w3 - mon

Main points:

1. Who has most power can impose their idea of “authenticity” on a space

a. Not just financial power (although this group will likely win in end) but cultural power—new tastes that reinforce political rhetoric will displace longtime residents.

b. For hipsters “authenticity” is a self-conscious cultural choice (keep old buildings, praise working class bars, working class culture—trucker hat.).

i. Is also a means of displacement

ii. Kill authenticity that attracted them to community in first place

2. Result: A lack of social diversity kills the authenticity of a city and denies it a soul.

3. Identify the characteristics of gentrification

a. Gentrification: the gentry moving into lower-class neighborhoods, increasing property values and transforming a “declining” district into expensive neighborhood.

i. Gentrification generalized (Neil Smith): when process effects bulk of city.

ii. Says this is what happens when a city loses it’s soul. P. 9

4. Cycle of displacement:

a. Check cashing place/bodega = gourmet cheese store or coffee bar = chain store that can pay highest rent

b. Manufacturing loft = artists live/work loft = lawyers/managerial class luxury condos

5. Moral right to the city:

a. Right to inhabit a space, not just consume it as an experience (p. 6)

b. Gradual build up of everyday experience.

c. A city loses its soul when this continuity is broken—when services, diversity, is lost to homogenization (of class, services, ownership, etc.)

6. AUTHENTICITY: Is this a legitimate idea around which to discuss the issue of gentrification?

7. DEFINITION: About creating the experience of origins—since Benjamin and Baudrillard, there can be no original, or, everything is a simulacrum, everything is based on appearances.

a. Does this mean there is no “real” authenticity? Only a simulation of one?

i. “Riskless risk, or domestication by cappuccino”

ii. Disneyfied Times Square, hipster district of art galleries

8. Authenticity a social right or a state of mind?

a. State of mind = historic, local, cool

b. Social right = poor, ethnic, and democratic

9. New York is not the same as other urban places across country, but is a “brand” and developers use it to promote their projects. Authentic = New York (Downtown L.A.)

10. Blogs and other conversations through online (lifestyle) sites are a window into our opinions about “authenticity” in a neighborhood, the desires of a certain class of consumers (gentrifiers). See Chowhound or Curbed LA

a. All about places of consumption and media coverage of them (p. 27-28)

b. Self-analyze: start class by talking about places to have lunch. We came up with places most hip, or “authentic.” Food is the new “art” in the urban cultural experience. P.29

JANE JACOBS VIA ZUKIN

11. Do Jane Jacobs’ principles become the foundation of the gentrification of cities in more recent years? How is Jacobs used? P. 25

a. Ideas have become standard for developers in terms of preserving physical space.

b. Encourage mixed uses, but not mixed populations (raise rent, raise percentage of owners, create larger spaces so decrease density, encourage high-end shopping that’s more about lifestyle than need—and in third wave usher in chain stores).

12. How would Jacobs’ feel about the characteristics of gentrification?

a. Don’t translate ideas into plans for suburbs, small towns, etc. (p.22)

13. Critique of Jacobs:

a. Didn’t realize that her vision of a dynamic urban community was tied to a vision of “authenticity” that would be erased by others like her.

i. Contradiction of social anthropology? No authentic subject once they are aware you are studying it. Change the scene by being a part of it.

b. Blamed urban planners when real fault lay with developers, city governments, and other financial interest groups. P 25