Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses different notions of value and the valuation of spaces of culture in the city. It introduces the tensions and often competing interests between the use-values and exchange-values of spaces in the city, notably in the context of urban (re)development projects and strategies. The book provides a description of the methodologies drawn on and applied. It examines how heritage value can and should be assessed in a manner that unseats authorized heritage discourse and unseats the dominance of the tangible over the intangible in heritage value determinations. The book addresses the precarity that characterizes many spaces of high cultural value in the city and how this is often exacerbated by a lack of ownership of the space in question. It highlights a key underlying problem that arose in all of the case studies examined previously.