Urban brands,culture and social division: Creativity,tension and differentiation among middle class consumers

Urban brands and branding

The growing salience of urban brands is related to a complex of factors, including but not limited to the increasing prominence of the city’s symbolic economy and consumer culture, the emergence of neoliberal forms of governance and the rise of the brand as a powerful market cultural form (Lury, 2004; Zukin, 2008). Part of a broader shift toward culture-led strategies of post-industrial regeneration (Jayne, 2006; Miles and Paddison, 2005), branding practices have been deployed by urban governments and private–public assemblages seeking to ‘re-image perceptions of urban space and transform the way it is consumed’ (Harris, 2011: 188). As Zukin (2008: xii) relays, in an era of neoliberalism urban branding has become ‘a necessary cultural strategy’ to enhance image and compete for investment, tourists and ‘creative’ workers.

Urban branding derives from commercial branding practices and is based on the idea that the city and urban space can be shaped and managed just like any other brand (Moor, 2007). It draws on the marketing technique of ‘brandscaping’, using sensorial design and the device of theming to orchestrate space, its elements and practices in such a way as to ‘convey values and construct ‘experiences’ that may be commercially valuable’ (Moor, 2007: 65). Urban space is often themed or ‘narrated’ using a dual effort of symbolic and material framing. This involves coordinating large-scale physical interventions and ambient elements to shape the fabric and ‘feel’ of a place (Julier, 2005), the implementation of a certain ‘retail and leisure infrastructure’ (Julier, 2005: 871) and the circulation of place-based ‘myths’ (Harris, 2011). Throughout, historical and existing ‘cultural’ qualities (e.g. ‘heritage’) and subcultures that give meaning to a place are utilized to establish brand identity (Harris, 2011; Moor, 2007: 75).

Recent emphasis on the creative quality of cities or cultural quarters is related in part to Florida’s (2002) influential ‘creative script’ for urban development; the idea that cities must attract what he calls the ‘creative class’ by developing the kinds of ‘open, diverse, dynamic and cool’ environments they desire (Peck, 2005: 740). ‘Creative class’ is a normative concept referring to a new class of highly mobile workers employed in information or cultural industries, heralded as crucial to economic development (Edensor et al., 2010). Cities use now familiar strategies (e.g. street-level festivals, cycling paths, loft developments) to create edgy neighborhoods where members of this class can ‘actualize’ their creative identities in work and play (Peck, 2005).

While much work on urban branding is prescriptive, a growing critical literature has drawn attention to connections between branding, neoliberal governance and commodification of urban space (Greenberg, 2008; Zukin, 1995), brand-driven processes of gentrification (Catungal et al., 2009; Gibson, 2005) and counter-branding strategies (Greenberg, 2008; Jensen, 2007). The emphasis, however, has been on the top-down imposition of brands, controlled by a coalition of commercial and property elites, local government and media who re-image urban space according to their interests (Harris, 2011). Alternatively, emerging scholarship on the geographies of brands and branding stresses the messy, complex and contradictory ways urban brands ‘unfold’ on the ground (e.g. Harris, 2011; Pike, 2009). This literature argues that the surfacing of urban brands is a dynamic process, involving multiple actors and auspices enlisted in their materialization. However, and with notable exceptions such as Rantisi and Leslie’s (2006) study of the enrolment of various audiences in a Montréal design initiative, there has been little sustained study of these complex social practices (Harris, 2011). In particular, there remains a lack of empirical work considering how urban brands are encountered and used by urban dwellers, which, I argue, is crucial to understanding how they co-shape experiences of metropolitan life and urban cultures.

This is not to say that entanglements of actors, especially consumers, in configurations of consumer-based landscapes and cultures in the city, have previously gone unnoticed. A considerable literature on urban consumption has documented how urbanites meaningfully relate to and co-produce commercial and consumerist spaces (e.g. Jayne, 2006; Miles, 2010). Of particular note, Miles elaborates how urban spaces for consumption (e.g. cultural quarters, themed parks) are not foisted on urbanites, but rather consumers are complicit in their materialization. ‘Spaces of consumption are not the direct product of one-way power relationships; they are the product of a negotiated nirvana in which the consumer consumes and in which the powerful structure the form that that consumption takes’ (Miles, 2010: 26). Although a useful starting point for understanding the dynamics of consumers and consumption spaces, this literature does not offer a sustained, empirical analysis of urban brands and branding taking into account the specificity of brands and their qualities as they unfold and take shape in particular social worlds.

Brands, cultural consumption and social division

To develop my analysis, I draw on recent branding theories that advance the idea of entanglement stressed in the geographies of brands and branding, by suggesting consumers are not only implicated in brand performances, but are enabled, through the provision of certain ‘contexts of consumption’ to ‘act, feel and be in a particular way’ with the brand (Arvidsson, 2006: 8; also see Lury, 2004; Moor, 2007). Positing a conceptualization of the brand as a ‘frame of action’, Arvidsson (2006) asserts that consumer audiences are encouraged to use brands and the frames they provide to co-create identities, shared meanings and social relations while contributing to brand image and value. This transfers the focus from top-down marketing and management strategies to consumer engagement, since the uses and meanings people make with the brand are central to the establishment of brand image, a key source of which involves what consumers ‘do with the brand in mind’ [emphasis in original] (Arvidsson, 2006: 7). Further, although consumer activity is tightly managed so that it falls within the parameters of the intended brand image, it is not entirely constrained (as Miles (2010) contends) and can ‘exceed the programming efforts of marketing’ (Arvidsson, 2006: 35). Thus, consumer productivity does not simply reproduce brands and branded space, but actively co-shapes them (however asymmetrically).

Contemporary branding theory directs our attention to consumer activity; however, it does not fully explain processes of cultural consumption. How do consumers use brand materials, in not so straightforward ways, to co-construct identities and lifestyles? To address this question, with a concern for social and cultural division, it is useful to draw on Bourdieu’s (1984) theory of cultural capital and taste. This theory explains how social hierarchies are maintained through processes of cultural consumption in a struggle for distinction. It is particularly developed through the concept of ‘habitus’: a learned ‘system of dispositions’ – classificatory schemes, preferences and inclinations that are manifest in the body and shaped through various types of capital. Cultural capital, defined as a ‘set of socially rare and distinctive tastes, skills, knowledge, and practices’, is stressed in the performance of taste (Holt, 1998: 3). An important status resource in social fields of consumption, cultural capital is a source of distinction for groups who express legitimate tastes and practices (Bridge, 2006: 1966). Thus, tastes, which are relational, operate to reproduce class boundaries (Casey, 2010). Such boundaries are not only hierarchical, however, as differences in taste can produce horizontal differentiation in terms of lifestyle. Yet, as Mendez Layera (2008) points out, horizontal divisions receive less attention in studies of cultural consumption.

Consumer actions, Holt (1998) maintains, are central to differentiation, since distinction is especially a matter of practice, reflecting a shift from objectified cultural capital to the embodied form. The stress on consumer practices in positional negotiation fits well with Arvidsson’s view of the brand as a ‘frame of action’ that both guides and relies on consumer performances. Bringing these theories together, it is possible to understand how urban brands, using the technique of brandscaping to organize consumer activity and practices, are intricately entwined with the cultivation and display of taste, and operate as a means of differentiation. Indeed, revitalized, branded spaces of the inner-city often cater to and shape the tastes of middle class gentrifiers, encouraged to use spaces re-invested with ‘ideas of status, style and cosmopolitanism’ to perform distinction (Bridge, 2006: 1967). This is certainly the case with the Exchange District. Yet in my research I also found that the brand was used to differentiate groups within this middle class segment, who engage with the brand and its creative quality in ways that both conform to and exceed its narrow frames. It is these horizontal, non-hierarchical divisions that I explore in the analysis that follows, but first I introduce the urban environment under consideration.

Theming the branded landscape: Creativity

In the Exchange District, creativity is a quality that derives from the activity of artists living and working in the area. This is acknowledged by members of the branding coalition, who have capitalized on this subculture to promote an image of the Exchange as a vibrant, cultural hub (interviews). The EDBIZ and partners have established a cultural infrastructure to nurture creative activity (e.g. film-making) and facilitate festivals such as the 12-day theater event known as the ‘Fringe’. This has involved elements of ‘hard-branding’ (Evans, 2003), such as the re-engineering of the Old Market Square Park to host open air concerts on an ‘avant-garde’ stage called the ‘Cube’. The EDBIZ has also fostered a new, yet normative ‘one-of-a-kind’ shopping experience. As a representative explained, ‘It’s not having the Money Marts and Dollaramas [low brow stores], or even the Laura Petites [mainstream stores] and stuff. It’s just, it’s the unique shops’. As argued by Zukin et al. (2009: 47), the aesthetics of such ‘boutiquing’ serve to reinforce a ‘neighborhood’s creative cultural distinction’.

In many ways, the manipulation of creativity in these branding strategies reflects a ‘cookbook’ approach to creative quarters, privileging a narrow notion of creativity that meshes with a neoliberal, entrepreneurial urban development agenda (Pratt, 2011). Indeed, only those aspects of creative culture that are consumable and commercially viable are featured (see Peck, 2005; Pratt, 2011). ‘Wilder’ forms are tamed and controlled, such as postering, which is restricted to artist-designed poster boards (interviews). Moreover, performances on the new stage are limited by the programming imperatives of the EDBIZ. As a member proclaimed, ‘we can’t have you giving us throat singers and lounge acts … because people come down there expecting to rock’.

Even so, attempts to standardize creative space are not total. A quality tied to long-standing artistic subcultures and activity in the Exchange, creativity is part of the area’s ‘habitus of location’, a term Lee uses to describe how cities have ‘enduring cultural orientations’ that transcend popular or engineered representations of place (Lee, 1997, in Evans, 2010: 31). By drawing on this quality, the brand is entangled in and open to wider creative practices, uses and meanings that reflect its historical and social roots (Moor, 2007; see also Pike, 2009). As Cronin (2008: 80) writes, in the attempt to harness existing creative forces to ‘create a new constellation of practices and ideas, modes of governance inevitably unleash a whole host of other reactions, interconnections, paradoxes and possibilities’.

Framing consumer involvement

Creativity is mobilized to frame the way targeted audiences of middle class professionals, so-called ‘creative’ workers, visitors and gentrifiers (categories that overlap in this case) might engage with the Exchange in an attempt to establish ‘fit’ between habitus and place. The Exchange is configured to offer these new middle classes opportunities to participate in cultural festivals and gallery openings, or watch street performances during the ‘Fringe’. It affords the means – cultural resources and practices – by which individuals can cultivate and express their creative identities and perform distinction as members of a ‘cultured’ metropolitan middle class. In this process, participants are called on to co-perform the area’s ‘buzz’ and aesthetics of ‘boutiquing’; to ‘live’ the brand and help realize its identity and value-in-use. As argued by Arvidsson (2006: 79), a key aim of contemporary brandscaping is to involve consumers in the co-creation of the themed experience, which ‘results as much from social interaction among consumers, as much as from the features of the physical environment’.

Scholarship has shown how these branded districts and practices of ‘alternative’ consumption produce social and cultural exclusion via gentrification (Catungal et al., 2009; Gibson, 2005; Zukin, 2009). This involves a division between middle classes who inhabit the area and are supposedly ‘united’ by their tastes, and those who are displaced or kept out, particularly the working and service classes (Zukin, 2009). In recent critiques of the ‘creative city’, this division is reworked as one between the so-called ‘creative class’ deemed to have the capacity to engage in designated creative spaces, and ‘uncreative’ classes who populate ‘ordinary’ suburban and other city spaces (Edensor et al., 2010). While gentrification and creative enclosure is part of the story in this case, what I am interested in here is the constitution of differences among the ‘cultured’ and gentrifying classes within the Exchange. Indeed, writers have pointed out that middle class gentrifiers are not necessarily unified by their consumption preferences, and are differentiated in terms of cultural strategies (Bridge, 2006). Further, critiques of the ‘creative class’ have shown that it is not homogenous, but is divided by political and occupational differences (Catungal et al., 2009; Markusen, 2006). Extending these analyses, I trace how horizontal divisions are constituted through moral and cultural boundary practices as expressed in creative performances on the platform of the brand.

Maria: Artistic urbanism

Maria is a project manager who works and lives in the Exchange District. A well-travelled, single professional in her 40s, her account is exemplary of a cohort of interviewees consisting of condo-dwellers, office workers and newer consumers. Members include professionals working as managers, entrepreneurs and lawyers in mainly non-arts-aligned occupations (see Markusen, 2006). Overall, these interviewees maintain close ties with the EDBIZ. Some (including Maria) were actively involved with a new resident’s association called R:ED (Residents of the Exchange District), which is supported by the EDBIZ and operates as a feedback mechanism in processes of branding.

When asked to describe the area, Maria called it ‘artsy, um unique’, stating that ‘everybody kind of fits in’. The creative quality of the Exchange is important for Maria, who attends art shows, the art-house cinema and theaters, in addition to volunteering at events such as the jazz festival. It allows her to express her omnivorous aesthetic tastes (typical of urban gentrifiers), by engaging in the eclectic mix of what she terms ‘grassroots sort of folky type stuff’ and high-end culture, such as the opera (see Binnie et al., 2006; Peterson and Kern, 1996).

Elaborating on the ‘artsy’ quality of the Exchange, Maria discussed her preference for the district’s unique boutique shops versus standardized box stores; ‘I’d rather see, you know, the unique things, like so it’s going to be like, you know, a clothing designer that you’re not going to see in a big mall or at the airport’. Boutiquing enables her to display originality and supports an eclectic approach to shopping, which, for Maria, is a creative enterprise. As she explained, ‘I have a different style of shopping, I kind of shop through my life’. Her shopping practices involve the cultivation of cultural capital in terms of knowing where to go, while maintaining openness to spontaneity and surprise. As Maria conveys:

I love going into those, like, Asian grocery stores, like they remind me of when I lived in Africa and you’re not quite sure what you’re going to get in there but it could be interesting. So it’s kind of like, you know, adventures in shopping.

Sheryl: Collective creative expression

Sheryl’s account is exemplary of a cohort of cultural workers as well as long-term participants and consumers in the Exchange, most of whom work in artistic and arts-aligned occupations as sculptors, film technicians, graphic designers, architects, actors and curators (Markusen, 2006). Some of these interviewees also reside in the area, in renovated urban lofts or older, inexpensive work/living spaces. On the whole, this group is less directly involved with the branding coalition, with exceptions such as those who run their own business and are automatic members of the EDBIZ.

Employed at an architectural firm as a designer, Sheryl referred to the Exchange as a kind of creative stimulus, with its ‘potential energy that gets animated by the people and the creativity that exists’. Much of her involvement centers on this quality. During the week she goes to art galleries and shows, does some shopping and ‘hangs out’ at Mondragon (a co-operative bookstore and restaurant). Like Maria, she appreciates the area’s unique shops, but avoids new boutiques, preferring to hunt for items at vintage clothing stores. She also attends festivals such as the fringe in the summer ‘because they are big and exciting and it’s an excuse to be outside and dance in the streets’.

Discussing her creative involvement, Sheryl focused predominantly on endeavors she undertakes with others, both within and especially outside of her paid work. For Sheryl, the Exchange is a space where she can engage in collective creative expression; where she can meet, as she put it, ‘all these really intense people’ and ‘create things with them’. This includes architectural and visual displays, sculptural art and non-commercial cultural events. Sheryl evoked both cultural traditions and histories in the Exchange as well as political histories of worker activism (the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919) to fuse art together with activism in her creative narrative. Reflecting a postmodern sensibility (see Maffesoli, 1996), such artistic activism, in the way she described it, is not necessarily project oriented with the aim of achieving certain political goals, but is mainly about the means:

It’s kind of like if something is happening that appeals to my sensitivities, like I will pursue it … For instance next Sunday for the solstice a bunch of people are gathering at the Tallest Poppy [a local restaurant] … and they are putting antlers on their bicycles and they’re doing like an antler cycling group to celebrate the, and it’s like a form of, I call it activism, but it’s like hanging out and doing beautiful things to inspire.

Creativity: Tensions, boundaries

As Arvidsson suggests, consumers use the frames and hints provided by themed environments such as these to engage in an ‘act of co-creation’: of meanings, identities and social worlds (Arvidsson, 2006: 80). In the Exchange District, the creative potential of the brand is used as a means to express at least two versions of creativity and types of creative identity. This occurs as part of a multi-dimensional, relational process wherein class identities are constituted within the context of other class experiences (Casey, 2010), and in relation to the brand. On the one hand, a group of ‘artistic urbanists’, following Maria, fashion a unique urban identity via cultural consumption in contrast to an imagined ‘non-creative’ suburban mainstream. On the other, a group I refer to as ‘urban creatives’, represented by Sheryl, engage in collective and activist forms of creative expression and carve out a distinctive niche from within an urban middle class fraction. In this process of positional negotiation the two groups articulate conflicting notions of creativity, which can be broadly categorized, drawing on Edensor et al.’s (2010) conceptualization, as ‘commercial’ and ‘vernacular’. The commercial version of creativity articulated by ‘artistic urbanists’ emphasizes novelty, consumerist forms of creativity, and individualism, whereas the vernacular notion cultivated by ‘urban creatives’ stresses improvisation and adaptability, non-economic aesthetic expression and a creative commons (Edensor et al., 2010). These articulations are not entirely oppositional, however, as there is overlap and some blurring between the two in terms of practices and tastes (for instance, Maria’s routine practices of shopping express aspects of a vernacular creativity).

Issues of creativity as consumer resource or collective effort to inspire are ways of establishing differences. As argued by Casey (2010), this involves articulations of ‘what matters’ in terms of the definition of what is valuable to a particular class and why. In this case, differences in definitions of what and who is valorized as creative are not strictly cultural, but are also expressed as boundaries of a moral nature. As Lamont (1992) suggests, cultural capital theory is useful for understanding the operation of symbolic boundaries and distinction; however, it underestimates the significance of moral boundaries. Here, I outline three main ways in which tensions between moral and cultural boundaries are manifest in these versions of creativity, and how they operate as dimensions of a horizontal division that unfolds on the platform of the brand.

Firstly, both varieties of creativity involve cultural consumption, with an emphasis on engagement in the area’s range of artistic events, festivals and eclectic collection of independent shops. Nonetheless, ‘artistic urbanists’ prefer boutique shops, whereas ‘urban creatives’ stress secondhand shopping. This difference is not only a matter of taste, but reflects different cultural and moral strategies of distinction. Thus, ‘artistic urbanists’ deploy cultural capital through the assembly of one-of-a-kind items in a unique way in order to distinguish themselves as ‘original’ in relation to an imagined ‘unoriginal’ mainstream middle class. However, for ‘urban creatives’, secondhand shopping enhances their creative capacity defined as the ability to re-use ‘old’ things in novel ways, often deployed in arts-related occupations (in the context of film sets, art shows or fashion). What matters, for this group, is the knowledge and skill involved in reworking existing goods; creativity as improvisation versus novelty (Edensor et al., 2010). This involves a moral dimension, since improvisation in this context is also expressed as part of a do-it-yourself ethic; an ethic that is widely shared and valued among ‘urban creatives’ in the Exchange.

Secondly, tensions are also apparent in definitions of ‘acceptable’ versus ‘unacceptable’ creative expression. ‘Artistic urbanists’ tend to reproduce a narrow, commercially oriented version of creativity through expressions of taste. For example, they prioritize the area’s ‘gentrification aesthetic’ over creative demonstrations such as graffiti, reinforcing the EDBIZ stance that graffiti does not ‘fit’ with the neighborhood and ‘crosses a line’ in terms of guidelines for historical buildings (Anonymous, 2007). This is not surprising, as this cohort includes the majority of condo-dwellers, who pay ‘monopoly rents’ to access or own heritage lofts as a strategy to gain cultural capital. A form of objectified cultural capital, the cultural and economic value of this property inheres in its ‘authentic’ aesthetic (Greenberg, 2008). Overall, the ‘artistic urbanists’ appreciate the area’s eclecticism, or as one entrepreneur put it, ‘kitchy-ness’, however, this is within the commercial and cultural parameters set out by the brand.

In contrast, ‘urban creatives’ employ an anti-commercial ethic and critique to question such cultural standards of hierarchization. For this group, ‘acceptable’ creative expression is not defined by aesthetic taste or economic interests, but is a matter of inclusivity. Indeed, ‘urban creatives’ support a broad array of creative forms, even those that exceed capitalist property relations and value. For instance, Sheryl was critical of the way postering is restricted in the area: ‘It’s just like “no, you will not engage in the public realm”’. For Sheryl, such vernacular, collective forms of expression belong in the public space of the Exchange. Sharing her sentiments, an actor petitioned for amateur film screenings and offered to show his home movies in the EDBIZ-managed park, and a young illustrator advocated for more street art, to bring young people’s ‘voices out into the public eye’. Lamont (1992) indicates that struggle over definitions of what matters (e.g. what is valued as creative) can be expressed through the subordination of cultural standards to moral ones. This is precisely what ‘urban creatives’ do when they argue creativity is a matter of inclusivity: of the ‘right’ to participate and belong in public space.

Finally, differences are expressed with regard to individual versus collective practices of creativity. For ‘artistic urbanists’, creative identities are mainly assembled through individual processes of cultural consumption (e.g. Maria’s ‘style of shopping’), which also involve the ‘propertization’ of culture (Skeggs, 2004). This reflects a common conception of creativity as the ‘property’ of an individual and fits neatly with its commercial framing as a kind of cultural capital one can gain through consumption (Edensor et al., 2010).

For ‘urban creatives’, however, creativity is a collective endeavor; it is something people do together: they participate in a shared creative culture. Connecting and working with others to achieve creative outcomes is especially stressed. An interviewee who described himself as ‘culturally minded’ discussed this at length: ‘I get involved with volunteering for arts-related events … because I want to be around my type of people. Film people, art people, music people, or whatever’. Sheryl mentioned how she likes to hang out and do ‘beautiful things to inspire’ with others in the Exchange. Embedded in collective efforts, creativity emerges as something that is ‘social and sociable, culturally specific and communally produced’ (Edensor et al., 2010: 9). In this sense, creativity is understood as something more widely distributed in the district. Indeed, several ‘urban creatives’ situated themselves as part of a continuum of creative activity and larger movement through frequent references to a broader tradition of artistic activity in the area. In this way, they are able to claim a kind of moral ownership and belonging to the Exchange (see Savage et al., 2005).

Socio-spatial divisions, cultural struggle

Such different articulations of creativity and the tensions they exemplify establish boundaries between ‘us’ versus ‘them’. They reflect a struggle between the middle classes who dwell in the area to establish and legitimate their own version of creativity and validate their identities as ‘creative’ in the Exchange. It involves the use of different cultural strategies to cultivate and value certain tastes and practices (e.g. secondhand shopping versus boutiquing) in the process of positional negotiation (Holt, 1998). ‘Urban creatives’, in particular, subordinate cultural standards to moral ones as a strategy to define what it means to be creative in a way that is rooted in the Exchange (Lamont, 1992). Their creative engagement with the brand exceeds the narrow frames offered by the EDBIZ by drawing on, and situating themselves firmly within the area’s vernacular and historical creative culture to invoke an entitlement of belonging. In this way, ‘the hegemonic and the resistant are woven together in particular constellations’ (Cronin, 2008: 81). This struggle is played out on the spatialized platform of the brand, reflecting its messy entanglements with place and complex social worlds.

However, this struggle is imbalanced, since the version of creativity articulated by ‘artistic urbanists’ is more closely aligned with, and reinforces, the vision advanced by the branding coalition. Involved in R:ED and the EDBIZ, these interviewees maintain stronger influence through direct lines of feedback into branding strategies. Although the EDBIZ invites input from the arts community, in reality they are not incorporated into the branding agenda. Commenting on this, a representative of a non-profit arts organization proclaimed the EDBIZ needs to ‘take a more arts-friendly view towards the neighborhood, they are fairly business-oriented now’. Indeed, interviewees in the ‘urban creative’ group felt that condo-dwellers, professionals and newer consumers were changing the culture of the area, which some experienced as a kind of ‘symbolic violence’ (Bourdieu, 1984). A member in the film industry stated, ‘all the things which I found interesting being replaced by, you know, boutique clothing stores is not, it just sort of makes you feel like you’re, you know, you’re kind of being slowly but surely shuffled off’.

Indeed, a rift between these factions of an urban middle class is recognized – and felt – by people inhabiting the area. As a condo-dweller mentioned, there’s a division between the ‘arts people’ and more ‘career-driven’ professionals like herself, ‘so it’s sort of a clash’. Such tensions crystallize around key locations such as Mondragon, which reinforces a broad, morally driven notion of creativity by refusing to allow graffiti (also commissioned) to be removed from their collectively-owned building, the ‘A-Zone’ (Old Market Autonomous Zone). While Mondragon has become a gathering point and ‘second home’ for those involved in aesthetic activism in the city, it is a source of discomfort for others. Pointing toward it, one resident stated, ‘there’s that store, which I feel intimidated by, so I haven’t gone in there in like, years’. Such tensions and struggle among this urban class fraction contribute to the formation of a paradoxical social space (Rose, 1993) characterized by overlapping planes of experience and juxtaposed ways of being, feeling or acting in the Exchange. Surfacing in the interplay between brands, consumers and cultural consumption, the creative neighborhood is constituted as heterogenous and contradictory, rather than standardized and homogenized.

This empirical account points to some of the limitations of urban branding and the instrumental use of qualities such as creativity. As Miles (2010: 69) indicates, social tensions of various sorts can arise in cultural spaces designed for consumption, in which ‘a formulaic conception of culture and regeneration defined largely through consumption fails to take into account the diversity of parties likely to engage with consumption opportunities’. In this case, a narrow, commercial version of creativity implemented in branding strategies inadequately reflects the diversity of creative involvement of various actors in the Exchange, and neglects its ‘habitus of location’, giving rise to a struggle over what and who is creative here. Further, the analysis presented in this paper extends critiques of Florida’s (2002) ‘creative class’ notion as framed in creative cities rhetoric by suggesting that there are significant divisions among the middle classes who are attracted to and inhabit branded creative space. Although the divisions between these urban middle classes fall broadly along the lines of occupation (between arts-aligned and non-arts-aligned professionals and workers), these lines are not clearly drawn. Boundaries are mainly of a moral and cultural nature. This suggests that the so-called ‘creative class’ may be fractured in multiple ways, in geographically and historically specific contexts. As such, the analysis undermines the idea of a coherent creative class characterized by common interests, values and lifestyles. In particular, Florida (2002) asserts that members of this class maintain preference for shallow, non-committal relationships, including their commitment to place. While this may describe some in the ‘artistic urbanist’ cohort, it certainly does not resonate the ‘urban creatives’ I interviewed, who stress collective aesthetic engagement and maintain strong attachment to place.