ABSTRACT
The versions of cultural amenity and cultural economic planning presented here from both the historical and contemporary urban perspective have been viewed and analysed at the local and micro-level to the city-region and national assessment of the distribution and valuation of the arts and cultural industries. Whether primarily driven by employment and economic policy, wider social or specific urban and cultural policies, the planning of the arts in their benign and boosterist states can be argued to have a particular place in city formation, development and renewal. The sacred and the celebrated are both reflected in the material culture, ‘performance’ and heritage that cities possess through their arts and culture, as Tuan maintains: ‘Past events make no impact on the present unless they are memorized in history books, monuments, pageants, and solemn and jovial festivities…on which successive citizens can draw to sustain and re-create their image of place’ (1977:174).
