Harvard historian Lizbeth Cohen reflects on the negative social implications of our contemporary consumer landscape.
In this New York Times opinion piece U.S. historian Lizbeth Cohen considers how federal policies since WWII encouraging consumer spending have contributed to social inequality: " The regional shopping centers became the quintessential retail structure to emerge in postwar America. In a remarkably short time, they displaced urban downtowns... By 1976, 78 percent of total department store sales took place in branch stores, most of them in shopping centers strategically located at highway exits and along the busiest thoroughfares in suburbia..."
Thanks to Matt Lasner
Read the full story: Trying to Buy Our Way Out of Trouble
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City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority