Abstract

This article explores the way that the cultural quarters in two UK cities have developed, namely those of Leicester and Nottingham. Referring to a distinction, first used by Ivan Illich, between the ‘engineered’ and the ‘vernacular’, it explores some of the key cultural and political differences between institutional cultural quarter development on the one hand, and informal, DIY cultural development on the other. It argues that informal and DIY cultural practices raise important political questions concerning the meaning, production, consumption and ownership of culture, the nature of cultural institutions, and the way culture contributes to urban development.