From Publishers Weekly
'We shop therefore we are' seems to be the conclusion of this homage to the great American pastime. Rather than pass judgment on our shopping compulsion, Zukin, an endowed chair of sociology at the City University of New York, provides a historical and analytical context to help readers understand how shopping has affected public and private life from the mid-19th century to today. Zukin's 1995 book, The Cultures of Cities, described her experiences growing up in one of Philadelphia's retail neighborhoods and examined how other shopping districts, like 125th Street in Harlem and Fulton Street in Brooklyn, had gone through significant racial changes. Here she dissects shopping culture at large, from eBay and the Internet to the death of Woolworth's and the birth of WalMart. Well researched and thorough, the book unearths how and where we shop and, more importantly, why consumer culture has so much power over us. Zukin examines these issues by analyzing both particular individuals' experiences-such as a young woman's search for the perfect pair of leather pants-and retailers' shifts in business strategies. For many people, Zukin writes, shopping isn't simply a transaction, but an experience: "We dream of shopping for beauty, truth and perfection, and if we do not shop for a perfect society, at least we shop for a perfect self." She believes that the noblest aspect of shopping is finding a community, a discovery that usually happens at a place like a farmer's market or a neighborhood store, where interaction among customers is fostered. Rallying for these public spaces rather than buying things, she argues, should be what we use shopping to achieve. Though this book is more likely to appeal to specialists than to general readers, Zukin's lively prose and vivid anecdotes may win her a larger audience.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As cities have gentrified, educated urbanites have come to prize what they regard as "authentic" urban life: aging buildings, art galleries, small boutiques, upscale food markets, neighborhood old-timers, funky ethnic restaurants, and old, family-owned shops. These signify a place's authenticity, in contrast to the bland standardization of the suburbs and exurbs. But as Sharon Zukin shows in Naked City, the rapid and pervasive demand for authenticity--evident in escalating real estate prices, expensive stores, and closely monitored urban streetscapes--has helped drive out the very people who first lent a neighborhood its authentic aura: immigrants, the working class, and artists. Zukin traces this economic and social evolution in six archetypal New York areas--Williamsburg, Harlem, the East Village, Union Square, Red Hook, and the city's community gardens--and travels to both the city's first IKEA store and the World Trade Center site. She shows that for followers of Jane Jacobs, this transformation is a perversion of what was supposed to happen. Indeed, Naked City is a sobering update of Jacobs' legendary 1962 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Like Jacobs, Zukin looks at what gives neighborhoods a sense of place, but argues that over time, the emphasis on neighborhood distinctiveness has become a tool of economic elites to drive up real estate values and effectively force out the neighborhood "characters" that Jacobs so evocatively idealized. With a journalist's eye and the understanding of a longtime critic and observer, Zukin's panoramic survey of contemporary New York explains how our desire to consume authentic experience has become a central force in making cities more exclusive.