New York City has lost its soul. If this is an argument that you’ve already read and talked about to death, do not turn to Sharon Zukin’s latest offering. But, if this seems like a good jumping off point for an inquiry into the last fifty years of New York’s changing cityscape, Naked City could appeal.
The book doesn’t so much strip the city naked as it does point out the weighty adornments that contribute to its contemporary culture. Zukin, a sociologist at Brooklyn College and a prolific writer on cities, relies less here on the data and demographics found in her previous books, choosing instead to take a softer approach. She grabs our hands and leads us through neighborhoods, remarking on zoning changes, recent clashes between communities, shifting understandings of public space. At times, this approach gives Zukin’s writing a lively blush, and we’re happy to be along for the ride; at others, it’s temping to want to wrench free of her grip. Troubled by the alterations to her city, she also experiences tinges of guilt around the edges; after all, she admits, “I would never shop in a discount store or drink bodega drip coffee when I could have a latte.”
This bind may ring true for Zukin, but the discussion of her own patterns of consumption sets a distracting tone. We want a tougher tour guide to navigate these streets, someone who will bypass the dull imagery of lattes and fancy cheeses. Since we’re listening for insight on what lurks behind these shifts, her occasional revelations of complicity feel unnecessary. Especially if you’re someone who doesn’t mind deli drip coffee or yellow cheddar instead of raclette, but you’re still interested in the knotty landscape of “supergentrification.”
This book may not be for every urban enthusiast, as some of Zukin’s territory is well worn. The narrative she provides for Brooklyn’s ascent into cultural “coolness” provides a familiar cast of characters, as artists displace manufacturers in live-work lofts, and are displaced in turn by lawyers and media moguls who buy these lofts as luxury condos; a gourmet cheese store or quirky coffee bar replaces a check-cashing service, and is in turn displaced by a chain store. Similarly, armchair urbanists will have probably already read how Veselka (the famous Ukranian restaurant) used to exemplify the East Village’s uneasy combination of change and constancy.
Yet there’s much to be gained from this book as hand-in-hand we stroll from Red Hook to Williamsburg, the East Village to Harlem. Rhetoric, the power of capital, state power, consumer tastes, and media manipulation: all are implicated in her mapping of “authenticity.” The habit of identifying authenticity has been with us since the days of Shakespeare and Rousseau, but Zukin explores all of its contradictory and contemporary uses: representing as a vision of the city that is timeless; as a status symbol thrust upon groups of people; as an expression of origins; as a style that can be produced, sold, and consumed by everyone from the media to the real estate agencies to the city itself. Zukin’s writing about authenticity is most powerful when she links it to a desire for origins, contrasted with the experience of strangerhood in the spaces of our shared city. While the notion doesn’t always apply so cleanly to each of her subjects, it’s one that we want to hear more of; the people of the city and their searching for neighborhood and home is the muted energy in this book that wants to be set free of the relentless (and often tedious) inquiry into appearances.
The book gains strength as it departs from this pursuit of authenticity, sold and consumed, and instead shifts to the maneuverings that have created some of our most prized spaces. Her look at the politics and economics behind community gardens, Union Square, and the World Trade Center site, emphasizes how some of our most dearly held “public” spaces are operated and regulated by a complex blending of city, state, and private involvement.
As the title suggests, she references Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities throughout, using the landmark text alternately as a guiding light and a tool of comparison and critique. We hear echoes of Jacobs most clearly throughout Zukin’s final recommendations when Zukin peels off the kid gloves to argue for reclaiming “our origins in the small scale of old buildings, the low rents of working class neighborhoods, and fewer corporate names” along with new “public-private stewardship” that would protect people, buildings, and institutions.
Throughout, she reminds us that appearances can be deceiving, and much of this contemporary city culture is revealed to be a bit like the emperor sans clothes. Constant tatter on real estate blogs can be filled with inaccuracies and falsehoods, a quick scan of the patronage at a crowded café can be misrepresentative of a neighborhood’s unemployment rate, and, finally, the theories of Jane Jacobs can be implemented in law, but not in spirit. Naked City may be best suited to former New Yorkers who mourn their altered urban village but haven’t had to experience the changes while reading the New York magazine articles that Zukin frequently intones. For those who remain and question the daily reality of changes, it might be too painful to see the emperor naked once more.
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