Cultures and cities : some policy implications

This chapter brings together a selection of messages in the volume that bear on how policy is either implemented or envisioned. As regards implementation, it focuses on three issues: long-term vision and continuity, transversality and robust cultural mapping. As regards 'vision' issues, it warns against the perverse outcomes of cultural infrastructure-led urban regeneration policy, it argues for cultural democracy rather than cultural democratization, it urges caution in the use of the 'creativity' paradigm but far greater audacity with respect to the challenges of cultural diversity and sustainable development. As the experience of the city of Barcelona is both exemplary and emblematic - displaying a range of noteworthy policy positions, as well as some negative outcomes - it is highlighted in the form of a separate box on pp. 331-333.