Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places
"This is scholarship with its boots on the ground, challenging us to look at the familiar in a new light." --The Boston Globe"A highly readable narrative...a revelation, no matter where you live."--The Austin Chronicle"Provocative." --San Francisco Chronicle"Astutely describes the conflict between "original" features of a neighborhood that seem to have been there forever and new ones that each new generation creates...cogent and accessible."--The New York Times"Zukin is a good noticer, and an entertaining tour guide to the ambivalent ravages of gentrification...The strengths ofNaked Citylie in Zukin's acute eye, her attentive ear for shifts in the way we talk about cities, and her evocative sympathy for the longtime residents of neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Harlem, Red Hook, and her own East Village...Zukin offers a compelling account of how a certain kind of success spoils cities--and some eminently sensible, if politically radical, ideas about how to preserve people along with buildings."--Times Literary Supplement"Twenty-first century urbanists have been working with twentieth-century frameworks--I suspected it, and Sharon Zukin has articulated my suspicions, and more. Her book makes an essential compass, like those of Naomi Klein, Walter Benn Michaels, and Douglas Rushkoff, for citizens wrestling with the mercurial force of 'late capitalism' not only in their brains, but in their neighborhoods, workplaces, classrooms, and at the local store."--Jonathan Lethem, author ofChronic City"You can count on cities to fascinate, and you can count on Sharon Zukin to make sense of it for us.Naked Citylooks at the strange beauty of New York City's nooks and crannies to find universal experiences, un-told stories, and small wonders. Zukin is a brilliant analyst cum tour guide, and the writing is simply captivating."--Sudhir Venkatesh, author ofGang Leader for a Day"Sharon Zukin'sNaked Cityis a must read for two reasons: For many of us who once lived in New York, but have been gone for many years, Zukin brings us up to date with vivid and peopled descriptions of the city's streets and neighborhoods. And for us sociologists, no matter our connection to New York, Zukin uses the city to persuasively show that the longing for authenticity is as much about us as it about the places that are always changing around us. It is a wonderfully smart argument that will likely become the definitive statement on this topic.Naked Citycombines the best of keen urban observations and broad attention to the politics, economics, and culture of places to yield a book that, once you start reading, you will find it hard to put down."--Mary Pattillo, author ofBlack on the Block"Zukin provides us with a sound analysis that can be appreciated not only by social scientists and planners, but also by suburbanites and small town residents." --Contemporary Sociology