Praise be to agility!
At bottom the Culture Capital project amounted to a simple test. To what extent is a city like Linz capable of moving, of departing from the all too well trodden path and of seeking new horizons? Linz passed the test with flying colours. It proved capable of reacting quickly and of scoring. After the end of Linz09 however the pressure will be gone, which makes it all the more urgent not to lose that agility but to cultivate it. And to oppose routines wherever they cause symptoms of cultural paralysis. For instance, it does not make sense for the same people to cling to leading positions until all curiosity has evaporated. How is a theatre such as the “Phönix” supposed to fullfil its task as one of the city’s firebrands if the founder generation consider it their mission in life to stay on until they reach retirement age and to show their successors the ropes? Linz has several bastions of this kind of immobility. These might perhaps – unintentionally, to be sure – trigger a kind of movement that hurts the city: if the younger generation move away, to Vienna or some other metropolis. It may be difficult or impossible to neutralize an overpowering cultural pull but Linz should be agile enough to turn leavers into returnees, to a city that changes by staying on the move.back