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1、The Negotiated City ImageAndre JanssonIntroductionThe city is the prime locus of modern consumerism. First of all, it is the space in which most commercial centre are concentrated shops, restaurants, cultural establishments, sports arenas and so on. Urban areas are the locations of economic and symb
2、olic exchange. Secondly, the city environment provides a forum for cultural impressions and expressions. As noted in the classical writings of Simmel and Benjamin, the metropolis incorporates an entire system of rooms, stages and passages where the reflexive individual can gain symbolic experiences,
3、 as well as manifesting his or her identity. Thirdly, since the major cities also incorporate a majority of the culture industries, including most media firms, advertising agencies and design companies, they are also the epicenter from which a great share of the symbolic flows emanate. In contempora
4、ry society, significant shares of peoples cultural horizons are shaped by the images and messages arising in metropolitan contexts, many of which are geographically distant.Finally,in the shape of travel destinations, cities are turned into the objects of direct consumption. The dominant image of th
5、e city, in terms of historical narrative, personalities, buildings, companies, etc., is normally consumed in a manner influenced by commercial actors, reinforced by mediated signs. Professional image-makers are continuously working on the symbolic refueling of the city-as-commodity .However, the cre
6、ation of the city image is not only a matter of cultural policy. What the city actually becomes, and how different groups experience it, depend upon the activities of social actors as well as systemic forces. For example, even though there are strong hegemonic forces, founded upon alliances between
7、political, cultural and econ-omic actors, supporting a dominant image of the city, alternative and oppositional groupings are always challenging such points of view (see Figure 1). Currently, the clearest examples are definitely the international reclaim the streets and reclaim the city movements (s
8、ee Klein, 2000). And during the past few years, top-level political meetings such as the ones in Seattle, Prague, Goteborg and Genoa have led to world-wide media exposure of the intensified struggle over urban space in general and certain city images in particular.Most of the research for the presen
9、t study took place in the city of Goteborg, Sweden. However, as far as the aim of this article is concerned, the specific city is not important as such. The aim rather is to illustrate how any city image may be encoded, decoded and re-encoded through various forms of lifestyle practices. In particul
10、ar, the article will focus upon three different modes of consumption, corresponding to Halls notion of dominant, oppositional and negotiated readings. This is not to say that cities necessarily contain any clear-cut preferred meaning. As has just been argued, the city image is a complex and dynamic
11、structure, whose encoders are found throughout society. All readings are somehow negotiated. Nevertheless, from a Marxist point of view one may argue that different ways of encoding and re-encoding the city hold different positions relative to the socioeconomic structures of society. Developing this
12、 approach, it is interesting to see what happens to this structure in the post-modern era.The City of GoteborgIn spite of the general approach, a few introductory words should be said about the particular environment and image of Goteborg. The city has about 500 000 inhabitants and is located on the
13、 Swedish west coast. Historically, the image of Goteborg is marked by its ports, its ship-yards and its mechanical industries. Being the nations face towards the North Sea and the Atlantic, this is the city from which the trans Atlantic steamers once departed. It is also the home of companies like S
14、KF and Volvo.However, like many other industrial cities, Goteborg has during the past three decades gone through a kind of identity crisis. Most of the ship-yards have closed down; the ports are not as busy as they used to be; and Volvo Cars is now a luxury brand within the Ford Motor Company. This
15、identity crisis is also expressed through several post-industrial tendencies. Industrial areas, notably the former ship-yards, have been transformed into office space, apartments and hotels (like Docklandsin London) and working-class neighbourhoods have been restored and gentrified. There is also a
16、very dominant cultural policy taking form. The new image of Goteborg is that of the event citya city that will attract major cultural events, sports events and industrial exhibitions. At the same time, contemporary image creators, architects and city planners are careful to preserve the historical h
17、eritage of Goteborg. The modern narrative is the anchoring of the post-modern image.The Empirical StudyThe study to be presented is based on both qualitative and quantitative interview data. First, an analysis has been made of ualitative interviews gathered within the research project Cultural Ident
18、ities in Transition (CIT). A total of 41 respondents in the Goteborg region were interviewed about their lifestyles in general and media consumption in particular. The interviews were carried out during 1997/98 at four different locations: the inner city; the affluent western suburbs; the northern w
19、orking-class suburbs; and, a rural village about an hours journey from Goteborg. The reason for choosing particular districts was not primarily about enabling comparisons between neighbourhoodsalthough such comparisons often prove to be fruitful. The specific neighbourhoods were not of interest per
20、se. However, starting in different neighbourhoods was a good way to structure the material, due to the segregated character of larger cities like Goteborg. Then, in all districts, respondents were gathered of different age, gender and occupation.In this analysis, the focus is upon those respondents
21、who more or less actively take part in urban life. These are all found within the wider metropolitan area of Goteborg, rather than in rural villages. Nevertheless, the material is extremely rich and it is impossible to present it fully in a short article. Therefore, in order to keep the discussion a
22、s clearcut as possible, the arguments are illustrated by means of just a few interesting cases.Secondly, in order to locate the qualitative results within a more general pattern, the study utilises 1997 data gathered from the annual Orvesto Konsument survey, conducted by the Sifo research institute.
23、 The survey is based on a quite extensive questionnaire covering a broad range of topics, focusing upon values, opinions, lifestyle practices, consumption habits, brand preferences, media habits and so on. Since the Orvesto survey compiles the answers from about 30 000 respondents (a representative
24、selection of the Swedish population between 15 and 79 years of age), the material can also be broken down into a great number of sub-categories without losing statistical significancewhich is a great advantage for those who want to identify and describe particular market segments. For the present pu
25、rpose, only some basic tables are presented, illustrating how differ-ent value orientationsor what Sifo terms RISC segmentscorrespond to city-based consumption practices.1These value orientations are treated hereas statistical representations of the creative ethos, guiding people in their organisati
26、on of time, space and social relations. The ethos may thus be thought of as a lifestyle generating formula shaping, for example, consumption modes much related to where they livewhether the city is home or not. To some people, the city is a natural, taken-for-granted, everyday environment; to others
27、, it is primarily the site of special events and public services. Likewise, while some people find the liveliness of the city to be a major asset, others regard it as a threat to their ontological security. Since the inner cores of metropolitan areas are rapidly changing places, it is not surprising
28、 that sophisticated lifestyles are found there. Individuals oriented towards expansion (Globalism) and change to a great extent found in city regions.This situation springs from a mutual relationship: while the dynamics of the city attract people with a particular ethos, the city environment (and al
29、l that comes with it in terms of commerce, public life, educational institutions, etc.) also functions as a socialisation agent, shaping this kind of ethos. Making a closer comparison of the GA and LS segments (not presented in the table), one can conclude that, while the overall pattern of differen
30、t life-stages is quite similar, the levels are very different. While the overall pattern suggests that people move to urban areas when they leave their parents home, and out of the city when they enter the family phase, the GA ethos is on the whole more city-based than is the LSethos. People within
31、the GA segment are not only overrepresented among the young singles and couples living in the city; they also have their backgrounds in more urban areas (if we overlook the significance of generational shifts, which is a non-measurable factor without longitudinal data). However, in later lifephases,
32、 particularly during the period of family establishment, the differences between these two segments are smaller. In both groups, there is a tendency to move out of urban apartments and into houses in more suburban, or even rural, areasnotably among the GA segments. However, this reorientation toward
33、s family life and security does not necessarily imply that the basic ethosformed through family life, education and other socialisation agentsis altered. The ethos may still be founded upon the same ideals, but expressed in a different way, through a different lifestyle.This kind of socioeconomic ap
34、proach may be applied not only to metropolitan areas as a whole, but also to inner-city areas, in terms of particular quarters and neighbourhoods. Inner cities are typically diverse areas, involving a mix of public establishments and private dwellings, as well as a particularly heterogeneousandvolat
35、ile population. Goteborg is no exception to this rule. Turning to the official statistics, one finds that the inner-city districts are populated by more one and two-person households than the Goteborg average, and that incomes are neither particularly high nor particularly low (Statistical Yearbook
36、Goteborg 1996). The inner city is a meeting-place, or a meltingpot for cultural and economic capital, as well as for dominant, alternative and oppositional modes of consumption (see Andersson and Jansson, 1998).Obviously, what most urban-dwellers have in common is a comparatively greater number of v
37、isits to shops, restaurants, cultural events and so on. In particular, the kinds of establishment that are specifically associated with urban space and a dynamic urban lifestylelike boutiques and smaller cornershops (for example, 7 Eleven stores) and more luxurious department stores that are attract
38、ive places in which to stroll (like the exclusive Swedish chain NK)are more often visited by city-dwellers than by people in general. In particular, they are frequented by city-dwellers oriented towards Globalism and/or Alteration (Table 2). These commercial spaces may be regarded as the loci of met
39、ropolitan life par excellence, enabling lifestyles of impulse and phantasmagoria (see Ritzer, 1999). Stores that are open almost around the clock, and stores offering extensive designer-decor spaces of relative anonymity, cater for impulses of the moment as well as for hedonistic life-planning. They
40、 also manifest the temporal and spatial image of urbanityan image decoded and reencoded by its population.Among the CIT respondents, the polarity between economic and cultural capital, as well as between dominant and oppositional modes of consumption, is well illustrated. Furthermore, it is possible
41、 to discern a negotiated mode which problematises the opposition between culture and marketa mode that may be labelled post-modern. The following three sections deal with each of these ideal types, using a few of the respondents as examples. At the centre of discussion are three men of comparable ag
42、e: 36-year-old market administrator Yngve, 46-year-old musician Soren and 49-year-old hairdresser Jerry. Some additional quotes will also be used to flesh out the picture. In terms of the RISC segments, these respondents correspond roughly to the IGA, CGA and GA segments respectively. What they have
43、 in common is the typically urban orientation towards Globalism and Alteration. But their approaches to the city diverge.Concluding RemarksAs this article has attempted to illustrate, the tension between dynamism and stability, and between dominant and alternative/oppositional modes of consumption,
44、makes the city image a quite complex, even contradictory, constitution. Leading ametropolitan lifestyle may refer to many different things, and the positions that cities in general, as well as particular cities (like Goteborg), hold as cultural referents vary between different groups. The present st
45、udy has concentrated upon those groups and individuals that actively take part in the formation of urban places, markets and images through their consumption practices. Introducing principal distinctions between dominant, oppositional and negotiated modes of consumption, it has pointed to the symbol
46、ic struggles that saturate urban development in all its aspects.One must not expect to find these three modes in any clear-cut form, though. They are to be understood as ideal types. As suggested by the qualitative interview data, a plethora of variations may be distinguished. Taking a closer look a
47、t the lifestyles and life-worlds of single individuals, one finds that things are more ambiguous and volatile than suggested by theory or quantitative classifications. Nevertheless, categorisation holds the strength of making the world analytically comprehensible. And the combination of survey data
48、(RISC) and qualitative interviews strengthens the validity of the arguments.Additionally, the findings suggest that the current efforts put into urban image-making and branding are both self-generating and somehow peculiar. Since every new marketing message is contested by the pluralism of urban soc
49、ial lifethe decoding and reencoding processes taking place among the urban publicthere can never be a final, intersubjectively shared city image. Rather, the social contradictions of the city reproduce a governmental need to formulate clearcut attributes and values that can promote the city. In other words, the more contradiction and negotiation there are, the more resources may be put into image-making. And, the more effort that
