Culture is infrastructure. So why do we still treat it as decoration?

As cities compete for talent, investment and visitors, culture has a vital role to play in shaping identity, supporting community-led regeneration, and creating the conditions for long-term, sustainable growth.

On Wednesday, we hosted our latest Progressive Places roundtable in collaboration with the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Led by Jude Barber and Sarah Munro, the discussion explored how cultural institutions, grassroots creativity, heritage and local authorities can move culture from the margins to the heart of urban strategy and development.

At the core of the conversation was a challenge: to reframe culture as a system, embedded from the outset of development, not something applied at the final stage as added value.

Some key insights from the discussion included:

• We expect culture to deliver infrastructure-level outcomes – driving investment, wellbeing and identity – yet we rarely treat or fund it as infrastructure. It is still too often seen as a “nice to have”.
• There is no consistent or effective way of measuring culture’s impact. Footfall, GVA and social value metrics only tell part of the story, limiting our ability to articulate its true value.
• Better evidence – particularly around health, wellbeing and long-term social outcomes – will be critical to influencing policy and investment decisions.
• The real shift isn’t about new buildings, it’s about new systems, partnerships and ways of thinking. We need stronger collaboration across sectors, alongside “translators” who can connect policy, design, communities and investment.
• Without careful consideration, culture-led growth risks displacement and inequality – raising important questions about who places are for, and who benefits.

The roundtable forms part of our year-long Progressive Places campaign, with insights feeding into a report later this year on the future of inclusive, resilient and forward-looking urban development.

If you're interested in joining the conversation, we’d love to hear from you.

Thank you to all those that contributed: Kelly Gleadow, Dr Sarah Glynn, Dan Kerr, Architect, Mawson Kerr, Kelly MacKinnon, Sarah Munro, Emma McNicholas, Rachael Wadsworth, Susanne Sharif, Pippa Cook, Jude Barber and Lucie Murray.