Mozart in the Metropolis

The performing arts are becoming an important part of the urban growth machine, a development not yet recognized by social scientists. The arts are now a politically acceptable and useful urban growth strategy because of ongoing changes in the nature of cities, in the nature of the economy, and in the nature of the arts themselves, and because of the recent rise of an elite-sponsored political coalition devoted to advancing the strategy. Examples of the use of an arts-centered growth strategy in numerous U.S. cities are presented, and the larger theoretical and practical implications of the phenomenon are explored.