The BBC, the Creative Class, and Neoliberal Urbanism in the North of England

Abstract

The author examines the BBC's plans to move some of its key activities to Salford in the northwest of England. He develops a critique not so much of the plan to move, but of the specific proposals for that move (particularly as advanced by local parties in Salford) and of the economic-geographical claims assembled around them. To make these arguments, the author first identifies parallels between the proposals and Richard Florida's ‘creative class’ formulations. He then draws on a range of critiques of the ‘creative class’ concept to contest the substance of the BBC-Salford plan—which, he argues, reproduces an entrenched neoliberal urban development agenda—and to question the premise that the move will create regional economic value more broadly. Framed against international research into creativity-led development agendas which has typically privileged metropolitan or regional actors, the author argues that, ultimately, the BBC's proposals, while locally situated, are tightly bound up with national economics and politics.