Its reputation for excellence will be focused on leisure, culture, the arts and entrepreneurial activity. It is also a vision which chimes with notions of cultural capital and production, espoused by, for example, Zukin. In discussing place-marketing initiatives, like Grainger Town, she emphasises the importance of cultural symbols to the material economy. Cities seek to survive now not through manufacturing but cultural production. Culture is both something visual and a product of the political-economy.
Culture occurs in urban space.
The landscapes of our cities encompass not only physical spaces and the buildings that define them but also the people who use those spaces and the associations and relationships they have with those places. Lovie's text is designed as a companion to architectural walks around Newcastle and is produced as part of the Grainger Town Project. It is a model of its kind. Informative and well illustrated, it is the sort of guide non-specialists interested in architecture would find accessible in a way that might not be true of the 'Buildings of England' series. Despite its 'official' provenance it is not too afraid to make criticism of some of the less successful developments of recent years.