Missing the Beat: The Role of Intangible Heritage for Western Urban Policy

This chapter is concerned with the role of intangible heritage in Western urban policy discourse. When creating their popular music narratives, western cities rely on tangible heritage all too often, ignoring communities whose musical production is of ephemeral nature and whose heritage is primarily intangible. Yet, the multicultural fabric of a city has to consider intangible heritage in the same way as it treats and refers to tangible heritage, or else opportunities for place-based creativity go unnoticed and can neither be used to increase revenue, nor lead to greater social inclusion. Considering Manchester's cultural and policy history, the city's “music city” strategies are assessed. Preliminary findings confirm a reliance on tangible heritage and a continued whitewashing of the city's musical history due to an overreliance on the well-established heritage narrative of Manchester. This confirms that it is time for interventions to change the perspective on the musical past in order to recognise opportunities for the musical future of a city.