ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the transition in the last 50 years from cities dominated by public culture in the public realm to a privatised consumption culture increasingly on the peripheries. Culture is now instrumentalist to rescue and re-animate the city: either in the form of major institutions that are overburdened with symbolic communication (heritage) or re-branding as a ‘creative’ city. This chapter argues that, in the face of social and economic changes, these approaches offer little more than a ‘sticking plaster’ solution. An alternative vision needs to be found; cities that are open and facilitate social and economic action founded on an idea of open innovation: cities for culture. In such cases ‘the city’ (that is the cultural ecosystem and its people) must be the resource that adds value, not a backlot. A real alternative would be a city based on open production ecosystems drawing upon the diverse resources and ideas (from outside and inside) that the city offers.
