Music Cities - Evaluating a Global Cultural Policy Concept

This book provides a critical academic evaluation of the 'music city' as a form of urban cultural policy that has been keenly adopted in policy circles across the globe, but which as yet has only been subject to limited empirical and conceptual interrogation. With a particular focus on heritage, planning, tourism and regulatory measures, this book explores how local geographical, social and economic contexts and particularities shape the nature of music city policies (or lack thereof) in particular cities. The book broadens academic interrogation of music cities to include cities as diverse as San Francisco, Liverpool, Chennai, Havana, San Juan, Birmingham and Southampton. Contributors include both academic and professional practitioners and, consequently, this book represents one of the most diverse attempts yet to critically engage with music cities as a global cultural policy concept.

Christina Ballico is Head of the Masters of Creative Industries at JMC Academy, Brisbane, Australia. Ballico is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Her research examines music industries and scenes, music cities and cultural policy.
Allan Watson is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Loughborough University, UK. Watson has published widely on the geographies of music. He is author of Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio (2014) and co-editor of Rethinking Creative Cities Policy: Invisible Agents and Hidden Protagonists (2015).