Interview8,800 km apart, towns in England and Korea explore how culture can revive declining regions

A community event hosted by Manchester Digital Laboratory, better known as MadLab, in Stockport, England / Courtesy of MadLab

Aging populations, rural towns losing their pulse and main streets hollowed out by years of decline. It may sound like a familiar portrait of Korea’s struggling regional centers. But the same scene could just as easily be found 8,800 kilometers away in Stockport, a town in Greater Manchester, England.

Once a thriving textile hub, Stockport saw its fortunes fade in the 20th century as Britain’s cotton industry collapsed. The decline stretched well into recent years as shops continued to shutter and residents drifted toward London, and later the booming city of Manchester.

Today, neighborhoods around Stockport’s town center remain among the most deprived in the United Kingdom, grappling with demographic decline and elevated rates of disability and depression.

It was to this landscape that the Manchester Digital Laboratory, better known as MadLab, made an unexpected move in 2018.

Originally founded in 2009 in Manchester’s city center as a grassroots technology community organization, MadLab began with a simple idea: to create “human-sized spaces” where creatives could gather — somewhere between the formality of large institutions and the looseness of pub back rooms.

It soon grew into a DIY haven where creativity, technology and art collided. At one point, it played host to nearly 100 programs a month, ranging from electronics hacking and game development to cryptocurrency meetups and science fiction clubs.

After its early experimental years, organizers began to notice that some participants were traveling from other parts of the country just to be closer to the culture MadLab had cultivated.

Rachel Turner, co-founder and executive director of MadLab / Courtesy of British Council

“We were being inclusive, but sort of in a passive way. Then we started asking ourselves: Who isn’t here?” MadLab co-founder and executive director Rachel Turner told The Korea Times.

That question revealed gaps in MadLab’s outreach. “We realized there was this whole other audience of people we weren’t connecting with,” said executive director Asa Calow.

The team started looking beyond Manchester’s city center. New programs were devised with different audiences in mind, including families and residents who had little connection to the city’s tech and creative scenes.

This internal realignment came just as Manchester’s rapid growth was reshaping the city center. From the 2010s onward, rent and living costs climbed as international companies and government agencies moved in. Artist studios closed, small businesses relocated, and independent retailers disappeared.

“It’s been a complete carnage,” Turner said. “There was no space for the grassroots anymore.”

The team faced two choices: expand its commercial activities to keep up with rising costs, or move outside the city center and focus on communities grappling with chronic underinvestment and deep inequalities in opportunity. It chose the latter.

Asa Calow, co-founder and executive director of MadLab / Courtesy of British Council

The relocation to Stockport was more than a change of address. It reflected MadLab’s belief that the energy of digital culture should not remain concentrated in booming urban cores, but strive to reach the towns left behind.

That philosophy continues to shape the group’s skills and training programs today. They are designed not only for young people whose lives do not easily fit traditional education pathways, but for individuals with high support needs, women returning to the workforce and residents who speak English as a second language. Participants learn foundational digital skills while gaining exposure to emerging fields like artificial intelligence, virtual reality and esports.

Over time, the vision of using technology as a gateway to building community grew into something larger: placemaking, or a multidisciplinary approach to public planning that centers people rather than physical spaces.

“We really didn’t want what happened in Manchester’s city center to happen again here,” Turner said. “For a long time, it was seen as an inevitable part of the gentrification cycle. People would say, ‘That’s just what happens,’ like New York in the 1960s. But the question is why? Does it have to be like this?”

MadLab began to explore a deceptively simple question: How could culture bring new life to cities written off as fading?

Working with the local council, the team led a successful bid to the U.K. government’s Cultural Development Fund, securing 2.63 million pounds ($3.53 million) in capital investment, the largest cultural funding the area had ever received.

From that effort emerged a proposal for Stockport Creative Campus, structured around three pillars.

The first focuses on training skills within the local community so residents can become an active part of the digital and creative industries. The second centers on infrastructure, creating physical spaces where artistic and technological activities can take place. The third focuses on making creativity visible in everyday life through workshops, events, exhibitions, festivals and public art.

MadLab participants work on laptops in Stockport, England. Courtesy of MadLab

One way MadLab is trying to demonstrate culture’s real-world impact, the two directors stressed, is by bringing together people who don’t often share the same room. The organization is hosting a networking event that convenes developers, policymakers, impact investors and philanthropists.

“It will be one of the first events in the region to approach arts and culture this way. Instead of keeping the sector siloed, we’re stepping into the world of developers and trying to understand how they think and work,” Turner said.

“Historically, arts and cultural organizations haven’t been very good at articulating the value they bring to a place,” Calow added. “What we’re exploring now is how that dynamic might change — how we can go beyond a 3 million pound project and ask what more can be done, while still staying grounded in the communities we work with.”

For Turner and Calow, the question is no longer whether culture belongs in conversations about urban development, but how early it can enter them.

A family observes a technological demonstration at MadLab in Stockport, England. Courtesy of MadLab

That question has also opened the door to conversations with Korea. MadLab first connected with the country’s partners through a visit organized by the British Council last year, when a Korean delegation, including Shin Jae-min of the Chungju Cultural City Center in North Chungcheong Province, traveled to learn about cultural regeneration efforts in places like Stockport.

The discussions quickly revealed unexpected parallels. “There are so many similarities between where Chungju is at and where Stockport has been and still is,” Turner said.

Both sides pointed to familiar challenges — declining regional towns and uneven economic opportunities — and the need to find new ways of addressing them.

“At the same time, both nations have incredibly skilled tech and creative talent and both are looking to grow their knowledge economies and creative technology sectors,” Turner added.

During their visit to Korea in February, the MadLab team met with local cultural organizations, startups, youth centers and universities, exploring possibilities for future collaboration.

“Rather than everything becoming a monoculture, what makes places interesting are these pockets of distinct character,” she said. “Stockport has its own personality within the U.K. and we saw the same thing traveling around Korea. Rather than being just an offshoot, different cities have their own strengths and quirks.”

For MadLab, this is the essence of their work. “When we talk about placemaking, it’s about building from those local strengths: the talents, the quirks and what people in that place actually want,” Turner said.

“It’s not one size fits all,” added Calow. “You make the most of what’s already there rather than trying to transplant someone else’s model of success.”

Both emphasized that lasting cultural ecosystems tend to grow from the bottom up. “When people help shape something themselves, they feel invested in it,” Turner explained. “That’s what leads to autonomy and long-term sustainability.”

MadLab’s exchange with Korean partners is still in its early stages, but the hope is that shared experimentation can lead to new approaches.

“If it can be done in places like Stockport and Korea,” Turner said, “then it’s something we can keep learning from and building together.”