Cities across the world are rapidly losing their individuality thanks to corporate shopping spaces. That was the main point of the 13th Annual Urban Studies Lecture Oct. 29 in Meyerson Hall.
Guest lecturer Sharon Zukin presented "The Privatization of Public Space: From Disney World to Nike Town" to a packed audience of more than 250 people. She is the Broeklundian Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York.
Last spring, Urban Studies seniors chose Zukin to be the guest lecturer this fall while considering her multifaceted professional contributions to urban studies, including her recent book, "The Cultures of Cities."
Elaine Simon, co-director of undergraduate urban studies, introduced Zukin, saying her multidisciplinary research was "at the nexus of urban studies." Simon praised Zukin's "interweaving consideration of the built environment with urban history, economic development, politics and culture."
Zukin argued that in the 1990s, "retail emerged as a strategy of urban redevelopment, and public spaces became representations of consumption spaces." The trend is international, she said, "changing the built environment in most cities of the world."
Zukin became interested in the new urban redevelopment strategy when she realized the importance of shopping in modern society. She noticed the public attention given to many New York areas that were redeveloped into shopping areas and were praised in the popular media. Well known areas of Manhattan, such as Madison Avenue and Times Square, are being "revitalized" by giant corporate retailers like Disney and Nike.
Zukin argued corporate retailers are creating a "new shopping landscape of power," using museum-like atmospheres to reshape public space into "new consumption spaces." She gave several examples of museum-like tactics - the screening of Nike commercial videos on movie-sized screens, and the presentation of products in glass cases with gold labels - that elevate the cultural value of mere consumer goods.
Zukin noted how social, racial and class differences related to the wave of corporate superstores. The new superstores have displaced many small, unique and ethnic businesses that reflected the diversity of New York culture. Stores such as Barney's, The Gap, Barnes and Noble, and Georgio Armani have not only cleaned up sleazy businesses like porn shops and bars; they have effected a kind of urban retail ethnic cleansing.
The new superstores create mainstream consumption spaces attracting "suburbanites, visitors and tourists," Zukin said. She used slides to demonstrate the shift from "vernacular social space" to spaces that reflected "the visual appreciation of a paying public." The spaces are environments conducive only to buying.
She showed how the new corporate style has co-opted city governments. New York City cooperated with the Disney Corporation, not only closing down a heavily used Manhattan avenue, but also shutting off all the lights along the street so the lighted Disney floats would appear more awesome.
The cooperation goes even further. Zukin said corporate retail demands constant police presence and surveillance. She used the Disney Parade along Fifth Avenue as an example, pointing to the hundreds of police officers and barricades in her slides of the parade to illustrate the role of regulation and surveillance in the new corporate retail culture.
The connection between upscale consumerism and police presence reflects the degree of regulation required for "successful" retail revitalization. Certain races, ethnic groups and social classes are discouraged from participating in both the consumption of goods and space as part of the revitalization strategy, Zukin argues. Well-heeled consumers are welcome in the "revitalized" areas, while other people's presence is monitored and discouraged.
Zukin concluded her argument by contemplating a balance between public and private space, and questioning the direction of further urban redevelopment using the corporate retail strategy. She outlined the loss and suppression of certain cultures as the cost of new urban, glitzy consumerism.
Shopping in the world's newest retail developments may have more than one price, she said.
Return to Compass Features for November 11, 1997