Philip Parkin

If a serious bid is put forward for Birmingham to become the first UK City of Culture in 2013, and if it’s put together in partnership with as wide a range of interested parties as possible, then we’ve got to have a good chance of winning. There seems to be so much going on in this city at the moment, and so much energy and cross-over between events/projects etc that the city just seems ready for an award like this. We’re a long way from the embarrassment of the 1992 Olympic Bid when the city’s ambitions were seriously adrift from reality (were we really going to have sailing on Edgaston Reservoir?). However, even if Birmingham ends up not being successful in 2013, as long as the actual process of the bid celebrates all the good stuff going on in this city, then it will have been worth it. In the case of Liverpool, 2008 European Capital of Culture, Phil Redmond saw the process of bidding as being as important as the award itself:

The confidence of the people has improved not just because it had a fantastic year long festival of world class cultural events, but because they realised that great things could be done in their city. That great things had been done in their city and that great things could be done again in their city. And they could do them.
Yet, there was something else. It was done the way they wanted it done. Other’s were invited to the party but it was very clearly a family affair. Liverpool may have been the UK’s host city for the EU award, but Liverpool took what was nothing more than a badge of authority and made it its own.
No culture can live, if it attempts
to be exclusive.
Mahatma Gandhi
That is how the UK City of Culture of programme should inspire. Instilling a sense of ambition and ownership, while sending out a clear but simple message that wherever the “badge of authority” is awarded, the people there are part of the UK cultural mosaic but that they also have their own distinct culture to promote. Perhaps rediscover. Perhaps nurture. Yet, whatever the aim, like Liverpool, the badge of authority is their opportunity to make a real step change.
Whatever that is will be left to potential bidders to define, but will form part of the award criteria. It will also be a valuable asset in its own right because although the ultimate accolade, with its subsequent media exposure, will prove extremely valuable, the European programme has also demonstrated that the process of bidding, in terms of auditing assets and building cultural networks, is itself a very positive outcome.
It will be those networks that will deliver in the future. It will be those networks that will discover, like they did in a post-industrial Northern port city in 2008, that great things can be achieved individually, but even greater things can be delivered collaboratively.