Vulgaria: The Re-Enchantment Of Suburbia

This commentary interprets the development of upscale American suburbs in terms ofthe changing political economy associated with distinctive phases of political-economicdevelopment. The current outcome, it is suggested, is “Vulgaria:” the emblematic culturallandscapes of contemporary American suburbia. They are landscapes of bigness andspectacle, characterized by packaged developments, simulated settings, and conspicuousconsumption, and they have naturalized an ideology of competitive consumption, moralminimalism, and disengagement from notions of social justice and civil society.

These landscapes are examined as an expression of modernity, focusing on theinterdependence of consumption and production within the political economy of modernurbanization, on the roles of suburbia in terms of consumption and, in particular, on the“enchantment” that is necessary to sustained consumption and capital accumulation undersuccessive phases of capital development and waves of metropolitan growth.

Thanks to Chris Steins