Book Review: Malcom Miles: Limits to Culture: Urban Regeneration vs. Dissident Art

Are culturally-led regeneration projects useful means for improving the socio-economic status of urban depressed areas? Or are they just forms of exploitation? These clear, straightforward questions lead Miles to consider critically projects and policies that, in the name of socio-economic regeneration, have used arts and culture to reshape urban and regional areas. The outcome is “a book about how culture has become a mask of social ordering under neoliberalism, and about some of the dissenting practices that have emerged in the past few years against that trend or as alternatives to it” (p. 1). By presenting several cases, and analysing them through the theoretical contributions of scholars in fields such as sociology, anthropology, museology, art consultancy, history of art and architecture, Miles skillfully designs an integrated and captivating framework, and sheds lights on the dynamics that underlie culturally-led regeneration projects.