Beauty and the Beast: capital forces and cultural production

'The integration of urban culture and global capital is at a high point, packaged in the idea of ‘attractiveness’ central to the ‘world-class’ city concept. As a result of these synergies of place marketing, we can observe the production of typologies of urban space where cultural consumption (an essentially aesthetic dividend) is central to its financial value. The intangible currencies of ‘uniqueness’ and ‘authenticity’ multiply the overall brand value of places in the mind of those engineering them.'