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Sharon Zukin takes on gentrification (in Harlem especially), while Harlem-ites dismiss her critique. "Gentrification" v. "authenticity" - which one is better?

QUOTE
It should also be said that these talented, innovative African-Americans are forging a new entrepreneurial path that was too often closed to their ancestors. Jai Jai Greenfield, co-owner of Harlem Vintage, a wine store that opened on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in 2004, designed it as an homage to her grandparents, longtime Harlem residents whose elegant photographs from the 1930s were featured in the store's initial promotional literature. She says that Ms. Zukin is missing the point. "We brought to Harlem something that had never existed here—a store that is for and about the wine. [Ms. Zukin] seems to think that to be legitimately ghetto our store should look a certain way—bullet-proofed windows and grates. To be authentic, in her view, I would need to go with a couple of concepts—fried chicken or maybe a nail salon."
UNQUOTE

authenticity gentrification sharon_zukin harlem nyc socialcritique

Read the entry, "What's 'authentic'?," by Andrew Taylor, but then read the first comment that follows, by Bill Ivey. Taylor, writing from an arts manager perspective, observes: "Since arts organizations are often perceived (or perceive themselves) as havens of authentic expression, it might be worth a moment to define, exactly, what that means." Ivey, donning his "folklorist" hat, contrasts the "authentic" barn-raising, say, with the construction of a pre-fab barn -- or "authentic" blue jeans and their history of being workwear, with the "brand" of "authentic" designer jeans. Apples & oranges, and the oranges, it seems, are watery -- or "thin," as Ivey puts it: they offer "the illusion of purchasable membership in networks defined by exactly the history and shared values that in modern society are available to very, very few."

authenticity branding culture culture_industry folklore ideas ideology marketing