The costs of putting Valencia on the map: the hidden side of regional entrepreneurialism, ‘creative city’ and strategic projects

ABSTRACT

Strategic projects based on culture and sports have been one of the vectors of regional development since the 1990s. Accordingly, local and regional governments have drawn up entrepreneurial strategies to project their image internationally and foster investment and tourism. These developments have been described in Spain as ‘The Calatrava Model’ for putting a city/region on the map and for boosting tourism. However, from the study of the case of Valencia and four strategic projects (The Fifth World Meeting of Families, The America's Cup, Formula 1 and The City of Arts and Sciences), we will show how there is a hidden side to this paradigm, which boils down to an unsustainable, top-down system whose sole purpose is to gain and maintain political hegemony. We will also assess the medium and long term impacts of these projects in terms of: opportunity costs, snowballing debt, corruption, and an utter breakdown of democratic controls as a result of Valencia’s poor regional governance.     

河南省体育场商代祭祀遗址发掘简报

2015年,郑州市文物考古研究院为配合河南省体育场网球馆项目建设,对该区域勘探所见的古代遗址进行了考古发掘。清理出环壕、夯土墙、建筑基址、祭祀场、祭祀坑、灰坑、墓葬等丰富的商代文化遗迹,出土了铜器、玉器、石器、陶器、骨器等重要遗物。河南省体育场商代遗址的祭祀遗存是近年来郑州商城最重要的新发现之一,这一祭祀遗址的发现为郑州商城的研究提供了非常重要的新资料。