ABSTRACT
This introduction presents the key themes associated with the cultural economy of the city and examples of influential scholarship for each, including: culture and urban growth and development; cultural production and consumption; culture and the reshaping of urban space; and culture and community regeneration. A key issue concerning the classification of creative industries concerns the contribution of arts and culture to the economy. The chapter discusses Isabella Bergamini's doctoral research focused on the investigation of culture-based regional development programs. The expansion of the cultural workforce has encouraged Richard Florida and his acolytes to propose not just a new cohort of employment and occupations, but rather an entire 'creative class'. Andy Pratt proposed an 'analytic field of the creative economy', which attempts to take in some of the complexity and variegation of the cultural economy of the city. Finally, an overview of the key concepts discussed in the chapters is presented.
