LIVERPOOL PROFITED FROM YEAR AS CAPITAL OF CULTURE, SAYS REPORT

A five-year research program published last week that analyzed Liverpool’s year as “European capital of culture” found that the festival year saw 9.7 million visitors to the city, an increase of 34 percent, and generated $1,135,000 for the economy, reports Helen Carter for The Guardian. Media coverage of Liverpool’s cultural attractions doubled, and for the first time in decades, positive stories outweighed negative ones focusing on social issues. The report found that 85 percent of Liverpool residents agreed that it was a better place to live than before.

Beatriz Garcia, director of the research program, titled “Impacts 08,” said: “We found that general opinion of Liverpool was informed by very dated images of the city, which ranged from positive but fixed associations with the Beatles in the 1960s to more negative views of social deprivation in the 1980s.” She said it presented a richer picture of the city as a modern, multifaceted place with a vibrant cultural life that reaches far beyond music and football.

The study, by Liverpool University academics, found the local population initially had increasingly mixed views in the lead-up to the capital of culture year, which persisted until the end of 2007. “Their concerns related in particular to the possibility that the expected positive change might not spread beyond the city center and that it might not impact on their neighborhoods or on ‘ordinary people,’” said Garcia. But these trends were reversed during 2008 itself, showing a more optimistic view appearing by late 2008, when the latest survey took place.