Landscapes of privilege : the politics of the aesthetics in an American suburb /
How do landscapes work as class codes? In Landscapes of Privilege, James and Nancy Duncan look at how the aesthetics of physical landscapes are fully enmeshed in producing the American class system. Focusing on an archetypal upper class American suburb -- Bedford in Westchester County, NY -- they sh...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Routledge,
[2003]
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| Summary: | How do landscapes work as class codes? In Landscapes of Privilege, James and Nancy Duncan look at how the aesthetics of physical landscapes are fully enmeshed in producing the American class system. Focusing on an archetypal upper class American suburb -- Bedford in Westchester County, NY -- they show how the physical presentation of a place carries with it a range of markers of inclusion and exclusion. Landscapes act as important cultural codes conveying social distinction and hierarchy -- even while they make the ordering of a place appear "natural" to everyone. And since they encode affluence, residents have worked to reproduce them through stringent aesthetic rules, zoning restrictions, and slow growth coalitions. In full, this process has produced the physical form of the contemporary upper middle-class American suburb. Genuinely innovative, Landscapes of Privilege is one of the first books to apply critical landscape theory to the social production of American elites. |
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| Physical Description: | xiv, 261 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-258) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0415946883 0415946875 |