Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change [Paperback]

Sharon Zukin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813513898 | ISBN-13: 978-0813513898 | Publication Date: January 1, 1989

This book exposes the meeting of art and real estate markets, the happy meeting between artists' demand for housing and city officials and homeowners who wanted to 'upgrade' their neighborhoods by private market means--and how those artists were used and abandoned by real estate developers and investors who were banking on rising property values.

Product Details

• Paperback: 249 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (January 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813513898
• ISBN-13: 978-0813513898
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,096,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born and raised in Philadelphia, I came to New York City to go to college--and have never left. Manhattan, as the critic John Berger writes, is the island for those who hope excessively--and I join my hopes and fears to those of everyone else in this ever-crowded, ever-new and ever-maddening place. I teach sociology at Brooklyn College and the City University Graduate Center, talking and writing about the neighborhoods, art scenes, real estate developers, immigrants and gentrifiers who make the city's soul.

To continue following Sharon Zukin's blog posts, go to: http://blog.oup.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Author's comments: what LOFT LIVING tells us about cities, April 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change (Paperback)

When I wrote this book about the transformation of lower Manhattan a number of years ago, SoHo was already recognized as an artists' and a landmark loft district. Because of the many modern art galleries and the neighborhood's general ambiance of being "discovered," it also became a tourist destination. I wanted to explain the process of discovery--how derelict loft spaces attracted artists in the 1960s and 1970s, and through them, provided a cultural core for the commercial redevelopment of the central city. Did I predict that the art galleries would flee to another neighborhood, and be replaced by clothing stores and shoe boutiques? That rents would rise and struggling artists would be replaced by rock stars and rich people? LOFT LIVING lays the groundwork for these developments, exposing the connections between chic urban lifestyle, media hype, and real estate developers. This book was fun to write and, I think, prescient.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Book, March 19, 2006

By 

J. Dougherty - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change (Paperback)

I thought it was going to be more about the adventures in loft living (or something like that), but it was about economics, politics, and class/race. At times, it was dry. However, I know it's a fairly classic text and an important read.