Local Scenes, Conditions of Music Making and Neoliberal City Management – A Case Study of Hamburg, Germany.

In recent years, city governments turned into restructuring of urban social and economic conditions and discovered ‘urban music’ as a way to ‘sell’ their ideas of creative (neo-liberal) city- development. Consequences of these strategies are, for example music related city marketing, creative industries support and spectacular flagship-projects like opera houses and concert halls. In contrast to these kinds of top-down planning, local scenes as well as bottom-up movements as breeding grounds of cultural production are obviously out of sight. But actually, effects of accelerated gentrification, restructuring of ‘creative’-quarters and the privatization of urban space seem to increase hindrances of urban musical/artistic production and the development of local scenes.
In this context, the project examines how local scenes and conditions of music production are affected by ongoing changes in urban areas, and which effects of city policies and interventions can be identified on the individual level of scene players and institutions.
Therefore, the case of Hamburg delivers a blueprint of what can be called a neo-liberal (‘creative’) city - including strong top-down planning one the one and struggeling bottom-up scenes and social/cultural initiatives on the other. Basing on empiric data, the ongoing research takes into account current conventions of music making as well as developments of urban scenes caused by strategies and interventions of local (cultural) politics. On a rather actor-centered level, the project examines existing gaps between urban planning/ city politics and the musical sector and discusses implications on the relationship between cultural actors and ‘their’ urban environment.