CITB02H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter week7: Concentrated Poverty, Soho Repertory Theatre, Chain Store
ZUKIN: CONSUMING AUTHENTICITY
- the area in Portland has had a disappearance of traditional manufacturing and growth
of financial services + the residential conversion of lofts and office buildings
neighbourhoods have been re-imagined as the creative hub of a symbolic economy
- in the process of developing alternative consumption practices, these contribute to
changes that make these sapces more desirable eg. Even in old neighbourhoods, the
flats have been transformed into luxury housing
o“blight has been transformed into hip”
-1980s: the process of upgrading properties w/o tearing down buildings is gentrification
othis was after Jane Jacobs’ book about the Life/Death of great American cities
and one that celebrated the relations of neighbourhoods; was against large-sclae
urban renewals
oshe also worked to defeat Robert Moses and the NYC gov. plans to destroy old
warehouses, factories, stores, and replace them w/ expressways and public
housing projects etc.
too few middle-class at that point to change Lower Manhattan’s image
people were moving to suburbs really fast
when that gen.’s children grew up, they migrated/remaine din the city;
for new college educated residents, the city was a mass of cultural edgy
venues and restored residential facades: islands of renewal in the seas of
decay
where parent gen. saw decay, the young dwellers saw beauty in the
excitement of the city opp. To view of plants who wanted streets to be
less crowded w/ more skyscraper; new gen. Liked loft buildings,
cobblestone streets etc b/c was authentic
- new college educated urban residents work in low-wage, temp jobs share expectation
w/ wealthier lifestyles than they can actually participate in
- most urban gentrifiers lead an aesthetic life go to bars, art galleries, rent overpriced
apartments, fetishize the ethnic diversity of their lower-income neighbours
ois part of an image of an “authentic urban exp”
Authentic Spaces
- mobility allows us to see a neighbourhood in the way it looks, allow us to see its
standard of urbanity, judge its character etc.
- the more connected we are to its social life, the less we are to call it authentic creates
neighbourhoods as a “space of representation” rather than a lived exp, we think of
them purely objectively (eg. A real estate agent looks at them in terms of only money),
while artists look at it like “is it interesting, real etc.”
- old theory: men/women are more authentic if they are closer to nature than to the
institutional disciplines of power offers psychic consolation to social groups who do
not have a realistic chance of gaining rewards from powerful elites or taking control of
powerful institutions
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com