Sharon Zukin is a professor of sociology who specializes in modern urban life.

She teaches
at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. As of 2014, she was also
a distinguished fellow in the Advanced Research Collaborative at the CUNY Graduate Center and
chair of the Consumers and Consumption Section of the American Sociological Association. Zukin
was a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam in 201011.

Early career[edit]
Zukins academic training was focused on political sociology. She had not taken any specific courses
in urban sociology before being hired to teach the subject to undergraduates at Brooklyn College. In
an interview, she describes how she first immersed herself in urban sociology literature to aid her
teaching, and was later inspired to carry out field research by reading a newspaper article about
manufacturers who were being forced out of their loft space in Lower Manhattan.
I said, I could help them - Im a sociologist. Their landlord should not throw them out of their space.
So I went to down to see them and did a little survey about their situation. I wound up advocating in
support of their cause with the local community board and the city government, and eventually that
turned into the research I did for my first urban book, Loft Living. And thats really how I became an
urban sociologist - by doing research.[1]

Theoretical and political orientation[edit]

Zukins research interests and analytical framework place her in the broad category of Neo-
Marxist social thinkers. She began teaching urban sociology just as the new urban sociology was
emerging, partly in response to a series of urban riots (many of which involved African-Americans
reacting to police brutality or other manifestations of systemic racism) that took place in U.S. cities in
the late 1960s. Widespread urban unrest in the U.S. and Europe prompted worried governments and
granting agencies to increase the funding available for urban research.[3] Sociologist Manuel
Castells and geographer David Harvey were two of the theorists influential in the development of the
new urban sociology.
Zukin's view, at least in 1980, was that For most of their history, urban sociologists seemed to serve
the interests of the state as much as industrial sociologists served the interests of capital.[4] She and
other sociologists influenced by the new urban sociology intended to take a different course. In
contrast to the prevailing Chicago School and its ethnographic focus on communities, immigrants
and settlement patterns, practitioners of this new, more interdisciplinary approach were concerned
with the role of the state and with analyzing how "urban space is produced deliberately and in
response to the needs of capital.

In her most recent book, Naked City (2010), Zukin develops the concept of authenticity, the roots of
which she traces back to ideas about an authentic self (meaning a self that is close to nature) found
in Shakespeare and in the Romantic philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau. More recently, she
says a craving for authenticity developed as a reaction to the modernist standardization and
homogenization of cities that took place in the 1950s and '60s.[8]
While Zukin understands the craving for the authentic and admits to acting on it herself, the problem,
she says, is that instead of being a quality attributed to people, authenticity is now understood as an
attribute of things (such as beer and cheese) and even experiences, which can be consumed.[9] All
this leads to authenticity being "used as a lever of cultural power for a group to claim space and take
it away from others without direct confrontation, with the help of the state and elected officials and
the persuasion of the media and consumer culture."[10] It is through these processes of displacement
and gentrification, she argues, that New York City "lost its soul" in the early 21st century.[11] The
solution she proposes is to redefine authenticity and connect it back to the idea of "origins," then use
it to support "the right to inhabit a space, not just consume it as an experience."[12] Nodding to Henri
Lefebvre and David Harvey's "right to the city" concept, she argues that "authenticity can suggest a
'right to the city,' a human right, that is cultivated by longtime residence, use, and habit.

raise and criticism of Jane Jacobs[edit]

While Zukin is often referred to as a critic of the work of Jane Jacobs, she is also an admirer. Zukin
has referred to Jacobs as the iconic urban writer, against whom other urban writers must measure
themselves.[14] She has also praised her for being the person who, against all odds in the mid-
twentieth century, extolled the messiness, the grittiness, the tentativeness, but also the firm
friendships of city life.[14] Zukin categorizes Jacobs, like Herbert Gans, as a socially conscious
intellectual who defended the right of poor people not to be displaced.[15]
But Zukin differs from Jacobs in whom she considers the main antagonists when it comes to creating
livable, equitable cities. Jacobs, especially in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities,
blames planners and the planning profession for destroying healthy, functional neighbourhoods
through forced urban renewal programs and for generally inflicting a "Great Blight of
Dullness."[16] Zukin sees this focus on planners as largely misguided and unhelpful because for her,
planners are a relatively powerless group compared to developers who build, and banks and
insurance companies who finance the building that rips out a citys heart.[17] But for one reason or
another, Zukin writes, Jacobs chose not to criticize the interests of capitalist developers who profit
from displacing others.[18] As to why Jacobs wasn't harder on developers and financial institutions,
Zukin speculates that the fact that she was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, itself established
and funded by corporate titan John D. Rockefeller and his heirs, might have played a role. In 1958,
Jacobs received a grant from the foundation to develop her ideas about cities; the foundation
published the result of that work as Death and Life in 1961.[19] Zukin also points to Jacobs
connection to Time Inc., which published The Architectural Forum, where Jacobs held a staff
position. As well, she wonders whether Jacobs was influenced by a fear of red-baiting, given that the
influence of McCarthyism had waned only a few years before she began work on Death and Life.[20]
Zukin also parts company from Jacobs when it comes to their views on the role of the state. Jacobs
outlook was communitarian, according to Zukin, and so she looked to the community rather than the
state for solutions to social problems. Zukin, on the other hand, is a strong believer in the need for
government to promote and protect equity measures, saying I cant emphasize enough how
important laws are, zoning laws, rent controls, commercial rent controls[21] Zukin faults Jacobs for
not using her writing and activism to demand stronger zoning laws to encourage a mix of housing,
factories, stores and schools," noting that "she did not support more permanent rent controls to
ensure a mix of poorer and richer tenants, of successful businesses and start-ups.[17]
Criticism of "creative class" theory[edit]
Zukin disagrees with Richard Florida's influential and controversial theory on the role of the "creative
class" in the economic growth of post-industrial cities. While he has since revised his ideas
somewhat, Florida originally argued that cities that wish to thrive must cater to the tastes and social
preferences of artists and other urban professionals who do "creative" work, and that doing so would
ultimately benefit all urban residents.[22][23] Zukin has called that idea "silly," countering that, "A city
only survives on the basis of diversity and different classes of people, all working, and its necessary
for local government to make sure there is space for everybody in the city."[24