GLOBAL CITIES, LOCAL STREETS
We are all acquainted with “main streets” that combine commerce with a distinctive local sense of place. Phil Kasinitz and Sharon Zukin of the CUNY Graduate Center, along with Xiangming Chen of Trinity College, have co-authored new book Global Cities, Local Streets: Everyday Diversity from New York to Shanghai (Routledge, $32).
In this recent book, the authors examine 12 shopping streets in six cities—New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Toronto—to demonstrate how global and cultural shifts play out in local enclaves.
The authors discovered patterns across the sites: chain stores invading shopping streets at the expense of mom-and-pops; bars, coffee shops, and art galleries cropping up as harbingers of what the authors call “gentrification by hipsters”; immigrants from around the world establishing small businesses in neighborhoods where they may not live, creating a “super-diversity” that reflects and informs shifts taking hold in cities.