ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 I examined the production of cultural movements. In this chapter I move from cultural production to cultural consumption and its role in the reproduction of a city’s image. I begin by reconsidering the concept of a symbolic economy, comparing the positions of Sharon Zukin (1995; 1996a; 1996b) and John Allen (2002). Then I investigate Barcelona’s transformation from a Mediterranean port to a world city in the 1990s as exemplar of a city’s rebranding through cultural means. In case studies I cite Joan Didion’s essay on San Francisco counter-culture in 1967, the year of the Summer of Love, and Kim Dovey’s account of the gambling-led redevelopment of Melbourne’s waterfront, which can be compared to culturally led development. I end with an image of a wall painting commemorating a house-owner’s pilgrimage to Mecca, in a village in the far south of Egypt. Although outside the urban I take this to demonstrate cultural frameworks and unities other than those of Western city marketing.
