ABSTRACT
Cities are glamorous. Since the zenith of Babylon, Athens, and Rome, the city has been represented as the place where things happen, where new ideas and fashions are created, where governments are toppled, where students are educated and money made. Cities are young, even when, like Utrecht, Nottingham, or Lyon, are ancient, because they constantly renew themselves, shedding old skins. The rise of the creative city parallels the rise of the neoliberal globalisation that became the dominant economic model during the 1980s under the banner of the "Washington Consensus". International bodies such as the OECD promoted it, while even the smallest cities began to compare themselves, not always for very clear reasons, to unspecified competitors. Streetwise Opera has shown that homeless people have something distinctive and valuable to contribute to the life of a creative city. The city's agora is essential not just to a rich cultural life but also to the social and economic well-being of the whole community.
