Manufacturing a city of culture

I was in Łódź over the weekend to speak at the Regional Congress of Culture (how strange that sounds in English!). Taking part in a panel about fostering growth of a creative industries sector and urban regeneration, my role was to present the UK experience in this.

Łódź has a problem with its self-image. It's clearly a second-league city; Warsaw, Poznań, Katowice, Kraków, Wrocław and the Tri-City are fast-growing metropolises with low unemployment (3.5%-5%). But Łódź (10.4% unemployment) - with Lublin (9.2%) and Białystok (11.9%) - are cities lagging behind. I did note a burst of rapid growth around the second half of the last decade in Łódź - but that growth spurt ran out of steam. My most recent visits here left me with a vague sense of disappointment that the city has somehow stopped developing.

One of the problems of the city is its people. As the deputy mayor told yesterday's session of the congress, Łódź has over 250 million zlotys (₤50 million) in unpaid rent from its council tenants. (Private landlords fare no better - a UK investor recently approached the BPCC to see what could be done about tenants not paying him rent.)

Łódź has a run-down feel to it. I stepped out onto Piotrkowska, the main drag - early Saturday evening... the lights were on but the streets were empty. The main shopping street of Poland's second* city, and yet shops shut at four o'clock on a Saturday. Turning off Piotrkowska, unsavoury characters stood menacingly outside alcohol shops filling the air with expletive-filled dialogue. Grafitti lacked any other purpose than marking territory and mindless football preferences. No art, no culture, no humour. The city's art cinema has three shows a week (none at weekends).

Time, then, for a communist-era joke. The Soviet ambassador in Warsaw was puzzled when he received an invite from the Czechoslovak embassy to attend a celebration marking the Czechoslovak Day of the Sea. “But why?” asked the ambassador. “Czechoslovakia has no sea” "Well,” came the reply, “you invited us to the Soviet Day of Culture..."

So is Łódź a City of Culture or not? Is this merely an aspirational slogan, driven by the accidental presence of a world-class film school, the vestiges of a fashion industry and a few software companies? And is this enough to build on?

It's worth turning to the UK experience, the extent to which cities like Liverpool have Glasgow managed to turn around and to shed old stereotypes. To what extent do the city authorities need to pump-prime the turnaround, putting money into refurbishing public buildings, public spaces – will that attract creative people?

The impression I was left with was of a city that's lost its way - that has an idea of where it want to get to, but is clueless as to how to get there. The debate was interesting. Certain notions were agreed by all; Łódź needs to attract and retain talented young people, who will come to study in the city, and will stay there to build their career, start companies, employ others, contribute to local society. The university has pulled itself up - it's now joined Warsaw University, Warsaw University of Technology (Politechnika Warszawska) and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków as Poland's only universities in the global top 500.

So the students come; but how to make the students stay?

Łódź has potential. The streets have atmosphere; crumbling industrial-era tenements, unreconstructed communist-era klimat (the architecture of the TV building being a nice example)... low rents by Warsaw standards - vast swathes of real estate ripe for gentrification, a huge film-set (much like London's Docklands before redevelopment). Yet the deputy mayor shied away from gentrification as an answer (what would happen to the indigenous people squeezed out by yuppie-style property prices?).

And here we reached a certain problem, one that even robustly politically-incorrect Poland doesn't wish to confront. When talking about 'culture' in the sense of high culture - theatre, ambitious cinema, classical music, literature - there will always be large proportions of any population for whom it is simply inaccessible. Pan Heniek and Pan Ziutek, standing outside the Żabka store swigging vodka z gwintu and swearing aggressively, are not going to enjoy an Ibsen play no matter how much money the public sector pumps into subsidised theatre.

What to do with these people (who're probably not paying rent either)? Let the market force them out of town? The city authorities don't know... Where are they going to find the money to build social housing into which they have a duty of care towards anyone evicted from council flats in town?

Grafitti, smashed windows, litter, boorish behaviour in the streets do not endear the city to would-be gentrifiers. Tackle these first, and the rest will fall into place. Trendy bars, cafes and eateries will spring up, entrepreneurs will have ideas, people will flock - it can be done. Look at Warsaw's Praga district - Ząbkowska, for example. It's gentrifying at a rapid pace.

To what extent do public authorities have any influence over market forces in terms of which cities are on the ascendant, which ones are stagnant, and which are dying on their feet? What can City Hall do to promote growth - driven by a creative industries sector?

If we’re looking for exemplars – take a look at this. The cult design store, Pan Tu Nie Stał, with its ultra hip and trendy PRL-themed clothing and artefacts. It shows what can be done with an idea.

One of the speakers on the panel was the boss of a local IT firm. He mentioned a sobering fact. His company posted job ads for a junior programmer and for the personal assistant to the head of HR. There were five applications for the programmer's job. Over 500 application for the PA's job. Poland - like many other countries in the developed world - is churning out too many marketing, sociology, philology, media studies and linguistics graduates - and not enough engineers, scientists or biotechnologists. How to address this - at primary school level, I would argue. Every bit as important as imbuing in schoolchildren a love of the arts.

To sum up – far more questions than answers – despite the evident good will of the city authorities and the cultured part of the local population, there’s still no road map for the way forward. How will Łódź look in four years time, when, via Stryków, it becomes accessible my motorway to Warsaw, Poznań and Gdańsk? When Łódź Fabryczna is completed and a rail journey from Warsaw takes less than one hour?

My guess is a Łódź renaissance will slowly get under way, driven by young people getting increasingly wealthy, displaying hipness and trendiness, buying flats in old tenements and doing them up, more trendy bars appearing. But this will happen much more slowly than in Warsaw's Praga. We shall see.

Above: Hipster hangout; Owoce i Warzywa ('Fruit and Vegetables') ul. Traugutta 9. On the window it says KAWA ALKOHOL TWÓRCZOŚĆ ('Coffee alcohol creativity'). In the door, a poster for Bajkonur, a 'creative space' with rehearsal rooms, a stage, a café. In the foreground, bike stands of the correct design, correctly situated with correct signage. And an amsterdamka - lady's framed pushbike. Not as hip as a fixie, but nearly there - and front tyre different from rear tyre...

* Łódź has traditionally been Poland's second city. However, due to depopulation (it's one of Poland's fastest depopulating cities), it has been overtaken by Kraków in terms of numbers of inhabitants. And if you take the Silesian agglomeration as one mega-city rather than as ten towns clustered tightly together, Łódź is actually Poland's fourth city.

This time last year:
My thousandth post

This time two years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time three years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station

This time four years ago:
Red Arrows over Lincolnshire from 30,000 ft

Wódźew Łidz or Łódź Widzew

The old Łódź Fabryczna is no more, shut down for good, to be knocked down and replaced by a bright, modern underground station in some unforeseeable time in the future. (Three years? Dream on!)

Anyway, if you're coming to Łódź from Warsaw by train (the journey by road being execrable), your train will get no further than Łódź Widzew. To centre of town is another six and half kilometres (four miles). This is akin to closing Warsaw's Central station and having all trains from the west terminate at W-wa Zachodnia, or closing Birmingham New Street and having all trains from London terminate at Stechford. Coming home on Sunday, I paid more for my taxi to the station from my hotel than I paid for my ticket from Łódź Widzew back to Warsaw (my hotel being walking distance from Łódź Fabryczna).

Above: the arrival of the 11:15 train from Warsaw (running time - just under two hours; twice the time of the London Euston to Rugby service in the mid-'70s; same distance). A station in the middle of a field. Serving a destination that likes to be considered as Poland's second city.

Above: There's no underground passage between platforms and only one footbridge. And just as Łódź Widzew becomes the city's main station - the footbridge gets closed. To cross the tracks means having to walk to either end of the 300m-long platform.

The worst thing about all this is that this state of affairs will carry on for years and years. It's not doing the city of Łódź any favours.

A more informative article from the railway point of view over at Behind The Water Tower (Dyzpozytor himself hailing from Łódź and being personally affected by the Fabryczna closure). Maps and links to timetables.

This time two years ago:
A touch of frost in the garden

Of cycles, economic and human

Nikolai Kondratieff (or Kondratiev), a Soviet economist, had worked out in the 1920s, looking at booms and busts in commidity prices since biblical times, that there is a historical long wave that oscillates between plenty and want that's around 50-60 years long. Kondratieff's work came to Stalin's attention, delighted that the Great Depression affecting the capitalist world was indeed, as Marx had insisted, a historical inevitability. But Kondratieff had the temerity of telling the Brilliant Genius of Humanity that the capitalist world would come out of the Depression as sure as day followed night. This angered the Great Architect of Communism greatly, who had Kondratieff packed off to the Gulag, where he died.

Kondratieff's work came to wider public attention in the west in the 1980s - 50 years after the Great Depression. Kondratieff's thesis was that the intervals between economic downturns was predicated by technology; I would rather posit that it is to do with the human lifespan; people leading a company, a bank or a nation's economy into crisis would have learned their lesson, but would not be around to lead their firms, banks or countries into the next downturn. But the 80s straddled two short-wave downturns - one in late '70s, one in the early '90s.

The '80s (well, at least the period from '83 to '88) were a period of boom. This boom - in the UK at least - was fuelled by Margaret Thatcher's deregulation of Britain's financial services sector - the Big Bang in the City. Scrapping many of the restrictive practices that were said to hold back the market, she opened the door to derivatives trading, day-trading, options and many other forms of purely speculative financial plays that proved to be - ultimately - unsustainable. Economist Roger Bootle (link here), has suggested recently on the BBC Business News website that when markets start buying and selling things as exotic as options on the volatility of the dingbat, a crash is bound to follow.

The Kondratieff cycle has elongated itself - we're living longer. The coming recession is likely to be part of a prolonged downturn (something I suggested here - a downturn lasting around one-eighth of the average human lifespan). It will not be resolved until the Great Absurdities can be fixed. Countries and households living beyond their means - people earning more money than the value they put into their jobs (here I'm thinking about the public sectors in many countries, not least Greece), balanced budgets, and corporations looking at long-term sustainability rather than short-term profits. Investors should be content with lower returns on their savings, in exchange for knowing that their money is being invested in sustainable businesses - not on purely speculative plays.

The global economy will emerge from this downturn (can we call it Great Depression II - abbreviated to GDII?) much the wiser. Voters will (hopefully) be less likely to elect people like Berlusconi or the socalists in Hungary or Greece who play fast and loose with taxpayers' money, racking up huge unsustainable debts (note the recent defeat of tax-and-spend parties in Poland's elections).

As I wrote recently, Poland has not got into similar trouble for a variety of reasons. Whichever politician included into the draft of the Polish Constitution the paragraph that the country's debt should not exceed 60% of GDP (and that emergency measures should kick in on the debt exceeding 55% of GDP) should be immediately given a Polonia Restituta and have streets named after him or her. And Polish banks were either too dimwitted or prudently cautious (delete as appropriate) to go on a wild lending spree or to invest in sub-prime mortgages, junk bonds or risky derivatives.

A final point. Poles (and indeed citizens of all the Soviet bloc countries) have first-hand memories of hyperinflation (1,400% a year in 1990), shortages of most consumer products, 20% unemployment. All this happened within the past 25 years. To Poles, what's going on now is a blip compared to what they lived through. The average Pole TV-viewer, watching the Occupiers of Wall Street, the Indignados of Madrid, the Greeks setting fire to whatever's flammable including themselves, thinks that these are the protests of essentially soft people, mollycoddled for decades, who're finally reaping the economic whirlwind.

Economic long-wave cycles are largely predicated by human memory. German hyperinflation on the 1920s and its effects - Hitler's democratic rise to power - are why the Bundesbank so assiduously protected the Deutchmark from losing value. Unbridled greed, unrestrained by a longer-term view; mindless consumerism - now, the world is paying the price. We can look at the global banking crisis, the 2009 recession, the sovereign debt crisis, the eurozone crisis - and the forthcoming recession - in economic terms. I'd like to look at it from a philosophical and human point of view.

Economic systems cannot tolerate absurdity for very long. Something had to snap. Greed and laziness, soaring property prices, ever-more abstract speculation on our financial markets.

The question Jak żyć?'('how to live'), which was asked by a farmer of premier Donald Tusk during the recent election campaign, became a slogan of the opposition.

It is a fundamentally important question. For my part, saving rather than spending, frugality and financial prudence, using a small, economic car only sparingly - foregoing exotic holidays, not spending big money on consumer electronics and clothes, segregating one's rubbish, yet living in a large, comfortable house in a most agreeable suburb - is my recipe for economic as well as personal success. Working for several companies rather than for one employer that can sack you when things go sour (as has happened to me in the past) allows me to hedge my revenue sources. Looking forward several years rather than just to the end of the month. Jak żyć is about being able to place yourself in a macroeconomic context - your time and place on the planet, economic cycles that ebb and flow.

This time last year:
Why didn't I read this before: Grapes of Wrath

This time two years ago:
Małopolska from the train

This time three years ago:
Grading ul. Poloneza

More hipster mounts

Above: full marks for hitting all the trendy requirements for a fashionable hipster mount - the bike in the foreground; old-school PRL-era Romet track frame perfectly restored (to name a bike 'Super' - how ironic can you get?); rear-facing rear drop-outs (so rare! yet so essential for a well-functioning fixie). No brakes (kids - don't try this unless you know what you're doing). But best of all non-matching wheels; four-spoke carbon fibre aero wheel front (with red-rimmed rubber) and trad rear wheel, white rim, yellow-walled tyre.

Below: two matching fixies... His and hers? His and his? Hers and hers? We don't know. That's the point. One in front is more radical; no brakes, tyres of different colours, drop handlebars, drivetrain accented in blue, rear-facing rear dropouts. One behind has a front brake, flat bars, white hubs.

This time last year:
Welcome to Warsaw

This time two years ago:
Just like the old days

Classic truck cavalcade

Every now and then, Warsaw yields some interesting classic vehicles. Below: here's one still in use - a Praga V3S with crane. Distinguishable by its snub-nosed appearance (short engine compartment that does not protrude far beyond the front axle), the V3S was in production for 32 years - from 1953 to 1985. Once a common sight in the communist world, now a rarity.

Below: A Dodge WC51 Weapons Carrier, 3/4 Ton. Built in huge numbers during WWII, the WC51 served also thanks to Lend Lease in the Soviet Army, which is probably how this example ended up in Poland.

Below: probably travelling in convoy with the Dodge Weapons Carrier, a GAZ-51 ambulance in the markings of the Polish People's Army. This one's marked 'Zavod im. Molotova' which means it's a pre-1956 model. The GAZ-51 was licence built in Poland as the FSC Lublin-51.

As always, good to see industrial heritage well looked after and on the road. Vehicles half a century old - or older - need to be kept going for future generations to enjoy looking at.

This time last year:
Narrow back-roads clogged with commuters

This time two years ago:
Autumn gold, Łazienkowski Park

This time four years ago:
Of bishops and bands

Warsaw - Poznań - Warsaw

An early start yesterday - I had the first presentation slot at a conference on public-private partnerships in Poznań and was due on stage at 9:20. Problem: the first train of the day from Warsaw arrives in Poznań at 9:51. Take the earlier one? Well, that arrives at... 2:40. I toyed with the idea of flying (dep. Okęcie 5:50, arr. Poznań 6:45); then I remembered that Martin and Paddy will be driving there, so I cadged a lift.

Leaving Warsaw just after five, it took two hours and ten minutes to cover the 120km to Stryków, where the A2 motorway currently fizzles out in a muddy field. (A sarcastic 'thank you' to the procession of infrastructure ministers who, over the past 20 years, have done so little to provide Poland with infrastructure.) Average speed: around 38 mph.

At Stryków, we join the Modern World. Driving at the (new) legal maximum speed of 140kmh (87mph) - a warning bleeper sounded on Martin's TomTom whenever he exceeded it - we covered the 190 km from Stryków to the turn-off for Poznań in just over an hour and half.

The motorway - a public-private partnership operated by Autostrady Wielkopolskie - was a delight to travel on. Only two lanes in each direction (something that might be regretted by future generations), it cost 90 zł (18 quid) in tolls there and back. But what a contrast with the usual way one gets about Poland! Quite like western Europe, the normal world. At last.

But how just how long can the Polish economy wait for the A2 to connect Warsaw to the German border? And what about tempting all those trucks off the road onto the railways?

In Poznań, I learn that the third panellist in the first session, a lawyer, was on his way from Warsaw... by taxi... because that flight from Warsaw - was cancelled.

This time two years ago:
The clocks go back - but when should they go forward?

This time three years ago:
Warsaw's first Metro line is completed

A slow farewell to Powiśle

We moved to ul. Fabryczna in December 2004; the office was operational in January 2005 with a new chief executive officer. Time now for another move, with a new CEO, from Solec, the southern end of Powiśle, to Śródmieście - to ul. Nowogrodzka (the Pl. Trzech Krzyży end). Below: the old office to the left, looking down ul. Fabryczna.

The office relocation has nothing to do with Mr Palikot and his Movement encamping themselves in the same building as us, but was planned long before they moved in upstairs from us. Below: his campaign trailer, chained to a parking meter. It perplexed the parking wardens; for this was not a car - so how could they give it a ticket? Clamp it for the duration of the campaign? That's exactly what Mr Palikot would have wanted! So, they left it as was...

Anyway, over the past seven (gosh!) years, I've grown very fond of Powiśle, an under-rated part of Warsaw, central (three bus stops from the Central Station), yet very quiet (click label 'Powiśle' below for all posts relating to this part of town).

The new location's great for restaurants, shops, public transport... but I will miss Powiśle. Below: blocks of flats at the Vistula end of ul. Fabryczna

This time last year:
A slow farewell to my Nissan Micra

Visceral and permanent - part II

His children had settled down; it was quiet upstairs. He'd go for a short walk, around their peaceful suburb of Tapiola. The snow was falling in a more measured way; as he set off, Aarno didn't feel the cold, dressed in a windcheater he'd thrown on hurriedly before leaving the house.

He walked briskly thinking about the events that had unfolded last week. He had such hopes that the Hungarians, rising against the Red Star, would be able to wrest their freedom from the Soviet yoke. Now – with radio reports of hundreds of tanks pouring into Budapest since yesterday morning, he felt those same emotions that had stirred him to fight when he heard of the Red Army invading Finland. Aarno felt a different kind of rage this time, frustrated that he could do nothing. Nothing. His president was a Soviet apologist. Keeping Finland out of trouble by appeasing the Kremlin. What kind of posture was that? Sure, Finland was small, and had hardly any allies, but this was about truth, about honour, about national pride... Aarno had voted against President Kekkonen, but that fellow-traveller had sneaked in to office by just two electoral college votes. Where was that spirit of 1939? The USSR will end up ruling the world because of the cowardice of its neighbours, who will fall under its influence, one by one, until the brutal heel of communism will end up stamping down upon the face of every human being on earth... Where was NATO, where was the USA?

Aarno, beset by pessimism, considered calling in upon his colleague Tor, who used to work with him in the same law firm and now worked for the United Nations' office in Helsinki. Just the man to talk to at a time like this. He'll have some good insider information – and Tor, who lived a few blocks away, has a well-stocked drinks cabinet with excellent alcohols from all around the world. But no. That would not end well, of a Monday night... He thought about his daughters; turned smartly about face, like he used to do in army drills, and headed back home. Time to rest. His wife Alli would be back from Stockholm tomorrow evening; he'd meet her at the airport. She'd help him get over it; his beloved companion; so wise, so intelligent – no doubt the news from Budapest would be discussed by psychiatric doctors from all over Europe at the conference. He could talk it all through with her; the demons would leave him; he just needed her by his side.

His anger abated after the short walk; Aarno approached their house, fumbling in his pockets for his house key – in the aftermath of his rage, he walked out with neither wallet nor keys. He tried the back door but that was locked. Their eldest daughter Sylvi's bedroom looked out onto the street; he picked up a few small stones and began throwing them at the window. After a while, a little face appeared. However, she could not open the double-glazed windows, nor could she hear her father's exasperated shouts. Minutes later, a police patrol car turned into their street. Aarno, now shivering with cold, tried to be calm as he explained his predicament. As soon as he mentioned Budapest, a sympathetic glimmer appeared on the face of the senior officer. He too had fought in the Winter War. He understood Aarno's feelings.

Sylvi's face now showed up at a downstairs window to take a closer look at the flashing blue light of the police car. Aarno spoke to her, but realised that the five year-old probably couldn't reach for the door latch, and even if she could, she wasn't strong enough to turn it. In any case; she should be in bed, asleep; she'd be off to kindergarten in the morning.

The two police officers were good-natured enough and could understand that something needed to be done in this situation; another call was coming in on the short-wave radio. Aarno compared his situation to those Hungarians facing Soviet tanks 1,500 kilometres to the south. He pulled free a loose brick from his garden wall and, asking the older officer to come with him, he walked along the side of the house and smashed the small window to the larder, which he then carefully opened. With the policeman's help, Arno managed to wriggle through the opening, smashing several jars in the process, landing head-first in a mess of fruit preserves and shattered glass. Overnight he could put a piece of cardboard over the window, lock the larder door from the inside, call a glazier in the morning. No harm done, other than some minor cuts to his scalp and hands, jam in his hair and on his jacket. And earlier that evening, he'd been thinking of throwing rocks through the windows of the Soviet Embassy! Aarno put Silvi to bed for the second time that night, reassuring her that all would be well.

Another Scotch before he went to bed, he pondered? No. It won't help. Maybe a prayer to God will. That God may look after his nation, let them be free and live in peace. And may God look after the Hungarians. With that, Aarno went to bed, not entirely satisfied.

This time last year:
Autumn colours, locally

This time two years ago:
Edinburgh