The New Gentrification
The Friday Times took another look at the work of Jane Jacobs, who “waged heroic war against planners who dreamed of paving the Village’s cobblestone streets, demolishing its tenements and creating sterile superblocks.” According to Sharon Zukin, a Brooklyn College sociology professor and author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places,…
The Friday Times took another look at the work of Jane Jacobs, who “waged heroic war against planners who dreamed of paving the Village’s cobblestone streets, demolishing its tenements and creating sterile superblocks.” According to Sharon Zukin, a Brooklyn College sociology professor and author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, saving the cobblestone streets and old architecture may retain a neighborhood’s character superficially, but is doesn’t do much for the community who gave the neighborhood its soul. Zukin paid a visit to Williamsburg (“the East River gold coast”), where she pointed out “a low-slung old granary with a MacBook-speckled coffee bar” and said, We’ve gone from Jacobs’s vision to the McDonald’s of the educated classes. Are you buying what Zukin’s selling?
A Contrarian’s Lament in a Blitz of Gentrification [NYT]
this thread is filled with old people bitching about things old people bitch normally bitch about.
i work with 20 something guys who grew up in harlem and the bronx and they spend more money on clothes and shoes and random bullshit than my girlfriend. These guys want to live in “bad ass glass buildings” and be rich.
They all waited in line the other day to buy 250 dollar shoes.
It seems everyone in this thread is complaining about non issues with kids who have grown up in this city.
however I also work with some crack dealers.
@Legion
May I add,
New York 2100 AD:
Animals: What happened to the humans?
“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.”
It’s The What’s argument!
“McDonald’s of the educated classes.”
What does that even mean? It doesn’t make sense.
Well, I’ll have to check out her book.
Gentrification in NYC is at least half as old as Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). So maybe how we talk about this idea is in need of some updating too? Doesn’t it seem like a contradiction to say gentrification is inauthentic since it is one of the strongest forces shaping neighborhoods from the early-80s on? This question about authenticity distracts from the more important issues — like diversity.
fsrg,
…yeah, try telling them that at McDonald’s College.
Ronald the Clown will be all over you like white on rice.
and you don’t want to know where he’ll put his size 20 Clown shoe!
https://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/careers/hamburger_university.html
I havent read her book – but determining that coffee shops and high end stores are “McDonald’s of the educated classes.” sounds much more like an opinion piece than anything “rigorous and academic”
“but what else do you want me to call a book analyzing trends in gentrification ”
Fodder for Brownstone!
This is rigorous academic analysis? Oh, right, it’s 40 years out of date. Must be rigorous and academic.
Posted by: mopar at February 22, 2010 4:19 PM
mopar,
Well, she’s got a PhD from Columbia in Sociology,
she’s a full Professor at Brooklyn College.
The book was published this year (2010) so I assume it’s topical and it’s got 33 pages of footnotes, so I have to assume again that it’s well researched.
…hey, I’m the last to take a Columbia University graduate at their word (tweaking the dems here) but what else do you want me to call a book analyzing trends in gentrification written by an academic?