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benefits specific groups at the
expense of others. She claims that
regeneration leads to a process
whereby poor or marginalized
groups are effectively pushed out of
the areas in which they have been
living, sometimes for generations,
to make way for more elite groups.
The result can be a uniform urban
experience, which Zukin has
identified in parts of New York and
other cities around the world.
The steps of gentrification
Zukin argues that gentrification is
more than, as she puts it, a “change
of scene.” It is a “radical break
with suburbia... toward the social
diversity and aesthetic promiscuity
of city life.” Gentrifiers, according
to her, have a distinctive culture
and milieu (they are interested,
for example, in restoring historical
architectural detail), which leads
to “a process of social and spatial
differentiation.” In her study of
Lower Manhattan, Zukin argues
that gentrification is a process
within which a number of steps
can be clearly identified.
The first step was a decline in
traditional manufacturing industry.
Just a couple of generations ago,
New York had a working waterfront
that employed tens of thousands
and a hinterland in Manhattan that
was packed, in the areas around
Greenwich Village, with small-scale
workshops and factories making
textiles and clothes. The buildings
housing the workshops typically
had high ceilings and lots of light,
and were known as “lofts.”
The textile firms began to
go out of business from the 1950s
onward, as more and more of the
US’s textiles production was “off-
shored” by large corporations to
countries in Asia where labor costs
were lower. US workers were left
unemployed, and the affected
districts of New York became
deindustrialized and run-down.
By the 1970s, much of Lower
Manhattan had become derelict.Creative space
The second step took place in
the 1970s, after the abandoned
workplaces had become homeSHARON ZUKIN
to the poor and marginalized.
Because the buildings were
intended to be factories, the floors
were not subdivided into multiple
rooms, as you would find in an
apartment block, but were instead
open plan with tall windows. A
space that accommodated lots of
people needing good natural light,
while they worked on sewing
machines, also proved to be the
ideal studio environment for artists.
In the early 1970s, when New York
was hit by an economic crisis,
private rents citywide went down
because demand for properties
decreased. Stereotypically, artists
struggle to make ends meet and
often seek out cheap places in
which to live and work. Lower
Manhattan’s old factory lofts
therefore had appeal and the area
became home to many artists.
This was an organic
regeneration of these old
neighborhoods: there was no official
city government plan to convert the
lofts into live-in studios. As moreChelsea Market is a New York food
hall created in the 1990s in a derelict
factory in the Meatpacking District.
Zukin says the area is a far cry from
the one-time “no-go zone” of butchery.Much of what made
[New York City’s]
neighborhoods unique
lives on only in the
buildings, not the people.
Sharon Zukin