Culture Is Not an Amenity: Who Gets to Stay When Culture Makes a Place Matter?
Culture shapes places, but its makers need the power and resources to remain part of them. I examine what cultural infrastructure demands in practice.
Culture is often invited into a place after the larger decisions have already been made. A development has its budget, a building has its use, and a neighbourhood has its new story. Artists, independent spaces, local businesses, and community organisers are then asked to bring the life that makes the place feel specific.
That work can create real value. It can help people understand a place, find one another, and return. But if culture is treated only as an amenity, the responsibility can stop when a programme ends or a building changes hands. The people whose work made a place matter may have little say in what happens next.
This is why I keep returning to the idea of culture as infrastructure. I do not mean that culture is literally the same as electricity, water, or housing. I mean that cultural life depends on material conditions, and that it has consequences for how people gather, participate, and make a place their own. If those conditions matter, they need to be part of the plan rather than an afterthought.
There is already public language for thinking across those systems. UNESCO describes culture as a cross-cutting part of sustainable development and says it should not be considered as an isolated policy domain. Seattle's draft anti-displacement framework names cultural anchors alongside residents and businesses, and describes cultural displacement as connected to the loss of communities, businesses, and institutions that sustain a place. These are not proof that every cultural project prevents displacement. They show that culture, place, and the conditions for staying are already connected in policy discussions.
That distinction matters. Culture can contribute to a place's identity and economic interest without guaranteeing that its makers benefit from either. It would be too simple to say that artists cause displacement, or that a cultural programme can prevent it. The more useful question is what happens when a place gains value, and whether the people who helped create that value have the resources and authority to remain involved.
For me, culture as infrastructure begins with practical questions. Who has secure access to the space? Who can make decisions about its use? Who pays for maintenance, staff, and the time required to build trust? Are artists and local operators paid on clear terms? What happens after the opening, the residency, the grant, or the first successful event? Can the people who shaped the programme continue to influence the place?
These questions are less glamorous than a new building or a striking cultural programme. They are also where good intentions are tested. A space can host an event and still be inaccessible to the people who created its local meaning. A partnership can celebrate local culture while leaving out the people who hold that knowledge. A map can make a place discoverable without giving anyone the right to use it.
I started Countercult because local cultural knowledge, people, spaces, and opportunities were difficult to find and connect, even when the relationships already existed. The public Network supports discovery. The protected Exchange serves a different member audience. Studios undertakes defined paid work with clients and local partners. These are parts of the work in operation. They do not, by themselves, solve the cost of space or guarantee that a community can remain in control of a building.
I have started testing the physical side of that work in Berlin. In a LinkedIn post, I described THE FLOOR as a physical extension of Countercult and wrote: “I started a physical extension of CounterCult in Berlin to test our new digital to physical investment model when it comes to culture. Safe to say, it's been working so well we're launching more art houses through our digital infrastructure human first network.”
The image with that announcement states the idea more directly: “how artists are becoming venture & tech builders, and investors in physical spaces.” That changes how I describe the idea. This is no longer only a future direction. The physical test is underway, and I have announced that we are expanding to more art houses. I have not published the operating figures or measures that would show exactly how well the model is working, or what its local economic effects are. The agreements, funding, maintenance, local authority, and long-term responsibilities have to be visible alongside the technology.
The immediate example is the Sketchy Shona Open Studio at THE FLOOR during Offene Ateliers Neukölln on November 7 and 8, 2026. My LinkedIn post describes it as a collaboration with Berlin's Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises and names “Space Shortage and Future Developments for Neukölln” as its focus. I will be there as a venture builder, creative director, and, most importantly, an artist. The open studio will show Sketchy Shona's new collection in progress and the work of the other residents. The Luma listing requires host approval to see the address. WerkStadt, the OANK organizer, confirms the event dates and hours, says the initiative to restart the event grew out of networking meetings in Neukölln's arts and culture scene, and states that the district economic development office supports the initiative and that Senate Department funding supports the project. This is a concrete public programme, not evidence by itself of long-term space security or measurable anti-displacement impact.
Technology can help people find one another and coordinate information. It cannot create a secure lease, decide what a neighbourhood needs, or make a partnership fair by itself. Those outcomes depend on decisions made by people, on the terms they agree to, and on whether the resources match the responsibility.
I want culture to be treated as more than decoration around decisions made elsewhere. That does not mean every cultural project should become a property strategy, or that local life should be reduced to measurable economic output. It means the people doing the work should be included when plans are made, and that the conditions needed for the work to continue should be taken seriously.
Culture becomes infrastructure when the people, spaces, relationships, and resources that allow it to continue are included in how a place is planned and governed. The test is not whether a development can say that it values culture. The test is whether the people who make that culture can help shape what happens next.
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This piece was informed by Shona Neary’s writing, conversations, and thinking around independent culture, artists, and place.
How this Journal is made: Countercult publishes writing from years of work across independent culture, local economies, artist-led technology, and place. These essays, field notes, guides, and case studies make that knowledge useful and help artists, operators, and commissioners find one another. The Journal is human-authored; AI supports infrastructure, not authorship or artists' work. We welcome original reporting and pitches from journalists and independent publishers.