The Notting Hill Carnival is a perfect example of what is wrong with the prevailing approach to economic development and policymaking. Far from representing a cost to the local community, this globally important Black cultural event yields far-reaching social and economic returns.
LONDON – This month, one of the greatest celebrations of Caribbean culture returns to the streets of West London. The Notting Hill Carnival – like many carnivals around the world – is the brainchild of the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans, drawing on traditions of music and performance. The smell of jerk chicken and the sounds of Soca and steel pans echo through the streets, guiding Mas bands donned in vibrant colors, feathers, and beads.
And yet the parade will pass through the most unequal borough in London, where £15 million ($19.5 million) mansions stand alongside the site of Grenfell Tower, where a fire seven years ago killed and maimed hundreds of low-income residents. After a tense summer of anti-immigration riots, the Carnival represents the opposite: a celebration of diversity and collective creation.
The Notting Hill Carnival is not just a festival; it is one of the largest Black cultural events on the planet and a global celebration of the Afro-diaspora. It was conceived to ease tensions in Notting Hill, following the murder of the Antiguan-born carpenter Kelso Cochrane in 1959 and the race riots of the 1960s. It has since grown into a celebration of cultural cohesion, bringing together London’s diverse communities and showcasing the best of Caribbean culture. The music and performances tell the story of emancipation from slavery and highlight brilliant works of individual and collective creativity.
Yet the race riots still cast a shadow over the Carnival, with lazy, skewed media coverage often portraying it as a dangerous, crime-ridden event that is costly to the surrounding community. This false characterization disregards the immense public value that the Carnival creates for individuals and communities.
The festivities are open to everyone, thanks to the community-led, non-commercial efforts of the Carnival Village Trust (CVT), a registered charity, with funding from the Greater London Authority, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster Council. As the curator Hans Obrist would say, the Carnival is a cultural production without doors. Everyone is welcomed onto the streets to share in the creative spirit of the occasion, without any of the traditional hierarchies that one finds in other forms of cultural production.
Like other cultural events and community initiatives, however, the Carnival has increasingly faced difficulties securing funding. This is part of a broader crisis. The arts and culture sector contributes more than £125 billion to the UK economy and employs more than 2.4 million people, yet it has faced severe funding cuts, and public spending is far below that of Britain’s European neighbors.
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There is a deeper issue here. The prevailing approach to policymaking views value through the narrow lens of price, which is wholly unsuited for appreciating the dynamic value of art and culture. Financial support for culture is seen as a cost, rather than as a transformative input for the economy and society. In a recent paper assessing the dynamic value of the BBC, my co-authors and I show that the institution delivers significant returns on an individual, societal, and industrial level. The Notting Hill Carnival is the same. It creates immense value of a kind that cannot be easily captured through static price metrics.
After all, the Carnival provides a platform for entrepreneurs and minority-owned businesses (including hundreds of food vendors) to access broader markets and grow, and it is co-created by a diverse array of local communities and families who contribute their time and energy. Performing in the bands, building the floats, designing the costumes, cooking the food, and contributing in other ways generates roughly £100 million in economic value. A quintessentially collective creation, the Carnival has a multiplier effect that stimulates the local economy, generates community infrastructure, and perpetuates a virtuous cycle of economic and social activity.
The communities that co-create the Carnival are also passing on valuable skills and driving a culture of entrepreneurship and creativity. One million working hours are devoted to designing and hand-making the 15,000 costumes on display and rehearsing the performances of more than 80 bands. The festival creates a hive of productivity that, like all cultural activities, generates long-term socioeconomic benefits: improved mental health, enhanced educational outcomes and community well-being, and employable skills.
Unfortunately, private interests often appropriate the value of such community co-creations, which means that the proceeds are not reinvested in the people and networks that make them possible. Numerous waves of gentrification have engulfed and largely priced out artistic communities, making it even more essential that cultural organizations like the Notting Hill Carnival find innovative ways to protect and sustain the immense value they create.
New institutions can help ensure community control and prevent misappropriation of events like the Carnival. For example, cultural organizations can look to the experience of the Community Wealth Fund in Camden, which has successfully mobilized and stimulated community reinvestment. Without such mechanisms, value and public wealth will often be extracted and distributed to private actors. That is what happened with the New York High Line and London’s Tate Modern. In both cases, public funding was used to renew and regenerate areas with the help of local communities and creatives, only for the financial benefits to be privatized as property prices skyrocketed and inequality widened.
While Britain’s new Labour government has voiced its commitment to supporting the arts, restoring public funding after 14 years of significant cuts is a major challenge. Since the current Treasury models are limited by the metric of price, they fail to capture the broad public value created by events like the Notting Hill Carnival. If the government appreciates culture as a transformative force, it will need to do more to harness its value by shaping markets. Public investment in art and culture can help not only to kickstart economic growth, but also to improve community well-being, mental health, and social cohesion – which are major determinants of crime and health outcomes.
Innovative funding models and mechanisms such as community wealth funds can provide the tools to harness this dynamic form of public value. The Notting Hill Carnival is a perfect example of why we need a new narrative for policymaking and economic development. The arts should be seen as a core governmental responsibility, with the long-term finance it requires viewed as an investment, not a cost. The arts serve a vital social mission, one that can help governments tackle inequality and open opportunities for many. There is immense value in our diverse cultural heritage, and it belongs to all of us.
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LONDON – This month, one of the greatest celebrations of Caribbean culture returns to the streets of West London. The Notting Hill Carnival – like many carnivals around the world – is the brainchild of the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans, drawing on traditions of music and performance. The smell of jerk chicken and the sounds of Soca and steel pans echo through the streets, guiding Mas bands donned in vibrant colors, feathers, and beads.
And yet the parade will pass through the most unequal borough in London, where £15 million ($19.5 million) mansions stand alongside the site of Grenfell Tower, where a fire seven years ago killed and maimed hundreds of low-income residents. After a tense summer of anti-immigration riots, the Carnival represents the opposite: a celebration of diversity and collective creation.
The Notting Hill Carnival is not just a festival; it is one of the largest Black cultural events on the planet and a global celebration of the Afro-diaspora. It was conceived to ease tensions in Notting Hill, following the murder of the Antiguan-born carpenter Kelso Cochrane in 1959 and the race riots of the 1960s. It has since grown into a celebration of cultural cohesion, bringing together London’s diverse communities and showcasing the best of Caribbean culture. The music and performances tell the story of emancipation from slavery and highlight brilliant works of individual and collective creativity.
Yet the race riots still cast a shadow over the Carnival, with lazy, skewed media coverage often portraying it as a dangerous, crime-ridden event that is costly to the surrounding community. This false characterization disregards the immense public value that the Carnival creates for individuals and communities.
The festivities are open to everyone, thanks to the community-led, non-commercial efforts of the Carnival Village Trust (CVT), a registered charity, with funding from the Greater London Authority, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster Council. As the curator Hans Obrist would say, the Carnival is a cultural production without doors. Everyone is welcomed onto the streets to share in the creative spirit of the occasion, without any of the traditional hierarchies that one finds in other forms of cultural production.
Like other cultural events and community initiatives, however, the Carnival has increasingly faced difficulties securing funding. This is part of a broader crisis. The arts and culture sector contributes more than £125 billion to the UK economy and employs more than 2.4 million people, yet it has faced severe funding cuts, and public spending is far below that of Britain’s European neighbors.
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There is a deeper issue here. The prevailing approach to policymaking views value through the narrow lens of price, which is wholly unsuited for appreciating the dynamic value of art and culture. Financial support for culture is seen as a cost, rather than as a transformative input for the economy and society. In a recent paper assessing the dynamic value of the BBC, my co-authors and I show that the institution delivers significant returns on an individual, societal, and industrial level. The Notting Hill Carnival is the same. It creates immense value of a kind that cannot be easily captured through static price metrics.
After all, the Carnival provides a platform for entrepreneurs and minority-owned businesses (including hundreds of food vendors) to access broader markets and grow, and it is co-created by a diverse array of local communities and families who contribute their time and energy. Performing in the bands, building the floats, designing the costumes, cooking the food, and contributing in other ways generates roughly £100 million in economic value. A quintessentially collective creation, the Carnival has a multiplier effect that stimulates the local economy, generates community infrastructure, and perpetuates a virtuous cycle of economic and social activity.
The communities that co-create the Carnival are also passing on valuable skills and driving a culture of entrepreneurship and creativity. One million working hours are devoted to designing and hand-making the 15,000 costumes on display and rehearsing the performances of more than 80 bands. The festival creates a hive of productivity that, like all cultural activities, generates long-term socioeconomic benefits: improved mental health, enhanced educational outcomes and community well-being, and employable skills.
Unfortunately, private interests often appropriate the value of such community co-creations, which means that the proceeds are not reinvested in the people and networks that make them possible. Numerous waves of gentrification have engulfed and largely priced out artistic communities, making it even more essential that cultural organizations like the Notting Hill Carnival find innovative ways to protect and sustain the immense value they create.
New institutions can help ensure community control and prevent misappropriation of events like the Carnival. For example, cultural organizations can look to the experience of the Community Wealth Fund in Camden, which has successfully mobilized and stimulated community reinvestment. Without such mechanisms, value and public wealth will often be extracted and distributed to private actors. That is what happened with the New York High Line and London’s Tate Modern. In both cases, public funding was used to renew and regenerate areas with the help of local communities and creatives, only for the financial benefits to be privatized as property prices skyrocketed and inequality widened.
While Britain’s new Labour government has voiced its commitment to supporting the arts, restoring public funding after 14 years of significant cuts is a major challenge. Since the current Treasury models are limited by the metric of price, they fail to capture the broad public value created by events like the Notting Hill Carnival. If the government appreciates culture as a transformative force, it will need to do more to harness its value by shaping markets. Public investment in art and culture can help not only to kickstart economic growth, but also to improve community well-being, mental health, and social cohesion – which are major determinants of crime and health outcomes.
Innovative funding models and mechanisms such as community wealth funds can provide the tools to harness this dynamic form of public value. The Notting Hill Carnival is a perfect example of why we need a new narrative for policymaking and economic development. The arts should be seen as a core governmental responsibility, with the long-term finance it requires viewed as an investment, not a cost. The arts serve a vital social mission, one that can help governments tackle inequality and open opportunities for many. There is immense value in our diverse cultural heritage, and it belongs to all of us.