Culture : Space

Interesting Reads

Are teenagers part of the reason why malls are dying? John McDuling writing for Atlantic Cities looks at Piper Jaffray’s semi-annual study into teen behavior in American Teens Don't Hang Out at Malls Anymore.

Who is responsible for gentrification and who has the right to criticize? A.O. Scott's article, Whose Brooklyn Is It, Anyway?, looks at media representations and gentrification--specifically in Brooklyn in response to Spike Lee's well publicized rant. 

Not just blue and red or purple states--the politics of metro areas within states. Richard Florida analyzes sprawl in metro areas and the relationship to conservative politics in America's Most Sprawling Cities Are Also the Most Republican.

 

Interesting Reads

From Atlantic Cities:

One of America's Oldest Shopping Malls Converts to Micro-Apartments

What Is It Exactly That Makes Big Cities Vote Democratic?

New York's 'Affordable Housing' Isn't Always Affordable

San Francisco Chronicle:

Gentrification no longer a dirty word

New York Times:

Born to Wait

Downtown Brooklyn

Great new documentary:  "My Brooklyn" by Kelly Anderson with the support of historian Craig S. Wilder at MIT. 

 

 

The first time I visited the Fulton Mall was as a teenager in the 1990s.  I was so excited to hang out with my friends and go shopping without adults.  Fast forward to 2008, I moved to Northern Park Slope as an adult joining the later gentrifiers.  I always felt like I had one foot in the Fulton Mall and the other in Gorilla Coffee!  I was surprised (I really shouldn't be) to recently learn about the plans to demolish/redevelop the Fulton Mall (see National Retailers Discover a Brooklyn Mall in the NYT). 

Are American Shopping Malls Dying?

Surfing the web I found this interesting website, Dead Malls, by three historians that have documented the death of retail malls in the US for over 10 years.  They provide many links from numerous contributors featuring malls all over the US.

Also, note related article on the Atlantic Cities:  The Death of the American Shopping Mall

 

The website and article recalled two quotes:

"In consumer capitalism, the working classes abandon the union hall for the shopping mall and celebrate the system that fuels the desires that it ultimately cannot satisfy."

"To expand the domain of shopping and profit, advertisers are already creating new malls in cyberspace that will provide virtual shopping environments of the most exotic kind to parade an unbelievable surfeit of products. Indeed, corporations are currently establishing Web sites on the Internet which offer all sorts of visual spectacles in order to entice customers to buy their goods and provide consumer profile information for future advertising and commercial ventures."

In "Debord and the Postmodern Turn: New Stages of the Spectacle" by Steven Best and Douglas Kellner