Naked City

The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places
Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-19-538285-3
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 312 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 236 mm x 152 mm, Gewicht: 578 g

As cities have gentrified, educated urbanites have come to prize what they regard as "authentic" urban life: aging buildings, art galleries, small boutiques, upscale food markets, neighborhood old-timers, funky ethnic restaurants, and old, family-owned shops. These signify a place's authenticity, in contrast to the bland standardization of the suburbs and exurbs.

But as Sharon Zukin shows in Naked City, the rapid and pervasive demand for authenticity--evident in escalating real estate prices, expensive stores, and closely monitored urban streetscapes--has helped drive out the very people who first lent a neighborhood its authentic aura: immigrants, the working class, and artists. Zukin traces this economic and social evolution in six archetypal New York areas--Williamsburg, Harlem, the East Village, Union Square, Red Hook, and the city's community gardens--and travels to both the city's first IKEA store and the World Trade Center site. She shows that for followers of Jane Jacobs, this transformation is a perversion of what was supposed to happen. Indeed, Naked City is a sobering update of Jacobs' legendary 1962 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Like Jacobs, Zukin looks at what gives neighborhoods a sense of place, but argues that over time, the emphasis on neighborhood distinctiveness has become a tool of economic elites to drive up real estate values and effectively force out the neighborhood "characters" that Jacobs so evocatively idealized.
With a journalist's eye and the understanding of a longtime critic and observer, Zukin's panoramic survey of contemporary New York explains how our desire to consume authentic experience has become a central force in making cities more exclusive.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zukin, Sharon

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Arbeit/Sozialpädagogik Community Care, Bildung, Freizeit, Freiwilligenarbeit

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface

- 1: Origins and New Beginnings

- Uncommon Spaces

- 2: How Brooklyn Became Cool

- 3: Living Local in the East Village

- 4: Why Harlem is Not a Ghetto

- Common Spaces

- 5: Union Square and the Paradox of Public Space

- 6: A Tale of Two Globals: Pupusas and IKEA in Red Hook

- 7: The Billboard and the Garden: A Struggle for Roots

- 8: Destination Culture and the Crisis of Authenticity

Über Autor(innen)

Sharon Zukin is Broeklundian Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center.