Ebook: Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places

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 1961 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. "This is scholarship with its boots on the ground, challenging us to look at the familiar in a new light." --The Boston Globe"A highly readable narrative...a revelation, no matter where you live." --The Austin Chronicle"Provocative." --San Francisco Chronicle
Table of contents :
Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 10
Introduction: The City That Lost Its Soul......Page 20
Uncommon Spaces......Page 52
1 How Brooklyn Became Cool......Page 54
2 Why Harlem Is Not a Ghetto......Page 82
3 Living Local in the East Village......Page 114
Common Spaces......Page 142
4 Union Square and the Paradox of Public Space......Page 144
5 A Tale of Two Globals: Pupusas and IKEA in Red Hook......Page 178
6 The Billboard and the Garden: A Struggle for Roots......Page 212
Conclusion Destination Culture and the Crisis of Authenticity......Page 238
Notes......Page 266
A......Page 300
B......Page 301
C......Page 302
E......Page 303
G......Page 304
H......Page 305
L......Page 306
N......Page 307
P......Page 308
R......Page 309
S......Page 310
U......Page 311
W......Page 312
Z......Page 313