The Wuhan « cultural metroplis programme »

1. Context

Wuhan is a central city in Central China, the capital of Hubei Province and a nationally recognized city of culture due to its 3,500 years of history and civilization. The world's 3rd largest river, the Yangtze River and its largest tributary the Hanjiang River run through the downtown area and divide the city into 3 towns. The city has 13 districts and 3 state-level development zones with a total area of 8,494 km2 and 10.22 million permanent residents. Wuhan is also an important industrial base. In 2015, the city's GDP reached 1,090.56 billion yuan (approximately 167.3 billion USD); there are 1.3

million college students and 80 colleges. Its scientific and educational comprehensive strength ranks the third in China. Wuhan has a deep-seated historical and cultural heritage. The Cultures of the Three Kingdoms time, the first democratic revolution of China and some of the oldest business culture all add radiance and beauty to each other.

The project focuses on building in wuhan a regional creative center of high-quality culture, a cultural creative incubation center, a cultural talent meeting center and a cultural exchange and exhibition center.
 

2. Wuhan and culture

The Wuhan “Cultural Metropolis Programme” proposition was passed by the Wuhan Municipal Government in February 2012. The policy contains the following contents:

1. The City of Reading. By 2016, Wuhan will have established a complete book service network with a public book service network as the main body, supplemented by 24-hour self-help libraries, mobile libraries and community libraries.
    
2. The City of Museums. The government supports and guides all kinds of investors to set up various forms of museums with distinctive features. By 2020, there will be over 200 museums in Wuhan.
    
3. The City of Arts. The city shall model the layout around a concept of “one core and two belts” (Qintai Cultural Arts Center as the core, and Hankou Cultural Belt and Wuchang Cultural Belt as two belts), and shall concentrate its efforts to establish the Qintai Music Festival and other arts festivals at home and abroad. The city will build the Qintai Cultural Arts Centre, Wuhan Cultural Arts Centre and the Wuhan Literature Museum and is planning to construct street art exhibition areas.
    
4. The City of Design & Creativity. The city will support the design and animation industries, and will also devise a batch of new creative design platforms to guide the public to visit the design exhibitions and participate in creative design. The city shall strive to become the “World Design Capital”.
    
5. The City of Universities and Colleges. The city shall study and develop policies and measures to support the development of institutes of higher education, actively promote the opening of university libraries and other public resources to the public and drive literature, art and other spiritual and cultural products back into campuses so as to realise the co-existence and co-prosperity between colleges and the city.
    
6. The programme embodies the principles of the Agenda 21 for culture in aspects such as realizing human development by means of culture improvement; encouraging more participation of local governments in national cultural policies and programmes; bringing wealth by means of culture diversity boosting. The programme has directly promoted the development of cultural industries; realizing social inclusion by the implementation of the programme. Thanks to the diversity of the culture promotion, citizens of different ages and of both genders have directly and indirectly participated in the project, and enjoyed the satisfaction that culture brings. The socially disadvantaged group has also benefit from the project.

3. Objectives and implementation of the project

3.1 Main aim and specific goals

The city has developed and implemented a series of policies to promote cultural development with the aim of achieving culturally innovative, coordinated, open and shared development.

1. Promoting the development of innovation, implementing cultural innovation and reform plans, taking the lead to form innovations and reform the Wuhan experience.
    
2. Promoting the coordinated development, implementing various "culture +" action plans and comprehensively upgrading urban cultural tastes
    
3. Promoting green development, implementing cultural industries’ upgrade plans and driving cultural industries to become national economic pillar industries in Wuhan.
    
4. Promoting open development and Zhiyin Culture (an ancient story of soul mates) to more cities.
    
5. Promoting shared development, implementing a public cultural service upgrade plan and building a higher quality, more efficient public cultural service system.

3.2 Key aspects

The “Cultural Metropolis Programme” in Wuhan has received support from different entities. Among them, some of the cooperative group are institutions of mass media, libraries or companies. The municipal government has cooperated with 13 district governments of Wuhan to carry out art and cultural activities. We also have cooperation with the Ministry of Culture to fund and support projects with ideological content and artistic qualities. In cooperation with Overseas Chinese Culture Centers to spread outstanding artistic and cultural programmes of Wuhan to all over the world (Madrid for example). Finally, the city government has also extensively cooperated with experts of different cultural areas.

The beneficiary population are young Students and Children; youth Groups; elderly Groups; farmers and Workers; and Socially Disadvantaged people.

The programme has promoted social equality and harmony allowing the viallagers and socially disadvantaged groups to enjoy achievements in art free of charge.

4. Impacts

4.1 Direct impacts

Impacts on the local government

The implementation of this programme has boosted changes in government functionality and strengthened policy regulation, market regulation, social management and public service functionality. It promoted change of the government to a more supervisory culture, achieving a realization of more scientific, legal and integrated management in the realm of culture with a notable improvement in service quality.

Impact on culture and local cultural actors of the city/territory

- Community arts groups have gradually become more active.

- Cultural and artistic talents have been fostered

- Cultural and artistic talents now have a broader stage to perform.

Impact on the territory and its population

- Cultural events enhanced the international visibility and influence of Wuhan.

- The Programme has not only leveraged the management capacity of the city, but also acted as a stabilizing force for social stability

- The programme has helped to enhance the cultural identity of Wuhan. The protection and restoration to tangible cultural heritages and the lineage to intangible cultural heritages is conducive to help strengthening the cultural identity of the city, improving the internal cohesion of the city and the sense of identity

- The programme has promoted the city's creative atmosphere and innovative development. The programme focuses on the development of cultural innovation and closely combines it with basic education.

4.2 Transversal impacts

1. 1. Economic Impacts: by developing cultural industries such as cultural creativity, design services and other cultural and technological integration industries. This has led to the development of the tourism industry and other related industries (increasing the number of performance platforms and therefore more employment opportunities).
2. 2. Social Impact: the programme has promoted social equality and harmony allowing the villagers and socially disadvantaged groups to enjoy achievements in art free of charge. The programme also has been offering help to non-profit cultural institutions and various large-scale cultural events.
3. 3. Environmental Impact: Key constructions have been aimed at utilizing and protecting the environment. For example explored and cracked the “garbage siege” problem of big cities.

The protection and restoration to tangible culturals heritages and the lineage to intangible cultural heritages is conducive to strengthening the cultural identity of the city, improving the internal cohesion of the city and the sense of identity.

5. Further information

The Wuhan “Cultural Metropolis Programme” proposition was passed by the Wuhan Municipal Government in February 2012. The policy contains the following contents:

Text approved in December, 2016.

Good practice text published in January, 2017.

This factsheet was put together by PU Xuanxuan, Officer of Wuhan Municipal Culture Bureau, Hubei Province, China.

Contact: 282923403 (at) qq.com

Main website: http://www.wuhan.gov.cn/whszfwz/zjwh/