ABSTRACT
Introduction Around the world, high cultures, packaged cultural products, and vernacular cultures exist cheek by jowl, especially in larger cities. Where colonization, industrialization, immigration, deindustrialization, and urban residential dispersion have disrupted prior settlement patterns, the variety of cultural expressions and practices can be profuse and highly differentiated. Space and place foster or suppress particular traditions, as communities, organizations, and individual artists use cultural expression to preserve and pass on tradition, encourage young people and new arrivals, solve problems, mobilize politically for change, and bridge across cultures. Within vernacular cultural communities, tensions and challenges complicate how artists and communities organize and sustain cultural activities, especially in rapidly changing environments.
