ABSTRACT
Cities and Consumption investigates the mutual and dynamic relation between urban development and consumption. Over the past twenty years, literature relating to the study of cities and consumption has produced a significant contribution to our understanding of the contemporary world. Linked to conceptualisations of increasing global interdependence, the study of cities and consumption helps to explain seemingly globally ubiquitous change-relating to political life and governance; economic restructuring and changes in employment; the type of spaces and places that have developed in our citiesas well as shedding light on changes in the everyday realm of our social and cultural lives, including where and how we spend our leisure time; where and what we eat; where we go on holiday; where and when we do our shopping; what we wear; how we decorate our homes, and so on. In these terms, then, it is through the study of cities and consumption that a whole range of seemingly diverse but interconnected elements can be brought together. This allows us to conceptualise and describe broad urban changes and also to ground them in the knowledge that we all actively constitute and are participants in city life in unique ways.
