(Still) Made Here: Story and Status

While yesterday's post examined the (Still) Made Here trend from the Eco and Ethics angle, today's looks at another subtrend that Trendwatcher.com's editors call Story and Status. In their words: "An obvious example of the link between locality and story/status is the perception of location-specific quality."


Location-specific quality is hardly a new concept in urbanism. However, it is most commonly used to attract tourists. Think about the French Quarter with its penchant for decadence, or Temple Bar's hybrid cultural/drinking scene, or Ginza with its blinking, frenzied energy. The previous references are to New Orleans, Dublin, and Tokyo, respectively, though the fact that you most likely didn't need clarification there speaks to the success of these places in positioning themselves as authentic and unique. But places like these can sell their story with minimal effort; they are veritable monoliths. Perhaps they just got lucky, but that's neither here nor there. What other neighborhoods must figure out is, "how can what is already here or has been here in the past help this place to become better in the future?"

In TW's report, the first part of Story and Status is titled "Inspiring global production trends: quality made here." The case studies include high (percieved) quality goods made by companies such as Ermenegildo Zegna and Rolex. These companies operate smaller factories or workshops, overcoming the challenge of higher production costs for skilled labor and materials by charging much higher prices than the competition for their product because they have earned a reputation for quality. So if we set up an analogy where neighborhoods are the factories and workshops, and a distinct "sense of place" is the product (I admit this is a cynical way to view communities, but bear with me), then the high production costs are the ills associated with aging architecture and infrastructure.

City neighborhoods are already status symbols in most places. If you live in Los Angeles, for example, you can identify yourself as being from The Valley, Hollywood, or Watts and get completely different reactions. By associating ourselves with a certain place, we are associating ourselves with the cultural story that has been created about that place, and that cultural story is the quality that will allow a place to overcome its challenges. To increase investment in a community, neighborhoods can focus on the most exceptional aspects of their local culture (which can be just about anything) in order to craft a favorable cultural story. And in a society where "individuality is the new religion" (credit TW) it seems that marketing a neighborhood's most unconventional aspects would be the best way to go about promoting it.

Here, though, we come to the problem of gentrification and one of its most infamous side-effects: culture drain. When neighborhoods become popular for their distinct local culture, the fear is always that scads of yuppies, hipsters, and other fad-crazed demographic groups will invade, price out current residents, install a Starbucks and a Gap, and erase the culture that made the neighborhood popular in the first place. It's Chinatown as "CHINATOWN™". Also: it's gross. Also also: it has happened far too many times already.

The second part of Story and Status is "Purchasing ingredients for a story." And this, I'm afraid, is where I'm at a loss for compairisons. City neighborhoods cannot go out and purchase a unique history (though they can work toward creating one in the future by fostering progressive and creative communities. Keep Austin Weird would be one famous example of this sort of long-term planning.) Instead, cities must do what is commonly referred to as Asset-based Planning, taking, as suggested above, existing assets and positioning them as engines for neighborhood revitalization.

The "Purchasing ingredients" section does provide this interesting quote: "[We've] seen a rising interest in the truly different, the obscure, the undiscovered and the authentic. These new status symbols thrive on not being well known or easily spotted. They don't tell a story themselves, but require their owners to recount the story." So unconventional neighborhood features, then, can be used to either puff up a place's civic reputation or can be kept vague and slightly mysterious in order to give residents a sort of edge. (This would certainly explain all of that whining New Yorkers do about how they miss the good old days, when getting mugged was part of the daily routine.) Or whole neighborhoods could, themselves, be the quietly tucked-away spots that provide residents with secret satisfaction (though I'm not sure how you'd pull that off.) Either way, this concept seems to provide a way for neighborhoods to sidestep the culture drain process while still improving their local communities. As for how that would all play out, well...

Again, I ask: any ideas?

(Photo from Flickr user Anole.)


Links:
(Still) Made Here (Trendwatching.com)

Keep Austin Weird

Evaluating neighborhoods in terms of assets of all kinds (Rebuilding Place...)

Part I: Eco and Ethics

Part III: Support

Glamorous City/Fearsome Ghetto

"There's an original definition of the word glamour that I did not know about until I read fantasy novels. A glamour is a kind of magical spell, originally. To wear a glamour is to surround yourself with a kind of aura that causes people to see you in a different way, to see you as you are not--it's a disguise. And being on television, I've discovered, is sort of like wearing a disguise; one you didn't necessarily decide to put on, and only other people can actually see it."

So said John Hodgman in a recent piece on This American Life. Hodgeman was speaking about his own newfound celebrity, but what he was saying fit in nicely with a concept that I've been mulling for quite some time: the Glamorous City. Contemporary cities tend to be viewed in one of two ways: they are either dangerous, crime-ridden ghettoes or glittering hives of conspicuous consumption. Cities portrayed as healthy or attractive by the mainstream media (and, from what I can tell, popular opinion) tend to be those that have all of the amenities of the celebrity lifestyle. They are capitals of glamorous, high-tech industries and are rife with gentrification and urban chain stores. Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, and Miami -- these cities dazzle and delight the upper and upper-middle classes, who move into renovated lofts and edgy new condo towers and create a new influx of tax dollars that are supposed to benefit the host cities, but usually wind up providing increased police protection and granite flower planters in the areas from whence the new cash flows.

Now, there's nothing wrong with rich people living in nice neighborhoods. That's pretty much inevitable. What's troublesome about the Glamorous City is that it is a powerfully intoxicating concept that it fits perfectly into that quintessentially American ideal of moving to the city to "make it." But after making it, part two of the dream sequence is the move to a sprawling estate, or at least a house with a front and back yard, in the suburbs. The Glamorous City is a place that does not make room for children...its shimmering skyscrapers often (literally) cast shadows onto the other side of this painful dichotomy -- the Fearsome Ghetto.

The Glamorous City is a mirage. It is a transient place where only the richest of the rich stay put (often because they can afford to own a number of getaway homes elsewhere.) This impossibly attractive metropolis ignores what cities are about, advertising all of the perks of city life (fine dining, active arts communities, exciting nightlife) while not requiring residents to stick around long enough to need to care about dealing with all of the problems. The Glamorous City, then, creates the Fearsome Ghetto, as its sustainability (no green implications, for once) requires the parallel existence of an underclass, both to serve and to provide contrast. Glamorous Cities sparkle on our TV screens, promising luxury and privilege; meanwhile, those who live in the city (or have no choice but to), those who are a part of the actual urban community, don't see the mirage. They're left with the reality.

More on this throughout the week.

(Photo from Flickr user shadeofmelon.)

DisPlace Me

You might have figured out already that I consider place to be a pretty important thing. While it doesn't get the attention that it deserves, individual geography plays a huge role in how we understand our selves and how we fit into the global community. One social problem that I've always found particularly disturbing is the loss of place. Refugees around the world, forced from their homes by war, famine, natural disasters, or any number of causes, often find themselves in places that do not want them. Whether this means that they are not welcomed by the people or by harsh terrain, the outcome is the same. Refugee camps are communities that cannot be, because of the high transience and mortality rates. Nothing in a refugee's place in the world is permenant; they have nothing to hold onto.

Next weekend, in 15 cities across the United States, Invisible Children will be hosting DisPlace Me, a simulation/protest that is designed to help Americans understand what it is to lose their place in the world. From their website: "The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has abducted thousands of children, subjected them to torture or sexual violence and forced them to fight in a violent guerilla army for 21 years—making it the longest running war in Africa. In hopes of providing protection from this rebel militia, the Ugandan government forcibly evicted its Northern citizens from their homes—giving them 48 hours to relocate into camps. Today, more than 1.5 million Northern Ugandans remain far from secure, suffering nearly 1,000 deaths per week due to inhumane living conditions in the camps.

"'Displace Me' is the nationwide event giving Americans the chance to respond.

"By traveling to one of our 15 camps and gathering together, the strength of our size will make a visible statement to our government and media that the citizens of the U.S. demand action in ending the war in Northern Uganda, in order to send the Acholi people suffering in the camps and the abducted children back home. The point is to travel; the point is to become displaced yourself."

Go get lost.


Links:
DisPlace Me

InvisibleChildren.com