This is an interesting op-ed piece on whether cities make themselves high-culture destinations, especially for visitors and affluent suburbanites, or more habitable for a broader array of local residents. Pre-WW II New York City was an outstanding example of the latter, as was Portland in the street car era, when every neighborhood had a small park. A key concept in this article is that of flexibility, of not creating institutions with such massive overhead that they must always be selling. A lot of what has made places like Barcelona so attractive to visitors is that they are wonderful places for everyday life.