Copyright @ 2006 RoutledgeThis chapter explores the implications for smaller cities of adopting culture-led
regeneration strategies. It is suggested that there is a divergence between cultural
planning for long term sustainable urban cultural renaissance and culture-led
makeovers which rely on externally orientated projects devised to draw in new
visitors, residents and enterprises. Drawing on evidence from Sheffield, an industrial
city in South Yorkshire, northern England, it is suggested that small cities by thinking
big, have been seduced into entering a culture-led city competition in which the
stakes are high and the prospects of success limited
