Duxbury, NancyNancyDuxburyDurrer, VictoriaVictoriaDurrerSitas, RikeRikeSitas2025-04-242025-04-242024 Elsev2024-06-03City, Culture and Society1877-9166http://hdl.handle.net/10197/27946There has been increasing recognition by governments that culture matters and plays an important role in sustainable urban development (Abu Dhabi Declared Actions, 2020; Hawkes, 2001; UCLG, 2010; UN, 2015; WUF10, 2019). Despite this, defining the terms and conditions for how culture comes to be understood, described, and operationalised remains a significant hurdle, especially beyond mandated state authorities and institutions dedicated to arts, culture, and heritage (Du Plessis & Rautenbach, 2010; Duxbury et al., 2012). A key challenge in defining the place of culture in, for, and across policy design and implementation toward sustainable and just urban development is the ability of policy and large state infrastructures to be flexible and malleable enough to respond to what the concept itself might raise. Furthermore, crucial to realising culture's potential is a need for the interrogation of whose culture, cultural forms, and voices are represented (Yúdice, 2009). Altogether, further exploration is needed to understand how culture appears in policy in local, regional, and national agendas, and how these ideas are operationalised and administered (Sitas, 2020).enThis is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in City, Culture and Society. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in City, Culture and Society (37, Article Number: 100584 (2024)) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2024.100584CultureUrban policyLocal sustainable developmentUrban justiceUrban sustainabilityJournal Article3710.1016/j.ccs.2024.1005842024-07-24https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ie/