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“The City That Lost Its Soul”
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Author | Zukin, Sharon |
| Copyright Year | 2020 |
| Description | In this selection, from Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (2010) sociologist Sharon Zukin looks at the way urban working-class neighborhoods gentrify and thereby lose community-based authenticity and succumb to the powerful political and commercial forces of artificiality. “In the early years of the twenty-first century,” she writes, “New York City lost its soul…. In London, Paris, and New York, artists and gentrifiers move into old immigrant areas, praising the working-class bars and take-out joints but overwhelming them with new cafes and boutiques, which are soon followed by brand-name chain stores.” But this is no ordinary analysis of how artists and counter-culturalists, then urban professionals and techies, move into old neighborhoods and drive out the original residents by driving up the rents. She looks into the motives of successive generations and finds a “desire for origins,” for “mythical roots,” and “new beginnings” that she recognizes as “the continuous reinvention of communities.” Zukin acknowledges her debt to Jane Jacobs, both for her writings and for her struggle against the entire modern urban planning profession. She recognizes how liberal middle-class gentrifiers become the allies of the real estate industry with the result that claims to a new authenticity become “a tool of power” that is not just financial but cultural as well. And she has no reluctance, despite her tremendous admiration, to point out the irony that Jane Jacobs was a gentrifier herself – or the further irony that she, Sharon Zukin, is also a gentrifier. Book Name: The City Reader |
| Related Links | https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/chapters/edit/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9780429261732-21&type=chapterpdf |
| Ending Page | 171 |
| Page Count | 11 |
| Starting Page | 161 |
| DOI | 10.4324/9780429261732-21 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Publisher Date | 2020-05-14 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Book Name: The City Reader Authenticity Gentrifiers Powerful Recognizes Artists Jacobs |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Chapter |
