There was once agreement on what &quot;high culture&quot; was - classic paintings, symphonies, opera, and ballet. Those are the art forms that have stone palaces downtown. Those forms have lost some social significance in the last few decades, which means that the hangers-on, the gallery operators, art historians, and collectors don&#x27;t have the status they used to have.  The institutions with the stone palaces, especially below the top tier, are having some trouble getting contributions.<p>But not that much trouble in major cities.  Even the Detroit Museum of Art just managed an expansion. The Cleveland Museum of Art is expanding.  In SF, in the last twenty years there&#x27;s been the new Asian Art Museum, the new DeYoung building, and the SFMOMA refurbishing.  On the other hand, the George Lucas Ego Museum was banished to Chicago, and the Grateful Dead museum didn&#x27;t get built. The City of San Francisco has access to a huge stainless-steel peace symbol, but nobody wants it in their neighborhood. The classic fine arts are still winning.