Overview

This critical account of the relations between contemporary cities and the cultures they produce (and which in turn shape them) questions received ideas of what constitutes a city's culture, through cases in which different kinds of culture - the arts, cultural institutions and heritage, or distinctive ways of life - are seen to be differently used in, or affected by, the development of particular cities. The book does not mask the complexity of this, but skilfully explains it in ways accessible for undergraduates. Beginning with introductory chapters on the concepts of a city and a culture (the latter in the anthropological sense as well as denoting the arts), author Malcolm Miles cites cases from modern literature. He investigates the idea that a city, too, is produced through the characteristic ways of life of its inhabitants, and scrutinizes cultural industries for their relation to such cultures. Attention is given to the European Cities of Culture initiative, to the hybridity of contemporary urban cultures in a period of globalization and migration, and to incidental cultural forms such as skateboarding and graffiti.; Miles introduces sources, clarifies and contrasts viewpoints, and gives notes for selective further reading. This significant, original work plays on the two meanings of culture, and relates arguments around these meanings to specific cases of urban development today. It includes both critical comment on a range of literatures, being a truly inter-disciplinary study, and the outcome of the author's field research into urban cultures.

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9786610858118

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