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Full-Text Articles in Urban Studies and Planning

Entertainment-Retail Centres In Hong Kong And Los Angeles: Trends And Lessons, Clara Irazabal, Surajit Chakravarty Jan 2007

Entertainment-Retail Centres In Hong Kong And Los Angeles: Trends And Lessons, Clara Irazabal, Surajit Chakravarty

Clara Irazabal

This paper examines the evolution and recent trends in the design of Entertainment Retail Centres (ERCs) in Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Most of the literature on spaces of consumption and leisure deals with economic reasons for the development of these spaces, and with the social, cultural, and political implications of the phenomenon. There are limitations to this approach that this study addresses. First, there has been a lack of attention to processes of globalization in the analysis of these spaces. Furthermore, a largely US-centred approach has left out an understanding of the significance of the ERC phenomenon in other …


Kitsch Is Dead, Long Live Kitsch: The Production Of Hyperkitsch In Las Vegas, Clara Irazabal Jan 2007

Kitsch Is Dead, Long Live Kitsch: The Production Of Hyperkitsch In Las Vegas, Clara Irazabal

Clara Irazabal

This study investigates the production ofhyperreality and kitsch in the latest generation of hotel-casino developments in Las Vegas. In these environments, visual imagery is manipulated for the creation of spectacle and a sense of alienation from time and reality. This suspension of real time and space is aimed at both facilitating the production of a simulated environment as "natural" and producing ideal sites for pleasure and consumption. Building upon the concepts of hyperreality and kitsch, this study proposes the framework of hyperkitsch to understand Las Vegas ' contribution to contemporary urbanization. Through four case studies, this paper suggests that the …


Bounded Tourism: Immigrant Politics, Consumption, And Traditions At Plaza Mexico, Clara Irazabal Jan 2007

Bounded Tourism: Immigrant Politics, Consumption, And Traditions At Plaza Mexico, Clara Irazabal

Clara Irazabal

Conceived and owned by Korean investors, the shopping mall Plaza Mexico in Southern California embodies a unique case of invention and commodi!cation of traditions for locally-bound immigrants and US citizens of Mexican descent, showing the force of the contemporary processes of deterritorialisation and reterritorilisation of identities and the recreations of imagined conceptions of homeland. The Plaza is a unique architectural recreation of Mexican regional and national icons that make its patrons feel ‘as if you were in Mexico’. Plaza Mexico produces a space of diasporic, bounded tourism, whereby venture capitalists opportunistically reinvent tradition within a structural context of constrained immigrant …


Neighbourhoods In The Lead: Grassroots Planning For Social Transformation In Post-Katrina New Orleans?, Clara Irazabal, Jason Neville Jan 2007

Neighbourhoods In The Lead: Grassroots Planning For Social Transformation In Post-Katrina New Orleans?, Clara Irazabal, Jason Neville

Clara Irazabal

The article offers insights about the potential for broader democratic transformation in post-Katrina New Orleans vis-a`-vis its autonomous grassroots planning process, surveying some of these neighbourhoodbased processes (to the extent possible, considering their ongoing nature). Our point of departure is the acknowledgement that, in the absence of an effective governing coalition capable of creating stability and a political mandate for effective planning, the onus of planning has, to a great extent, been relegated to, or taken over by, the communities themselves. In this context, the widespread ‘taste’ of autonomous democratic place-making could trigger a wider sociopolitical transformation, resulting in a …