Centre for Urban Studies: Urban Scene Investigation

How does cultural consumption shape middle-class life styles?

The proliferation of new amenities—varying from specialty coffee bars, beer breweries, ‘ethnic’ home decoration stores—has propelled new forms of cultural consumption in our cities today. It can be argued that clusters of amenities constitute scenes, i.e. settings that structure shared cultural consumption. These social and cultural processes—manifested through and driven by cultural consumption—do not only impact the way city dwellers identify themselves and how they position themselves vis-à-vis others, but also affect in more general terms the sense of place, the sense of belonging and eventually the right to the city for all.