Art and space: Creative infrastructure and cultural capital in Sydney, Australia

Creative activity and cultural facilities are routinely touted as markers and facilitators of successful cities and societies. This view is underpinned by the assumption that they contribute to local economic growth, foster a positive city image, and enhance urban quality of life. Creativity and the consumption of art are also well established as markers of social and cultural status, while access to, and the physical distribution of, cultural resources are also embedded in, and reinforce, forms of social difference. Understanding the intersection of the social and the spatial in the consumption and distribution of culture is important to both cultural and urban sociology. Using Sydney, Australia, as a case study and drawing on the findings of a major national study of cultural consumption, the article engages with the influential work of Pierre Bourdieu on the reception of art and the differential propensity of various social classes to go to art galleries and to appreciate art, to highlight social and spatial concentrations and fault-lines in arts participation. It also points to important theoretical and empirical nuances, including a weakening of the nexus between socio-economic class and cultural consumption that is occurring at the same time as the links between forms of cultural capital – education and art consumption – appear to be strengthening.