Tan Peishan, Huang Xu, Xue Desheng

Keywords： Transnational Culture; Subculture; Cultural Consumption Space; Community Participation; Berlin; World City

Abstract：

“Culture” could act as an important driving force of World City. Along with the intense competition of urban culture, various kinds of cultural space have emerged in cities. Bottom-up transnational cultural consumption space performs a spatial representation of unique urban culture. Based on the case study of the “poor but sexy” district, Kreuzberg in Berlin, this paper analyses the process and mechanism of cultural consumption space with diverse transnational subculture. Although the formulation of transnational culture in Kreuzberg is historically contingent to an certain extent, the coupling of the transitions of the economy in Berlin and the post-modern cultural consumption since the 21st century somehow produce the transnational cultural consumption space inevitably. The global consumer trend emphasizing personal cultural experience guides the spatial development in Kreuzberg. Involving multi-level governments, domestic (or oversea) investors and local neighborhoods, the coordination of stakeholders stimulates the economic, cultural and social vitality in Kreuzberg. It therefore has become an urban cultural hotspot, serving Berlin – as a World Creative City. This research enriches the understanding of the cultural dynamic for world cities, and can also be a reference for the sustainable development of transnational-or translocal-cultural neighborhoods.

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