From Ghetto to Global: Two Local Shopping Streets in New York City

• In Event: 340 - Section on Consumers and Consumption Paper Session. New Research on Consumers and Consumption

Abstract

Today, globalization, immigration, and gentrification are the major forces reshaping local shopping streets in New York City. Yet they create contrasting locales with different kinds of social status and cultural capital. On the one hand, local shopping streets in working-class neighborhoods host mainly low-price stores owned by migrants from the Global South. On the other hand, local shopping streets in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods have art galleries, boutiques, and cafés, mainly owned by migrants from the Global North.

To illustrate the divergent ecosystems that they form, we focus on two local shopping streets in areas that were historically labeled “ghettos”: Orchard Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and Fulton Street, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Central Brooklyn. Though Orchard Street has experienced a wave of commercial gentrification led by trendy restaurants and upscale “ABCs,” Fulton Street has been revitalized by downscale stores, often owned by immigrants. Both globalization and gentrification are fed by real estate markets, changing consumers' tastes, and continued migration from both the Global North and Global South.

Authors

• Sharon Zukin, City University of New York-Brooklyn College and Graduate Center

• Philip Kasinitz, City University of New York-Graduate Center