“The world in one city”: Liverpool ECC experience

In the recent period, considering that in 2010 a Hungarian city, Pécs held the title of the European Capital of Culture (ECC), more and more articles have appeared in scholarly journals, examining the above-mentioned EU project, its history, national characteristics and its actual popularity. The general public was also able to learn about the Pécs project in the form of a book. In terms of the topic of this study, it fits into this line, since it tries to present one of the successful ECC programs, the one from Liverpool. The framework of the article does not allow us to cover the entire spectrum of the analysis, since there are so many questions waiting to be answered regarding the increasingly well-known initiative of integration among this population. However, we dare to undertake to compare the effective implementation of multi-level governance and the success of the ECC program through the example of the English city. The purpose of our article is to draw attention to the opportunities inherent in culture through the case of Liverpool, which can be used to transform a city that previously suffered from serious economic and social problems. Our claim is that the implementation of multi-level governance (always with the intervention of the actors in the desired proportion), the absence of hierarchical centrality of decision-making mechanisms, carries within itself the success of a community initiative.

Keywords: European Capital of Culture, Liverpool, multi-level governance, European Union, urban rehabilitation, city image

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