One of my most favourite cities in the world is Brussels in Belgium - a city I have visited a number of times but I have never timed my trip to see their bi-annual flower carpet that graces the Grand Place, which has been my 'must-see' list for years. So this week I was delighted to stumble across a post on Facebook promoting the UK's first large-scale flower carpet in Bradford, in place from 24th to 27th September - part of the legacy of their 2025 UK City of Culture status.

The huge 29-metre wide flower carpet was made of 330,000 dahlia heads - right in the heart of the city centre in Centenary Square, overlooked by the city’s imposing Victorian Gothic City Hall (which is a spectacular sight itself, even without an enormous hexagonal flower carpet outside it). Over 100 volunteers spent Thursday laying the flower heads, and the event officially opened that evening, running to Sunday night.

I live about an hour and 45 minutes from Bradford, so it's not exactly on my doorstep, and my last-minute decision this morning to see it on its last day trip involved coaxing my teenage daughter out of bed before 10am on a Sunday - she said 'urgh, it had better be worth it!' And it absolutely was - it was stunning...

For me, it wasn't just about going to look at some pretty flowers arranged as a massive piece of public art, I was also going as a geography geek who loves a wander around a 'UK City of Culture' to consider what impact that particular status has - and of course, how this ties in with A-Level Changing Places.

Bradford's Flower Carpet provides an excellent example of how culture can be used to represent, rebrand and regenerate places – and raises questions about whether major cultural events can produce lasting changes in the way a city is experienced and perceived.

I have visited Hull and Liverpool in recent months and it is very clear in both cities just how much of an impact culture status has had, however it is probably too soon to assess how successful it has been for Bradford.

What is Bradford’s Flower Carpet?

Like I have already mentioned, Bradford’s Flower Carpet was the first UK edition of an event that has taken place regularly in Brussels since the 1970s. Bradford Culture Company worked with the Belgian organisation Tapis de fleurs de Bruxelles to bring the concept to the UK. But, this was not simply a Belgian event transplanted into a British city.

The Flower Carpet design was created by local artist Shiraaz Ali - sadly in the days before the event there were comments all over social media about two things in particular...

• 'It's a waste of money', 'The money could have been spent on X,Y and Z', 'Why isn't the money being spent on sorting out the issue with homelessness in the city?', 'Why should tax payer's money be spent on this rubbish?'
• 'Why is the design an Islam-inspired mandala and not the British flag?' - Yes, that was an actual question, and probably not-overly surprising given the rhetoric we see on a daily basis on social media at the moment - but is a case of people getting angry over something that isn't even a thing!

Firstly, it wasn't funded by tax payers, but with money from the Arts Council, which is specifically for events like this. And of course, events like this bring visitors into the city centre, who will spend money in other businesses whilst there, resulting in an economic boost for the city. Luckily most people were excited about the event for that very reason.

Secondly, the design was specifically inspired by Bradford’s industrial growth, textile heritage and communities - the patterns and symbols in the design with all linked to the city's past - the whole point of the flower carpet was to tell a story about the city.

Events like this are really relevant for the Changing Places topic - they remind us that places are not just locations on a map. Their identities are constructed through their histories, populations, landscapes and the ways in which they are represented.

From textile city to cultural city

Bradford grew rapidly during the Industrial Revolution and became internationally important for the manufacture and trade of wool and textiles - but deindustrialisation has also left its mark on the city - one of the reasons that Bradford was awarded 2025 UK City of Culture status.

The Flower Carpet reinterprets an important part of Bradford’s historical identity - the patterns of the artwork reference the city's textile heritage, but instead of being created from wool or fabric, the 'carpet' is made from flowers to illustrate the idea of place meaning. It brings together different characteristics of Bradford (industrial heritage, architecture, communities and contemporary creative sector) to construct a particular representation of the city.

The location of the Flower Carpet was really important too - Centenary Square and Bradford City Hall form part of the city's civic centre. Having a huge piece of art in this space temporarily changes how it is used and experienced by local people and visitors. On a normal day people will just walk through the square on their way to the shopping centre or to work, whereas for the last three days it has been a space where people have gathered together to take part in a cultural event and appreciate a spectacular piece of art - cultural activity temporarily changed the lived experience of place.

The legacy of UK City of Culture

Bradford's Flower Carpet wasn't part of its UK City of Culture (2025) programme - last year many events took place showcasing the city's heritage and contemporary culture, attracting over 3 million people, according to Bradford Culture Company.

The whole point of City of Culture status is culture-led regeneration, with investment in venues and cultural organisations alongside the programme of events. It leads to a multiplier effect by supporting thousands of jobs and training opportunities, and obviously leads to substantial visitor spending.

At the moment, it is too early to see just how much of an impact the year of culture had on Bradford - but the Flower Carpet is a great example of the legacy of UK City of Culture status. Bradford's City of Culture title officially applied to 2025, but Bradford Culture Company continued operating afterwards with the aim of maintaining cultural activity, supporting local artists and building on the profile created during the year.

So, although we might not be able to answer “Was Bradford City of Culture successful?” yet - we can consider whether a year of cultural events can create a longer term change in the identity and trajectory of a place...

Culture and place rebranding

Another possible impact of cultural events like this is place rebranding. Places develop reputations through media representations, personal experiences and the stories people tell about them. These representations can influence decisions about where people visit, study, work or invest. For example, my view of Bradford has always been quite negative, largely based on media representation, but also an awful drive home from the Lake District to Suffolk a few years ago, when various motorway closures saw us diverted through a very busy Bradford city centre on a hot Saturday afternoon. The horrible traffic skewed my opinion greatly and I was pretty sure it was a city I didn't want to spend an significant time in.

However, cultural events give cities an opportunity to show off alternative images. During the City of Culture year, I saw more and more images of Bradford online - which made me realise that actually there was much more to the city. And of course, a huge carpet of flowers in front of Bradford City Hall is an extremely visual event - me liking one post on Facebook on Thursday has meant that for the last 3 days algorithms mean that my social media has been flooded with images of the event - reminding me over and over again that creativity, heritage and spectacular public art is a key feature of Bradford (to the point that decided to spend over 3 and a half hours in the car today to see a carpet of flowers!).

This visual media saturation of cultural events matters because place representations operate at different scales. For a Bradford resident, the event might affect feelings of pride and belonging - a friend of mine lives in the city and said "the city was rocking, what a b****y incredible day!!". For someone elsewhere in the UK who has never visited Bradford, photographs or media coverage might contribute to their perception of the city - like me, who didn't want to miss out after seeing so many amazing photos!

Bradford 2025 explicitly sought to influence perceptions of the city, while its programme also involved large numbers of local residents and artists. By July 2025, organisers reported that more than 40,000 local people and over 500 local artists and organisations had participated in Bradford 2025 activity. This shows that rebranding is not only about how outsiders see a place; it can also affect how people living there understand their own place.

Who creates place?

Changing Places also encourages us to consider the different groups involved in shaping places. Bradford's Flower Carpet was not produced by a single agency - it involved Bradford Culture Company, the Brussels Flower Carpet organisation, local artist Shiraaz Ali and local participants. A large team of volunteers from across the local area were recruited to work alongside the experienced Brussels team to construct the installation - no previous artistic or flower-arranging experience was required - a great example of community participation.

If regeneration is imposed entirely by governments, developers or outside investors, local people may have relatively little influence over the resulting place. Cultural projects involving local artists and residents can potentially give communities a more active role in producing and representing their city - this increases 'buy-in' from local people, and helps regeneration be more successful.

The fact that the main Flower Carpet was also free to visit definitely widened access to the event - there were many families in the square today enjoying the display and the free events that had also been put on to enhance visitor experience. But whilst it felt a fantastic event to be part of today, with plenty of people participating, it's probably worth considering that some people in Bradford wouldn't have felt represented by a giant carpet of colourful flowers, and would have perhaps viewed it as a waste of money and an annoying use of a public space.

So can flowers regenerate a city?

Well of course not - it's a pretty big ask to expect a four-day carpet of dahlias cannot to solve the socio-economic challenges facing a large post-industrial city. BUT, cultural events can generate additional footfall, support hospitality and retail businesses, attract visitors and produce positive media coverage. They may also encourage investment and strengthen civic pride. But many of these effects can be temporary - the flower carpet will disappear tomorrow and media attention will move elsewhere.

The key question is whether temporary events contribute to longer-term changes such as stronger cultural organisations, improved public spaces, job creation, greater participation in cultural activities - and linking to the A-Level spec - changed external perceptions of the city.

There is already some evidence of physical and organisational legacy from Bradford 2025 - Bradford Culture Company announced that it would continue operating after the City of Culture year, and the new Loading Bay venue, which was created from a former city-centre warehouse and used extensively during 2025, was reopened in 2026 for more events.

So the Flower Carpet is one small component within a larger process of culture-led regeneration and place-making. A living artwork that was deliberately temporary. Today was the last day, and those dahlia heads were definitely well past their best as they have been battered by wind and rain. Tomorrow they will be collected up to be composted locally. But over the last four days they have represented Bradford's Victorian civic architecture, industrial textile heritage and multicultural community, to thousands of visitors.

It was a spectacular attraction - but more than that, it shows that places are continually being produced and reproduced by people, investment, culture and representation.

And finally - tying it back to Changing Places...

Bradford's Flower Carpet could be used as evidence when discussing...

• Place identity and meaning
• Endogenous factors such as industrial heritage and architecture
• Exogenous factors such as international cultural connections and visitors
• Representation and rebranding
• Lived experience
• Community participation
• Culture-led regeneration
• The ways different groups may experience the same place differently

When evaluating the impact of culture-led regeneration it is important to recognise the issue of scale and time - a spectacular four-day event may alter the atmosphere and representation of a city centre, but you really need to look at evidence over a number of years to see if cultural events have produced significant long-term social and economic change.