Electronic Cities: Music, Policies and Space in the 21st Century

The starting point of this presentation was to explore if electronic music scenes were integrated in city cultural policies. The edited collection was organised around 3 main themes: Music, policies and space. The type of music considered is Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and its various sub-genres. The collection ended up analysing mostly underground electronic music scenes but mainstream electronic music scenes are also analysed.
We cover EDM scenes from 18 cities across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. The collection focuses on the historical development of these scenes, with an emphasis on the post-2000 context, including the COVID-19 pandemic and its far-reaching effects. The main finding is that this music genre is still poorly integrated into city policies.