The book presents a series of positions from different perspectives, to draw attention to these viewpoints, and to encourage debate in an area of rapid change - the cultural life of cities in the 21st century. It takes a generally critical position, and is in some ways an antidote to the advocacy of public art or the blandness of official pronouncements on public culture. It does not assume that 'art is good for us', but asks exactly what interventions in the form of visual culture might do. The answers are as varied as the places described and strategies employed in them.