The World's New Culture Meccas

Can creative town planning turn a city around? The projects are already helping attract private investment and creating jobs for local residents. A four-star Hilton is going up, and plans for a business park have tripled in size to accommodate demand from high-tech manufacturers. Architect Alan Smith, who is designing the hotel and business park, says, "None of our clients would have entertained the thought of building in Gateshead without BALTIC, the music center and the bridge."

New housing developments are popping up as well. Last month, 74 percent of a new batch of "luxury" flats along the quay were snapped up their first day on the market. Art it seems, has become the region's most promising engine of growth.

Liat Radcliffe

Kabul, Afghanistan: A Post-Taliban Paris

Recently, dozens of AK-47-toting soldiers gathered in a semicircle at Kabul's football stadium. One year ago this might have signaled a much more sinister event. The Taliban frequently gathered crowds here to watch prisoners have their hands and feet amputated--a punishment they justified under Sharia (Islamic law). But this night's entertainment was different. A rectangular stage, swathed in red carpet, had been set up in front of the stands, and a seven-piece Afghan band soon broke into song led by the infectious beat of tabla drums. On the football pitch, groups of soldiers spun around each other like giddy schoolchildren and kicked up clouds of dust. "People in Afghanistan need music as much as they need water to drink," says Mohammed Rafiq Khoshnood, 41, head of the music department at the Ministry of Culture and one of the organizers of last week's Independence Day festivities.

Kabul is coming back to life. Since March nearly 1.5 million members of the Afghan diaspora, many of whom kept their artistic traditions alive while living outside the country, have returned, bringing the cultural influences of their places of refuge--Pakistan, Iran, Europe and the United States.