Fantasy City : Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis

ISBN-13: 9780415150972 / Angielski / Twarda / 1998 / 256 str.

John Hannigan

Opis

This is an analysis of the postindustrial city as a site of entertainment. By discussing examples from a wide variety of venues, including casinos, malls, heritage developments and theme parks, the author traces the rise of urban entertainment at the beginning of this century, its decline after World War II to its renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s. Do such areas of fantasy which highlight the middle classes search for risk free mass entertainment, end up destroying communities or create new groupings of shared identities and experiences? Written around three theoretical perspectives - structuralist, cultural and constructionist - the book is specifically aimed at students. It offers insights into urban development and drawing on extensive material from business, cultural studies and urban planning, the growth of the theme park city is shown to signify not only the arrival of a new urban space, but also the eventual destruction of the inner city.

Recenzje

'Hannigan provides a coherent and well-researched account of the flight of entertainment centres into the suburbs during the 1950s.' - Puncture (music magazine)

Spis treści

Introduction; Part 1 Going out and Staying in; Chapter 1 “At Prices all can Afford”; Chapter 2 Don't Go Out Tonight; Chapter 3 “Cities are Fun”; Part 2 Landscapes of Pleasure; Chapter 4 “Sanitized Razzmatazz”; Chapter 5 Shopertainment, Eatertainment, Edutainment; Part 3 Entertaining Developments; Chapter 6 The “Weenie” and the “Genie”; Chapter 7 Calling the Shots; Chapter 8 Gambling on Fantasy; Chapter 9 Land of the Rising Fun; Chapter 10 Saved by a Mouse?;

O autorze

John Hannigan is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Environmental Sociology also published by Routledge.