This Must Be the Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better

This Must Be the Place explores how music can make cities better.

This Must Be the Place introduces and examines music’s relationship to cities. Not the influence cities have on music, but the powerful impact music can have on how cities are developed, built, managed and governed.

Told in an accessible way through personal stories from cities around the world — including London, Melbourne, Nashville, Austin and Zurich — This Must Be the Place takes a truly global perspective on the ways music is integral to everyday life but neglected in public policy.

Arguing for the transformative role of artists and musicians in a post-pandemic world, This Must Be The Place not only examines the powerful impact music can have on our cities, but also serves as a how-to guide and toolkit for music-lovers, artists and activists everywhere to begin the process of reinventing the communities they live in.

Shain Shapiro is the global leader in understanding how music and cities intersect. He founded Sound Diplomacy, the global leading economic consultancy working with cities on music, cultural and entertainment policy. He also leads the nonprofit Center for Music Ecosystems, which commissions research to help solve local, national and international challenges using music as a tool. This is his first book.