Joanne Punzo Waghorne
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195156638
- eISBN:
- 9780199785292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195156638.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
Encircled by ever-expanding suburbs of Chennai, many old village “seats” of feminine divine power (shakti pitha) are attracting ardent new middle-class devotees. Called Amman (mother) in Tamil, these ...
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Encircled by ever-expanding suburbs of Chennai, many old village “seats” of feminine divine power (shakti pitha) are attracting ardent new middle-class devotees. Called Amman (mother) in Tamil, these Goddesses (Mariyamman, Mundakakkanni Amman, Kolavizhi Amman) reign alone, usually without a male consort. Middle-class neighborhood groups, often led by women, are taming the powers of such “village” goddesses long associated with blood sacrifices and wild ecstasy by giving these Goddesses inviting faces and literally “domesticating” their sites into proper new temples. This process of gentrification or “bourgeoisification” of the Goddess reveals evolving middle-class religious sensibilities. Goddess temples become the sites for a new bourgeois public sphere (Habermas), where the middle classes enact and construct a common identity. This gentrification reaches out into the surrounding streets as well, where new groups lobby for public cleanliness. A sign on the wall of an old temple reads “Please help us keep the street clean”.Less
Encircled by ever-expanding suburbs of Chennai, many old village “seats” of feminine divine power (shakti pitha) are attracting ardent new middle-class devotees. Called Amman (mother) in Tamil, these Goddesses (Mariyamman, Mundakakkanni Amman, Kolavizhi Amman) reign alone, usually without a male consort. Middle-class neighborhood groups, often led by women, are taming the powers of such “village” goddesses long associated with blood sacrifices and wild ecstasy by giving these Goddesses inviting faces and literally “domesticating” their sites into proper new temples. This process of gentrification or “bourgeoisification” of the Goddess reveals evolving middle-class religious sensibilities. Goddess temples become the sites for a new bourgeois public sphere (Habermas), where the middle classes enact and construct a common identity. This gentrification reaches out into the surrounding streets as well, where new groups lobby for public cleanliness. A sign on the wall of an old temple reads “Please help us keep the street clean”.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155166
- eISBN:
- 9781400852635
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155166.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
Once known for slum-like conditions in its immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, New York City's downtown now features luxury housing, chic boutiques and hotels, and, most notably, a vibrant ...
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Once known for slum-like conditions in its immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, New York City's downtown now features luxury housing, chic boutiques and hotels, and, most notably, a vibrant nightlife culture. While a burgeoning bar scene can be viewed as a positive sign of urban transformation, tensions lurk beneath, reflecting the social conflicts within postindustrial cities. This book examines the perspectives and actions of disparate social groups who have been affected by or played a role in the nightlife of the Lower East Side, East Village, and the Bowery. Using the social world of bars as windows into understanding urban development, it argues that the gentrifying neighborhoods of the postindustrial city are increasingly influenced by upscale commercial projects, causing significant conflicts for the people involved. The book explores what community institutions, such as neighborhood bars, gain or lose amid gentrification. It considers why residents continue unsuccessfully to protest the arrival of new bars, how new bar owners produce a nightlife culture that attracts visitors rather than locals, and how government actors, including elected officials and the police, regulate and encourage nightlife culture. By focusing on commercial newcomers and the residents who protest local changes, the book illustrates the contested and dynamic process of neighborhood growth. Delving into the social ecosystem of one emblematic section of Manhattan, it sheds fresh light on the tensions and consequences of urban progress.Less
Once known for slum-like conditions in its immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, New York City's downtown now features luxury housing, chic boutiques and hotels, and, most notably, a vibrant nightlife culture. While a burgeoning bar scene can be viewed as a positive sign of urban transformation, tensions lurk beneath, reflecting the social conflicts within postindustrial cities. This book examines the perspectives and actions of disparate social groups who have been affected by or played a role in the nightlife of the Lower East Side, East Village, and the Bowery. Using the social world of bars as windows into understanding urban development, it argues that the gentrifying neighborhoods of the postindustrial city are increasingly influenced by upscale commercial projects, causing significant conflicts for the people involved. The book explores what community institutions, such as neighborhood bars, gain or lose amid gentrification. It considers why residents continue unsuccessfully to protest the arrival of new bars, how new bar owners produce a nightlife culture that attracts visitors rather than locals, and how government actors, including elected officials and the police, regulate and encourage nightlife culture. By focusing on commercial newcomers and the residents who protest local changes, the book illustrates the contested and dynamic process of neighborhood growth. Delving into the social ecosystem of one emblematic section of Manhattan, it sheds fresh light on the tensions and consequences of urban progress.
Jamie Peck
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199580576
- eISBN:
- 9780191595240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199580576.003.0005
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Political Economy
This chapter presents a critique of the recently popularized concepts of the ‘creative class’ and ‘creative cities’, focusing on the work of urban-policy guru, Richard Florida. It explains the ...
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This chapter presents a critique of the recently popularized concepts of the ‘creative class’ and ‘creative cities’, focusing on the work of urban-policy guru, Richard Florida. It explains the geographic reach and policy salience of these discourses not in terms of their intrinsic merits, which can be challenged on a number of grounds, but as a function of the profoundly neoliberalized urban landscapes across which they have been traveling. For all their flamboyant display of liberal cultural innovation, creativity strategies barely disrupt neoliberal urban-policy orthodoxies, based on place promotion, market-led development, gentrification, and normalized sociospatial inequality. But these strategies also extend and recodify entrenched tendencies in neoliberal urban politics, seductively repackaging them in the soft-focus terms of cultural policy. They elevate creativity to the status of a new urban imperative — defining new sites, validating new strategies, placing new subjects, and establishing new stakes in the realm of competitive interurban relations.Less
This chapter presents a critique of the recently popularized concepts of the ‘creative class’ and ‘creative cities’, focusing on the work of urban-policy guru, Richard Florida. It explains the geographic reach and policy salience of these discourses not in terms of their intrinsic merits, which can be challenged on a number of grounds, but as a function of the profoundly neoliberalized urban landscapes across which they have been traveling. For all their flamboyant display of liberal cultural innovation, creativity strategies barely disrupt neoliberal urban-policy orthodoxies, based on place promotion, market-led development, gentrification, and normalized sociospatial inequality. But these strategies also extend and recodify entrenched tendencies in neoliberal urban politics, seductively repackaging them in the soft-focus terms of cultural policy. They elevate creativity to the status of a new urban imperative — defining new sites, validating new strategies, placing new subjects, and establishing new stakes in the realm of competitive interurban relations.
Mona Abaza
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781526145116
- eISBN:
- 9781526152114
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526145123
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
In Cairo collages, the large-scale political, economic, and social changes in Egypt brought on by the 2011 revolution are set against the declining fortunes of a single apartment building in a ...
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In Cairo collages, the large-scale political, economic, and social changes in Egypt brought on by the 2011 revolution are set against the declining fortunes of a single apartment building in a specific Cairo neighbourhood. The violence in Tahrir Square and Mohamed Mahmud Street; the post-January euphoric moment; the increasing militarisation of urban life; the flourishing of dystopian novels set in Cairo; the neo-liberal imaginaries of Dubai and Singapore as global models; gentrification and evictions in poor neighbourhoods; the forthcoming new administrative capital for Egypt – all are narrated in parallel to the ‘little’ story of the adventures and misfortunes of everyday interactions in a middle-class building in the neighbourhood of Doqi.Less
In Cairo collages, the large-scale political, economic, and social changes in Egypt brought on by the 2011 revolution are set against the declining fortunes of a single apartment building in a specific Cairo neighbourhood. The violence in Tahrir Square and Mohamed Mahmud Street; the post-January euphoric moment; the increasing militarisation of urban life; the flourishing of dystopian novels set in Cairo; the neo-liberal imaginaries of Dubai and Singapore as global models; gentrification and evictions in poor neighbourhoods; the forthcoming new administrative capital for Egypt – all are narrated in parallel to the ‘little’ story of the adventures and misfortunes of everyday interactions in a middle-class building in the neighbourhood of Doqi.
Jonathan Boyarin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823239009
- eISBN:
- 9780823239047
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239009.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The Stanton Street Shul is one of the last remaining Jewish congregations on New York's historic Lower East Side. This narrow building wedged into a lot designed for an old-law tenement is full of ...
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The Stanton Street Shul is one of the last remaining Jewish congregations on New York's historic Lower East Side. This narrow building wedged into a lot designed for an old-law tenement is full of clamorous voices—the generations of the dead who somehow contrive to make their presence known, and the newer generation keeping the building and its memories alive and to make themselves as Jews in the process. The book follows this congregation of “year-round Jews” through the course of a summer when its future must once again be decided. The Lower East Side, famous as the jumping-off point for millions of Jewish and other immigrants to America, has recently become the hip playground of twenty-something “immigrants” to the city from elsewhere in America and from overseas. Few imagine that Jewish life there has stubbornly continued through this history of decline and regeneration. This book illustrates the changes to a historic neighborhood facing the challenges of gentrification. It offers a portrait that is at once intimate and intelligible. Most important perhaps, it shows the congregation's members to be anything but a monochromatic set of uniform “believers,” but rather a gathering of vibrant, imperfect, indisputably down-to-earth individuals coming together to make a community.Less
The Stanton Street Shul is one of the last remaining Jewish congregations on New York's historic Lower East Side. This narrow building wedged into a lot designed for an old-law tenement is full of clamorous voices—the generations of the dead who somehow contrive to make their presence known, and the newer generation keeping the building and its memories alive and to make themselves as Jews in the process. The book follows this congregation of “year-round Jews” through the course of a summer when its future must once again be decided. The Lower East Side, famous as the jumping-off point for millions of Jewish and other immigrants to America, has recently become the hip playground of twenty-something “immigrants” to the city from elsewhere in America and from overseas. Few imagine that Jewish life there has stubbornly continued through this history of decline and regeneration. This book illustrates the changes to a historic neighborhood facing the challenges of gentrification. It offers a portrait that is at once intimate and intelligible. Most important perhaps, it shows the congregation's members to be anything but a monochromatic set of uniform “believers,” but rather a gathering of vibrant, imperfect, indisputably down-to-earth individuals coming together to make a community.
Zain Abdullah
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195314250
- eISBN:
- 9780199871797
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314250.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
All cities change, and New York is no exception. While scholars continue to debate the impact of gentrification on places like Harlem, few are discussing its suburbanization or the process by which ...
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All cities change, and New York is no exception. While scholars continue to debate the impact of gentrification on places like Harlem, few are discussing its suburbanization or the process by which the city is losing its heterogeneity and becoming one big shopping mall. African Muslims and other community members appear to be under siege, as thousands of poor and working-class residents are forced to leave Harlem for more affordable neighborhoods. With the area’s increased commercialization, where sex sells the most mundane products, African Muslims are engaged in a jihad, or struggle, to maintain their Islamic values and ethics. This chapter explores how the average street merchant and his patrons, debating a series of conspiracy theories, struggle against professed racism and how African Muslims grapple with the meaning of freedom and democracy in America.Less
All cities change, and New York is no exception. While scholars continue to debate the impact of gentrification on places like Harlem, few are discussing its suburbanization or the process by which the city is losing its heterogeneity and becoming one big shopping mall. African Muslims and other community members appear to be under siege, as thousands of poor and working-class residents are forced to leave Harlem for more affordable neighborhoods. With the area’s increased commercialization, where sex sells the most mundane products, African Muslims are engaged in a jihad, or struggle, to maintain their Islamic values and ethics. This chapter explores how the average street merchant and his patrons, debating a series of conspiracy theories, struggle against professed racism and how African Muslims grapple with the meaning of freedom and democracy in America.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155166
- eISBN:
- 9781400852635
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155166.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This book examines bars not only as places for sociability, but also as windows for understanding how downtown neighborhoods in New York City like the Lower East Side, East Village, and Bowery have ...
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This book examines bars not only as places for sociability, but also as windows for understanding how downtown neighborhoods in New York City like the Lower East Side, East Village, and Bowery have transformed from disinvested slums to upscaling destinations with nightlife scenes. More generally, the book investigates the role and impact of nightlife's rise in the postindustrial city by analyzing how bars have become symbols of neighborhood change, specifically gentrification, that different groups experience, interpret, and act upon in a multitude of ways. If we look beyond their brick-and-mortar buildings and the social life within them, we can see bars as part of a larger social ecosystem—an urban context of resident groups, community organizations, government agencies, politicians, consumer subcultures, and entrepreneurs—that contributes to our understanding of the nature and consequences of the massive reinvestment in the downtowns of today's cities.Less
This book examines bars not only as places for sociability, but also as windows for understanding how downtown neighborhoods in New York City like the Lower East Side, East Village, and Bowery have transformed from disinvested slums to upscaling destinations with nightlife scenes. More generally, the book investigates the role and impact of nightlife's rise in the postindustrial city by analyzing how bars have become symbols of neighborhood change, specifically gentrification, that different groups experience, interpret, and act upon in a multitude of ways. If we look beyond their brick-and-mortar buildings and the social life within them, we can see bars as part of a larger social ecosystem—an urban context of resident groups, community organizations, government agencies, politicians, consumer subcultures, and entrepreneurs—that contributes to our understanding of the nature and consequences of the massive reinvestment in the downtowns of today's cities.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155166
- eISBN:
- 9781400852635
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155166.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter examines entrepreneurialism in the form of small-business ownership as an example of local place making. It starts with an episode from a community board meeting that shows how ...
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This chapter examines entrepreneurialism in the form of small-business ownership as an example of local place making. It starts with an episode from a community board meeting that shows how neighborhood residents use their community ideology to act against a Lower East Side bar owner named Sasha. It then turns to the story of the author's first visit to Sasha's unique, upscale cocktail bar before considering who has opened bars in these downtown neighborhoods since the start of their gentrification, how owners understand their role in their neighborhood, and how new bars reinforce preexisting social bonds among groups while supporting rarefied taste communities. The chapter shows that bar owners represent “place entrepreneurs” who collectively construct an image of downtown as a destination for nightlife. It concludes by showing how new downtown nightlife has transformed from being for communities of newcomers in the area to being for groups of visitors to the area.Less
This chapter examines entrepreneurialism in the form of small-business ownership as an example of local place making. It starts with an episode from a community board meeting that shows how neighborhood residents use their community ideology to act against a Lower East Side bar owner named Sasha. It then turns to the story of the author's first visit to Sasha's unique, upscale cocktail bar before considering who has opened bars in these downtown neighborhoods since the start of their gentrification, how owners understand their role in their neighborhood, and how new bars reinforce preexisting social bonds among groups while supporting rarefied taste communities. The chapter shows that bar owners represent “place entrepreneurs” who collectively construct an image of downtown as a destination for nightlife. It concludes by showing how new downtown nightlife has transformed from being for communities of newcomers in the area to being for groups of visitors to the area.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155166
- eISBN:
- 9781400852635
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155166.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter examines the limitations of local participatory democracy, focusing on how the competing definitions of community and conflicting understandings of the appropriate use of the ...
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This chapter examines the limitations of local participatory democracy, focusing on how the competing definitions of community and conflicting understandings of the appropriate use of the neighborhood that residents and bar owners hold play out during community boards' meetings. It begins with one of several episodes featured in the chapter of residents and bar owners debating liquor licensing and quality-of-life issues in their immediate area and surrounding neighborhood. It then considers the strategies that both neighborhood residents and bar owners use against each other to push forward their definition of community. It shows that early gentrifiers and the community board rely on their past experience in their neighborhood, with the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA), and with bar owners to hone their arguments and reshape their policies to protest bars. Participatory democracy serves as a powerful remedy for such processes as those that bring about advanced gentrification.Less
This chapter examines the limitations of local participatory democracy, focusing on how the competing definitions of community and conflicting understandings of the appropriate use of the neighborhood that residents and bar owners hold play out during community boards' meetings. It begins with one of several episodes featured in the chapter of residents and bar owners debating liquor licensing and quality-of-life issues in their immediate area and surrounding neighborhood. It then considers the strategies that both neighborhood residents and bar owners use against each other to push forward their definition of community. It shows that early gentrifiers and the community board rely on their past experience in their neighborhood, with the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA), and with bar owners to hone their arguments and reshape their policies to protest bars. Participatory democracy serves as a powerful remedy for such processes as those that bring about advanced gentrification.
F. M. L. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243303
- eISBN:
- 9780191714047
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243303.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Cultural explanations of major social and economic developments are seductively attractive but most unreliable. Anti-industrial and anti-commercial attitudes fostered by public schools and the older ...
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Cultural explanations of major social and economic developments are seductively attractive but most unreliable. Anti-industrial and anti-commercial attitudes fostered by public schools and the older universities, and the pursuit of aristocratic and gentry lifestyles by businessmen, are the leading social and cultural explanations of Britain's apparent economic decline since the 1870s. On the other hand there have been confident claims to have overturned the traditional view that wealthy merchants and industrialists aspired to acquire landed estates and gentry status, and to have shown that gentlemanly values were actually economically advantageous to Britain because she never was a primarily industrial economy. This book subjects these interpretations to the test of the actual evidence, and firmly re-establishes the conventional wisdom that new money characteristically seeks to acquire land and a place in the country, an aspiration that continues to be manifest today. Aristocratic and gentry cultures have not, however, been consistently anti-industrial or anti-business. Many businessmen-turned-landowners did not turn their backs on industry, but founded business dynasties; many hereditary landowners disregarded any prejudice against ‘trade’ and became entrepreneurs. Gentrification has indeed occurred on a large scale in the last two hundred years, but has had no discernible effect one way or the other on Britain's economic performance.Less
Cultural explanations of major social and economic developments are seductively attractive but most unreliable. Anti-industrial and anti-commercial attitudes fostered by public schools and the older universities, and the pursuit of aristocratic and gentry lifestyles by businessmen, are the leading social and cultural explanations of Britain's apparent economic decline since the 1870s. On the other hand there have been confident claims to have overturned the traditional view that wealthy merchants and industrialists aspired to acquire landed estates and gentry status, and to have shown that gentlemanly values were actually economically advantageous to Britain because she never was a primarily industrial economy. This book subjects these interpretations to the test of the actual evidence, and firmly re-establishes the conventional wisdom that new money characteristically seeks to acquire land and a place in the country, an aspiration that continues to be manifest today. Aristocratic and gentry cultures have not, however, been consistently anti-industrial or anti-business. Many businessmen-turned-landowners did not turn their backs on industry, but founded business dynasties; many hereditary landowners disregarded any prejudice against ‘trade’ and became entrepreneurs. Gentrification has indeed occurred on a large scale in the last two hundred years, but has had no discernible effect one way or the other on Britain's economic performance.
Joel Rast
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226661445
- eISBN:
- 9780226661612
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226661612.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
Cities today are celebrated for their diversity, but they are also places of steep inequalities, including growing divides between middle- and upper-class neighborhoods and areas of extreme ...
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Cities today are celebrated for their diversity, but they are also places of steep inequalities, including growing divides between middle- and upper-class neighborhoods and areas of extreme disadvantage. Chicago epitomizes this pattern, with its upscale, gentrified neighborhoods near downtown and along the lakefront, and its mostly Black, impoverished communities on the South and West Sides. More than ever, Chicago is a dual city, a condition that many of its residents and political leaders have come to take for granted. In The Origins of the Dual City, Joel Rast reveals today’s tacit acceptance of rising urban inequality as a stark departure from the past. For much of the twentieth century, civic leaders, convinced that the city’s survival depended on the elimination of slums and blight, made this goal a key policy priority. More recently, however, this attitude has shifted in favor of a much different approach aimed at managing economically distressed areas and mitigating their most harmful effects, while promoting downtown development and gentrification of select neighborhoods. The book shows how changing ideas about how problems of inequality should best be addressed shaped the behavior of the political and economic elites who led the city’s revitalization efforts.Less
Cities today are celebrated for their diversity, but they are also places of steep inequalities, including growing divides between middle- and upper-class neighborhoods and areas of extreme disadvantage. Chicago epitomizes this pattern, with its upscale, gentrified neighborhoods near downtown and along the lakefront, and its mostly Black, impoverished communities on the South and West Sides. More than ever, Chicago is a dual city, a condition that many of its residents and political leaders have come to take for granted. In The Origins of the Dual City, Joel Rast reveals today’s tacit acceptance of rising urban inequality as a stark departure from the past. For much of the twentieth century, civic leaders, convinced that the city’s survival depended on the elimination of slums and blight, made this goal a key policy priority. More recently, however, this attitude has shifted in favor of a much different approach aimed at managing economically distressed areas and mitigating their most harmful effects, while promoting downtown development and gentrification of select neighborhoods. The book shows how changing ideas about how problems of inequality should best be addressed shaped the behavior of the political and economic elites who led the city’s revitalization efforts.
F. M. L. THOMPSON
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243303
- eISBN:
- 9780191714047
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243303.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter aims to measure the extent to which new men of wealth and their families became gentrified. Social or cultural gentrification can be intuitively and subjectively detected but cannot be ...
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This chapter aims to measure the extent to which new men of wealth and their families became gentrified. Social or cultural gentrification can be intuitively and subjectively detected but cannot be objectively verified and measured. Gentrification in the traditional sense of the acquisition of landed estates and country houses by new men and their families can, however, be tested and measured through evidence of landownership. The size and value of landed estate necessary for support of gentry status has been disputed, and analysis of contemporary social registers establishes that the landed gentry threshold could be as low as a four or five hundred acre estate yielding an income of around £500 a year. Investigation of every non-landed millionaire and half-millionaire businessman who died before 1914 establishes that 60 per cent of them had acquired landed estates, a further 20 per cent had landed descendants, and most of the remaining 20 per cent were childless and lacked the incentive to found a landed family. The flow of new money into land is shown to have continued at a reduced rate in the years since 1914. Moreover in a sample of over 700 less wealthy successful entrepreneurs one-third acquired landed estates, several of them leaving less than £50,000 in personalty. Thus there was a great deal more gentrification of businessmen, measured by the acquisition of landed estates, than in the works of the Stones and Rubinstein, while gentrification in the sense of full adoption of landed upper class lifestyles may have been a great deal less than implied by Martin Wiener.Less
This chapter aims to measure the extent to which new men of wealth and their families became gentrified. Social or cultural gentrification can be intuitively and subjectively detected but cannot be objectively verified and measured. Gentrification in the traditional sense of the acquisition of landed estates and country houses by new men and their families can, however, be tested and measured through evidence of landownership. The size and value of landed estate necessary for support of gentry status has been disputed, and analysis of contemporary social registers establishes that the landed gentry threshold could be as low as a four or five hundred acre estate yielding an income of around £500 a year. Investigation of every non-landed millionaire and half-millionaire businessman who died before 1914 establishes that 60 per cent of them had acquired landed estates, a further 20 per cent had landed descendants, and most of the remaining 20 per cent were childless and lacked the incentive to found a landed family. The flow of new money into land is shown to have continued at a reduced rate in the years since 1914. Moreover in a sample of over 700 less wealthy successful entrepreneurs one-third acquired landed estates, several of them leaving less than £50,000 in personalty. Thus there was a great deal more gentrification of businessmen, measured by the acquisition of landed estates, than in the works of the Stones and Rubinstein, while gentrification in the sense of full adoption of landed upper class lifestyles may have been a great deal less than implied by Martin Wiener.
F. M. L. THOMPSON
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243303
- eISBN:
- 9780191714047
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243303.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
After examining different senses in which the concepts of the enterprise culture and the industrial spirit have been employed it is argued that the version that portrays the single-minded pursuit of ...
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After examining different senses in which the concepts of the enterprise culture and the industrial spirit have been employed it is argued that the version that portrays the single-minded pursuit of profit and the accumulation of wealth as their essential ingredients is a polemical weapon of radical critics of industrialisation and philistinism, and does not fit the actual behaviour and values of the most prominent and successful British businessmen. One group of successful businessmen who acquired landed estates did indeed withdraw from business, and their families and descendants were assimilated into the landed aristocracy and gentry, so that in their case gentrification did result in abandonment of an enterprise culture. For another group, however, acquisition of landed estates far from ending involvement in business may well have reinvigorated the industrial spirit for it led to the founding of business dynasties which in some cases have now lasted for four or more generations. This group has been called an aristocratic bourgeoisie, and while its best known members come from banking, finance, and brewing, it is shown also to be found in many branches of industry and trade.Less
After examining different senses in which the concepts of the enterprise culture and the industrial spirit have been employed it is argued that the version that portrays the single-minded pursuit of profit and the accumulation of wealth as their essential ingredients is a polemical weapon of radical critics of industrialisation and philistinism, and does not fit the actual behaviour and values of the most prominent and successful British businessmen. One group of successful businessmen who acquired landed estates did indeed withdraw from business, and their families and descendants were assimilated into the landed aristocracy and gentry, so that in their case gentrification did result in abandonment of an enterprise culture. For another group, however, acquisition of landed estates far from ending involvement in business may well have reinvigorated the industrial spirit for it led to the founding of business dynasties which in some cases have now lasted for four or more generations. This group has been called an aristocratic bourgeoisie, and while its best known members come from banking, finance, and brewing, it is shown also to be found in many branches of industry and trade.
F. M. L. THOMPSON
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243303
- eISBN:
- 9780191714047
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243303.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
It has been strongly maintained, most influentially by Corelli Barnett and Martin Wiener, that public schools and the older universities carry a heavy responsibility for the disappointing performance ...
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It has been strongly maintained, most influentially by Corelli Barnett and Martin Wiener, that public schools and the older universities carry a heavy responsibility for the disappointing performance of the British economy since the 1850s. The argument is that the sons of businessmen were ‘emasculated into gentlemen’ at public schools, extinguishing their industrial spirit, a form of cultural gentrification confirmed at Oxford and Cambridge if they chanced to go there. This chapter tests this contention against the evidence of the occupations of the fathers of public school and Oxbridge entrants, the careers of their students, and the education of leading, entrepreneurial, businessmen. The conclusions are that before the 1880s only a very small minority of public school boys were the sons of businessmen, those being chiefly younger sons for whom there could be no future in the family business; that public school boys were mainly the sons of professional men and that the great majority followed careers in the law, army, church, medicine, civil service, Indian civil service, and the colonial service; and that businessmen formed an even smaller contingent of Oxbridge entrants or alumni, the majority having no secondary education of any kind. The business element increased somewhat before 1914, probably more as a consequence of the declining importance of family firms with the rise of large corporate companies than as a response to modernisation of public school and university courses. It was not until after 1945 that the majority of leading businessmen were public school and university educated. Hence only since 1945 have public school and university graduates been in a position to exercise decisive influence on the performance of the economy.Less
It has been strongly maintained, most influentially by Corelli Barnett and Martin Wiener, that public schools and the older universities carry a heavy responsibility for the disappointing performance of the British economy since the 1850s. The argument is that the sons of businessmen were ‘emasculated into gentlemen’ at public schools, extinguishing their industrial spirit, a form of cultural gentrification confirmed at Oxford and Cambridge if they chanced to go there. This chapter tests this contention against the evidence of the occupations of the fathers of public school and Oxbridge entrants, the careers of their students, and the education of leading, entrepreneurial, businessmen. The conclusions are that before the 1880s only a very small minority of public school boys were the sons of businessmen, those being chiefly younger sons for whom there could be no future in the family business; that public school boys were mainly the sons of professional men and that the great majority followed careers in the law, army, church, medicine, civil service, Indian civil service, and the colonial service; and that businessmen formed an even smaller contingent of Oxbridge entrants or alumni, the majority having no secondary education of any kind. The business element increased somewhat before 1914, probably more as a consequence of the declining importance of family firms with the rise of large corporate companies than as a response to modernisation of public school and university courses. It was not until after 1945 that the majority of leading businessmen were public school and university educated. Hence only since 1945 have public school and university graduates been in a position to exercise decisive influence on the performance of the economy.
F. M. L. THOMPSON
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243303
- eISBN:
- 9780191714047
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243303.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Lawrence Stone believed he had proved that no more than minimal gentrification, in the strict sense of acquisition of country houses by new men of wealth, took place between 1540 and 1880. ...
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Lawrence Stone believed he had proved that no more than minimal gentrification, in the strict sense of acquisition of country houses by new men of wealth, took place between 1540 and 1880. Unfortunately this conclusion rested on an elementary error in interpretation of his statistics, which actually showed that one-third of the owners of his sample of country houses were businessmen-purchasers. Gentrification on this scale occurred during the years of commercial and industrial growth when Britain became ‘the first industrial nation’, and was regarded as evidence of entrepreneurial success, not failure. Between 1870 and 1914 the British economy was overtaken not only by the U.S.A. but also by Germany, and contemporaries seeking explanations for apparent economic decline blamed the managerial and technological conservatism of family firms, caused mainly by deficiencies in education, and never mentioning gentrification. Economic historians have established that the British economy has continued to grow, rather more strongly since 1870 than before, and that aside from the World Wars there have never been any periods of economic decline. The British economy performed better than most others in the interwar years, and in the strong economic recovery of 1945-60 criticism of performance was muted. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the ‘British disease’ of poor performance, poor quality and outdated products, poor productivity and poor industrial relations appeared, and cultural explanations became fashionable. These included, with scant regard for consistency, ascribing responsibility to dominant ill-educated individuals, to the gentlemanly and anti-business values nurtured by public schools and universities, to the haemorrhage of talent caused by landed gentrification, to the dependency culture of the nanny state (welfare state), or to the pernicious effects of Keynesian economics. Projected in the influential writings of Martin Wiener and Corelli Barnett and translated into serious politics by Keith Joseph, such views rubbished the Victorian values of muscular Christianity and public service at precisely the same time as Margaret Thatcher embraced the Victorian values of thrift, self-help, and enterprise.Less
Lawrence Stone believed he had proved that no more than minimal gentrification, in the strict sense of acquisition of country houses by new men of wealth, took place between 1540 and 1880. Unfortunately this conclusion rested on an elementary error in interpretation of his statistics, which actually showed that one-third of the owners of his sample of country houses were businessmen-purchasers. Gentrification on this scale occurred during the years of commercial and industrial growth when Britain became ‘the first industrial nation’, and was regarded as evidence of entrepreneurial success, not failure. Between 1870 and 1914 the British economy was overtaken not only by the U.S.A. but also by Germany, and contemporaries seeking explanations for apparent economic decline blamed the managerial and technological conservatism of family firms, caused mainly by deficiencies in education, and never mentioning gentrification. Economic historians have established that the British economy has continued to grow, rather more strongly since 1870 than before, and that aside from the World Wars there have never been any periods of economic decline. The British economy performed better than most others in the interwar years, and in the strong economic recovery of 1945-60 criticism of performance was muted. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the ‘British disease’ of poor performance, poor quality and outdated products, poor productivity and poor industrial relations appeared, and cultural explanations became fashionable. These included, with scant regard for consistency, ascribing responsibility to dominant ill-educated individuals, to the gentlemanly and anti-business values nurtured by public schools and universities, to the haemorrhage of talent caused by landed gentrification, to the dependency culture of the nanny state (welfare state), or to the pernicious effects of Keynesian economics. Projected in the influential writings of Martin Wiener and Corelli Barnett and translated into serious politics by Keith Joseph, such views rubbished the Victorian values of muscular Christianity and public service at precisely the same time as Margaret Thatcher embraced the Victorian values of thrift, self-help, and enterprise.
Fiona Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226603612
- eISBN:
- 9780226603896
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226603896.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Cruising the Dead River traces the queer history of the cruising ground of Manhattan’s West Side piers in the 1970s and early 1980s, arguing that the ruined buildings that dominated this queer ...
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Cruising the Dead River traces the queer history of the cruising ground of Manhattan’s West Side piers in the 1970s and early 1980s, arguing that the ruined buildings that dominated this queer landscape assumed a powerful erotic role in the cruising that took place there in the late 1970s and the art that was produced in and about this site, sparking a sense of erotic connection between past and present, land and sea. Drawing upon the art and writing of David Wojnarowicz, and incorporating discussions of art, activism, poetry, performance, and film, this book posits that the pleasure of the ruin cannot be seperated from the complex, sometimes violent, forces of urban regeneration and social cleansing that were reshaping the waterfront in the pre-AIDS era, which have been obscured as the neighbourhoods were gentrified in the AIDS crisis years that followed.Less
Cruising the Dead River traces the queer history of the cruising ground of Manhattan’s West Side piers in the 1970s and early 1980s, arguing that the ruined buildings that dominated this queer landscape assumed a powerful erotic role in the cruising that took place there in the late 1970s and the art that was produced in and about this site, sparking a sense of erotic connection between past and present, land and sea. Drawing upon the art and writing of David Wojnarowicz, and incorporating discussions of art, activism, poetry, performance, and film, this book posits that the pleasure of the ruin cannot be seperated from the complex, sometimes violent, forces of urban regeneration and social cleansing that were reshaping the waterfront in the pre-AIDS era, which have been obscured as the neighbourhoods were gentrified in the AIDS crisis years that followed.
Merida M. Rua
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199760268
- eISBN:
- 9780199950256
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199760268.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In 1946 two distinct migrant groups arrived in the City of Neighborhoods from the island of Puerto Rico. One, a small group of University of Puerto Rico graduates who had earned scholarships to ...
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In 1946 two distinct migrant groups arrived in the City of Neighborhoods from the island of Puerto Rico. One, a small group of University of Puerto Rico graduates who had earned scholarships to attend the University of Chicago; the other, contract laborers recruited by an employment agency for household and factory work. It was the beginning of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, a virtual colony of the US’s Caribbean empire in the industrial heartland. This work, focusing on the end of World War II to the present, is a story of everyday Puerto Ricans and their evolving sense of place and personhood within the setting of a rich range of social experiences, among them migration, settlement, urban renewal, gentrification, political mobilizations, and community commemorations. It traces the complex ethnoracial dimensions of identity and space and their necessary connections; thus, for example, exploring the ways in which whites, African Americans, and particularly Mexican immigrants and migrants, in part, shaped the meanings of Puerto Rican-ness even as Puerto Ricans modified their own identities. Identidad and communities are considered in relation to one another rather than in isolation. This study shows the varied ways Puerto Ricans came to understand their identities and rights within and beyond the city they made home.Less
In 1946 two distinct migrant groups arrived in the City of Neighborhoods from the island of Puerto Rico. One, a small group of University of Puerto Rico graduates who had earned scholarships to attend the University of Chicago; the other, contract laborers recruited by an employment agency for household and factory work. It was the beginning of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, a virtual colony of the US’s Caribbean empire in the industrial heartland. This work, focusing on the end of World War II to the present, is a story of everyday Puerto Ricans and their evolving sense of place and personhood within the setting of a rich range of social experiences, among them migration, settlement, urban renewal, gentrification, political mobilizations, and community commemorations. It traces the complex ethnoracial dimensions of identity and space and their necessary connections; thus, for example, exploring the ways in which whites, African Americans, and particularly Mexican immigrants and migrants, in part, shaped the meanings of Puerto Rican-ness even as Puerto Ricans modified their own identities. Identidad and communities are considered in relation to one another rather than in isolation. This study shows the varied ways Puerto Ricans came to understand their identities and rights within and beyond the city they made home.
Sean Parson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526107350
- eISBN:
- 9781526142023
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526107350.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
On Labor Day in 1988 two hundred hungry and homeless people went to Golden Gate Park in search of a hot meal, while fifty-four activists from Food Not Bombs, surrounded by riot police, lined up to ...
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On Labor Day in 1988 two hundred hungry and homeless people went to Golden Gate Park in search of a hot meal, while fifty-four activists from Food Not Bombs, surrounded by riot police, lined up to serve them food. The riot police counted twenty-five served meals, the legal number allowed by city law before breaking permit restrictions, and then began to arrest people. The arrests proceeded like an assembly line: an activist would scoop a bowl of food and hand it to a hungry person. A police officer would then handcuff and arrest that activist. Immediately, the next activist in line would take up the ladle and be promptly arrested. By the end of the day fifty-four people had been arrested for “providing food without a permit.” These arrests were not an aberration but part of a multi-year campaign by the city of San Francisco against radical homeless activists. Why would a liberal city arrest activists helping the homeless? In exploring this question, the book uses the conflict between the city and activists as a unique opportunity to examine the contested nature of urban politics, homelessness, and public space, while developing an anarchist alternative to liberal urban politics, which is rooted in mutual aid, solidarity, and anti-capitalism.Less
On Labor Day in 1988 two hundred hungry and homeless people went to Golden Gate Park in search of a hot meal, while fifty-four activists from Food Not Bombs, surrounded by riot police, lined up to serve them food. The riot police counted twenty-five served meals, the legal number allowed by city law before breaking permit restrictions, and then began to arrest people. The arrests proceeded like an assembly line: an activist would scoop a bowl of food and hand it to a hungry person. A police officer would then handcuff and arrest that activist. Immediately, the next activist in line would take up the ladle and be promptly arrested. By the end of the day fifty-four people had been arrested for “providing food without a permit.” These arrests were not an aberration but part of a multi-year campaign by the city of San Francisco against radical homeless activists. Why would a liberal city arrest activists helping the homeless? In exploring this question, the book uses the conflict between the city and activists as a unique opportunity to examine the contested nature of urban politics, homelessness, and public space, while developing an anarchist alternative to liberal urban politics, which is rooted in mutual aid, solidarity, and anti-capitalism.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155166
- eISBN:
- 9781400852635
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155166.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter provides a brief social history of the Bowery as told through the transformation of its bars and nightlife. It first examines how bars and nightlife corresponded to and helped along the ...
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This chapter provides a brief social history of the Bowery as told through the transformation of its bars and nightlife. It first examines how bars and nightlife corresponded to and helped along the Bowery's eventual gentrification before discussing how new bars and contemporary nightlife development have shaped community life in downtown neighborhood bars. A vignette of the people at Milano's Bar, a bar that has evolved alongside the changes occurring in the Bowery and the nightlife scene, is presented. Through an analysis of its multiple generations of customers, its bartenders, and its owners, the chapter reveals the tensions that have arisen from the bar's own transformation as a refuge for the homeless to a public gathering place for residents to a “dive bar” for young visitors. The reactions of the people at Milano's to these changes illustrate how urban forces have shaped a fundamental aspect of life for people in these downtown neighborhoods, namely, community socializing.Less
This chapter provides a brief social history of the Bowery as told through the transformation of its bars and nightlife. It first examines how bars and nightlife corresponded to and helped along the Bowery's eventual gentrification before discussing how new bars and contemporary nightlife development have shaped community life in downtown neighborhood bars. A vignette of the people at Milano's Bar, a bar that has evolved alongside the changes occurring in the Bowery and the nightlife scene, is presented. Through an analysis of its multiple generations of customers, its bartenders, and its owners, the chapter reveals the tensions that have arisen from the bar's own transformation as a refuge for the homeless to a public gathering place for residents to a “dive bar” for young visitors. The reactions of the people at Milano's to these changes illustrate how urban forces have shaped a fundamental aspect of life for people in these downtown neighborhoods, namely, community socializing.
Richard E. Ocejo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155166
- eISBN:
- 9781400852635
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155166.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter examines the social reasons behind collective action against economic development. In particular, it considers how early gentrifiers construct a “nostalgia narrative” that they use to ...
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This chapter examines the social reasons behind collective action against economic development. In particular, it considers how early gentrifiers construct a “nostalgia narrative” that they use to create a community ideology and a new self-identity as their neighborhood's “symbolic owners” that serve as bases for collective action. It also explores how and why neighborhood residents continue to protest bars despite recognizing their powerlessness to prevent nightlife growth and occupying a role as its victim. The chapter focuses on a longtime resident named Bob, who moved to the East Village at the start of its gentrification and who, like other early gentrifiers, stayed in their neighborhood through its rough years rely on their own past experiences and definitions of community to contest them as “theirs.” Since it draws on a past that is both imagined and personal, the residents' narrative presents its own internal contradictions while their sense of community and organized protests exclude certain groups, such as the neighborhood's existing low-income residents.Less
This chapter examines the social reasons behind collective action against economic development. In particular, it considers how early gentrifiers construct a “nostalgia narrative” that they use to create a community ideology and a new self-identity as their neighborhood's “symbolic owners” that serve as bases for collective action. It also explores how and why neighborhood residents continue to protest bars despite recognizing their powerlessness to prevent nightlife growth and occupying a role as its victim. The chapter focuses on a longtime resident named Bob, who moved to the East Village at the start of its gentrification and who, like other early gentrifiers, stayed in their neighborhood through its rough years rely on their own past experiences and definitions of community to contest them as “theirs.” Since it draws on a past that is both imagined and personal, the residents' narrative presents its own internal contradictions while their sense of community and organized protests exclude certain groups, such as the neighborhood's existing low-income residents.
