Tenets
Every story is written against a frame of reference: a small set of hypotheses about how culture moves, who makes it, and where it is heading. They hold steady while the stories change, and we revise them when the evidence says we should.
Skylines, mega-projects and luxury retail can buy attention, but they cannot hold it. The cities gaining real cultural weight are the ones investing in what happens between people: scenes, institutions, and the slow work of belonging. Our stories look past the postcard.
Defining culture starts with people and their connections: who gathers whom, and what travels between them. Places matter because they host those connections, not the other way round. When we profile a city, we are really profiling its gatherings.
Young, connected and prolific, the global south is becoming a net cultural exporter. Its populations are growing while the west ages, and its output increasingly sets the terms of global taste. We treat this not as a trend story but as a structural shift worth tracking city by city.
Warehouse districts, skateparks, football clubs, food courtyards: independent spaces are where a city’s next culture gets made. They are also the first places to show up in the signals, long before the institutions catch up. We go there first.
One planet. Many centres of gravity.
The engine
Our stories are drawn from the Cultural Intelligence Suite, the in-house platform we use to read where culture is heading. We're opening it up. Interested? Get on the waiting list.