keep hold of the distinctive elements of a city’s culture. How can this be done without becoming parochial or protectionist?
Finally, the measures cover both ‘high brow’ and ‘low brow’ culture, but the emphasis is on arts-related culture. Other activities – like sporting attendances and participation – don’t get a mention, notwithstanding that they seem consistent with the definition of culture assumed in the study i.e. (b) culture as a way of life and (c) culture as a resource for supporting human development.
One line in the study made me shake my head. Describing Sydney, the authors say: “The city also draws on its climate and natural beauty to create a relaxed, convivial, inclusive culture.” So that’s why some communities are more (or less) inclusive than others!
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And where is the cultural corner of Melbourne? Southbank with its arts complex and casino? or the MCC across from the Botanical Gardens and Shrine?
For some of us most cultural components at the heart of a city need to be mainly within walking distance of each other. This cultural walk-score would place Melbourne at the top of the category.
I think they should have covered radio & TV – Sydney has ABC Classic FM, (and another classical music station??), SBS, ABC digital radio has a jazz station etc. I’m always surprised at the number of big cities in other countries who can’t match our ABC radio!
I alos can login for free via my W.A. state library website to the Naxos database and listen to thousands of discs … I’ve just done it, and looked at recent releases, and as it’s Friday, I’ve skipped the Bach and Brahms and am presently being serenaded by the United States Sir Force Band and Singing Sergeants doing Christmas in Killarney. So there, Paris!
As a city aficionado this kind of comparison is always fun to read. But not to be taken as definitive, not least because of the difficulty of making the comparisons. For example the comparisons of the Western cities creates a big anomaly by using Ile de France for Paris, which is almost ten times bigger than the others (London, NYC). This means it encompasses Versailles and Fontainbleu and their adjacent giant forests of Rambouillet and Fontainbleu, both of which are approximately the size of inner Paris. Yet, the percent of public open space is claimed to be way lower than most other cities—which suggest to me they are only using figures for inner Paris –which is lower than London, though if one includes Bois de Boulogne (2.5 x Central Park), not to mention Bois de Vincennes, both part of inner Paris, it would be different again. And their discussion of Tokyo’s parks shows how such report writers try not to offend any city: expressing Ueno Park in sq metres is a transparent fudge (err. 500,000 m2 is only 50 hectare and tiny relative to Bois de Boulogne’s 836 ha, London’s Richmond Park, etc.); the fact is that Tokyo has a serious shortage of public open space.
I flatout do not accept their figures on “bars” as there are about 30,000 Brasseries & Bistros alone in Paris; all Cafes are also bars but are possibly not included (and for that matter so are all modern fast food places like McDonalds, the only ones in the world to have alcohol served). But you only have to have walked around these cities (London, NYC, Paris but also Tokyo again doesn’t really jibe for me) to know there is something wrong with the figures.
But the stats on cinemas is certainly true; the density in Paris is overwhelming, as is the films being shown. Think of any main release movie from the last decade and most older classics, and it will probably be showing somewhere.
On the other hand I wonder about the annual music performances as I suspect Paris’ number is boosted a lot by the city-sponsored outdoor music performances all over the city during the one day Fetes de la Musique and Bastille Day. There is no pub music scene like in the Anglo cities.
Sydney shouldn’t get too cocky about its two World Heritage sites compared to Paris’ (and London’s) four, because Paris simply overwhelms the system. UNESCO (headquarters in Paris) made a single site in central Paris that encompasses dozens perhaps hundreds of individual sites like Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle etc. (I don’t know for sure but I suspect it must be the same for London.)
For those who would include sport in such city comparisons I think the current stats in London shows why it would not be a really relevant thing to include in “culture”. Despite about 600,000 people attending the Olympics, for the rest of London only about 50% of the normal summer tourist numbers have shown up. It confirms what we all know about sports nuts (and yes by extension, too many Australians particularly Melburnians): the are mono-obsessives to the exclusion of much other culture, and their IQs drop at least twenty points when they get into that sports mindset! (This excludes those high-IQ individuals who follow tennis and the Tour de France, bien sur!) Indirect support for this can be seen in Paris (& France) which rates the top in this cultural survey but is never thought of in terms of sports obsession. Though paradoxically they are at an unprecedented #4 in the Olympics medal table; then again it was a Frenchman who created the modern Olympics, go figure.
So mes Aussies, shove that in yer futbol and kick it down the road
@hk at 8:51 am
Re your walkscore, I assume you are comparing Melbourne with Sydney. As again, the world winner is obviously Paris, home and holy grail of the flaneur (though strictly speaking a flaneur is not admiring culture so much… but equally it is difficult to practice flaneurism in a non-cultural city, let me tell you as a Brisbanite!)
And per my last para in my previous post I think Melbourne’s focus on building itself up as king of sports is misguided–except of course for the noble sport of tennis
But they better be vigilant because it would hardly be surprising if Spain (probably Barcelona, which should be in this survey) is not thinking about trying to wrest the Grand Slam rights from Australia.
But we up in Tweed Heads probably do well in at least one category, in summer. We can get ABC classic FM from Lismore, then an hour later get it from Mt Tambourine. So if the music is good, I can listen again in an hour, or if it is not too good (jazz or modern) I can change to Qld and hope for a better program. And we also have 4MBS from Brisbane, though tending to fade in spots where sheltered by high hills or reflections off walls!
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