Arts – Key To Rebuilding Cities?

In the UK over the past 20 years, almost every urban centre has tried the trick of kick-starting the revival of an economically depressed area by constructing a shiny new arts institution or cultural quarter.The business plans show how a concert hall, theatre or gallery attracts the high-spending, well-behaved middle classes back into town and stimulates the opening of hotels, restaurants and funky shops. Jobs are created, rents rise, civic prestige is enhanced. Smiles all round. But not, alas, always.”