Fashionable Districts

Fashionable Districts. Robert E. Park, Thorstein B. Veblen, and the Social Space of Urban Conspicuous Consumption Diana Carolina Gutiérrez, Federico Vélez Vélez, Ana Elena Builes Vélez* *Docente Investigadora, Facultad de Diseño de Vestuario, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, ana.builes@upb.edu.co 2015 marked the hundredth anniversary of the original publication of Robert E. Park's “The City” yet none of the major sociological journals published any papers devoted to commenting and/or expanding upon the arguments put forth by the Chicago sociologist in what is arguably one of the most important and fecund, classical articles in the field of urban sociology. Since most commentators have failed to take proper notice of Park's implicit and underdeveloped urban economic sociology, we begin this paper by focusing on his understanding of the role of economic processes in giving shape to the city. In the second section we articulate Park's arguments with E. Gordon Ericksen's symbolic interactionist human ecology in order to show how the economic processes of production, circulation and consumption give rise to quite different spatial and sociocultural urban configurations. Then, in the third section of the paper, we use Thorstein E. Veblen's institutional economics in order to describe the process of conspicuous consumption and to show how it can be productively connected with Park's arguments regarding the role of the economy in shaping the city. In the fourth section we use the arguments developed in the previous sections to show how conspicuous consumers distinctively give shape to the Fashion Design District of “Vía Primavera” in Medellin, Colombia. Robert E. Park and the role of economic processes in giving shape to the city Writing in 1915/1925, Park maintains that the economic organization of the city, grounded on individual and institutional competition, and the division of labor that results from it, is “one of its most striking and least understood features.” If the city as well as the individuals that configure it “are in a state of perpetual agitation, swept by every new wind of doctrine” and, one might add, by every new fashion trend, then that is due to the economic processes of consumption, exchange and production that give shape to the urban economic organization. The importance of the market for the existence of the modern city is strongly highlighted by Park. That economic institution, which emerges with the competitive interaction among producers, intermediaries, and consumers, results in the appearance “of money and other devices for the facilitation of commerce” that lead to the further development of the division of labor. Due to the competition that takes place within the market, those individuals that give shape to the city find “the opportunity to choose their own vocation and develop their own peculiar individual talents” by acquiring “rational methods, technical devices and exceptional skills” that allow them to perform their activities in ways that accentuate their differences. According to Park, the establishment of “trade and professional schools”, and, one might add, the creation of an academic discipline like “home economics”, result from the need of individuals to organize and stabilize their ways of trading, producing and consuming. If competition tends to select for each task those individuals best suited to perform it, and if the city offers a plurality of specific labor markets for the various skills of the individuals, then, unlike that what takes place within communities that have a social and economic organization based on kinship ties and status groups, the city's economic organization is based “on occupation and professional interests”. “In the city,” states Park, “every vocation tends to assume the character of a specialized profession”; that is, it tends to assume the character of a rationalized activity carried on by individuals employing “a specific and conscious technique”. Ultimately, the emergence of specialized and rationalized professions and the attendant social division of labor characteristic of the city, tend to produce not social groups but professional associations shaped by different vocational types of individuality. According to Park: “the organizations which men of the same profession form are based on common interests” and in the city they replace those “forms of association based on personal interaction and the common ties of humanity.” This is the reason why, for Park, the concept of “social class” is useless when trying to understand the economic organization of the modern city. Such a concept wrongly assumes that the social configurations shaped by individuals of the same profession embody those sentiments that characterize the face-to-face interactions that result in primary groups and communities. It is a well-known fact that, according to the members of the first generation of the Chicago School, in the city secondary contacts are predominant. For Park, clearly influenced by the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, that characteristic of the city is due to the fact that in it competition predominates over communication. According to Park, competitive interaction “creates in the economic organization of the city a certain sort of social solidarity, based not on shared ideas, wishes and sentiments, that is, on habits, but on a community of interests, that is, shared ideas and wishes.” Writes Park: “the existence of a sentimental attitude indicates that there are motives for action of which the individual who is moved by them is not wholly conscious; motives over which he has only a partial control.” On the other hand: “Interests are directed less toward specific objects than toward the ends which a particular object at one time embodies. Interests imply the existence of means and a consciousness of the distinction between means and ends.” And Park concludes by noting: while “sentiments are elementary forms of conservatism, interests are rational and mutable and make for change.” The economic organization of the city, therefore, is regarded by Park as a plurality of associations or groups of consumers, traders and producers that interact competitively on the basis of interests that is, on the basis of ideas and wishes about constantly changing ends and means. Due to the peculiar characteristics of that competitive interaction, the city as a whole is always in a state of unstable equilibrium that needs the constant readjustment of the individuals' interests. The instability characteristic of urban life has brought forth the need for the establishment of specialized institutions capable of providing consumers, traders and producers with accurate information regarding changing social conditions. Thus bulletins, magazines, and newspapers; the radio, televisions, and the cinema; the Web and other mass media allow individuals to obtain information about new means better suited for the attainment of their existing ends or, even, of the existence of other, new goals. That way, the unstable equilibrium that characterizes the city can be reached once again as soon as individuals adjust their interests vis-a-vis the new social-cultural situations. Production, circulation and consumption and urban configurations Despite maintaining that the city must be understood as the interlacing of a spatial unit, an economic organization and a cultural order, and despite recognizing the fact that competitive interaction and the division of labor connected to communicative interaction, are responsible for the instability and mutability of the city, Park never states how is it that the economic processes of consumption, exchange and production express themselves spatially. If, as he argues, “human ecology is that science that studies the social processes that tend to bring about an orderly and typical grouping of a population and its institutions”, then what is missing from Park's text is the formulation of the basic elements of an economic human ecology that will study the results of the manifold interactions of the city's economic organization and its spatial structure. For Gordon Ericksen, Park's mistake is the result of the fact that he, just like the rest of the human ecologists of the First Generation of the Chicago School, conceives of space as a neutral thing extraneous to the life of those individuals who shape the economic organization and the cultural order of the city. Ericksen's statement, however, amounts to a clear exaggeration. Park writes explicitly that “the city possesses a moral, that is, an economiccultural organization as well as a physical one, and these two mutually interact in characteristic ways to mold and modify one another.” Even so, it might prove fruitful to follow Ericksen's arguments in order to formulate that economic human ecology that is missing from Park's theory of the city. Since this is not the place nor the time for attempting a detailed presentation of Ericksen's symbolic interactionist human ecology, in what follows its five main points will be highlighted. Afterwards, they will be restated in order to formulate an economic human ecology able to shed some light on how the economic processes of production, exchange, and consumption obtain spatial expression in the city as it is conceived by Park. According to Ericksen, human ecology must recognize that human beings conceive of space instrumentally, they they think of it as malleable on the basis of their habits or their interests. Methodologically, then, a symbolic-interactionist human ecology must proceed thus: 1. “First, the objective, observable act is to be the focus, clearly and operationally defined. How human beings go about encompassing the spatial world about them becomes the allpervading question.” 2. “Human acts are to be explained by linking them to those impellers which are the motives, attitudes, preferences, and wishes of the individuals. Individuals' initiatives are to be honored on the grounds that only persons think about, imagine, and recall experiences. Each individual is the interpreter of her relationships with the environment. Of course, each individual is a socialized one, indirectly restrained by the norms of the social configurations they, alongside others, give shape to. Performing within two organizations, the social organization and the life organization, individuals only appear as free spirits as they negotiate their physical surroundings.” 3. The human act of appropriation and transformation of space that Ericksen calls “the territorial act”, is to be explained “by linking it to the plans, symbols and images” shared by the group of individuals that perform it. Writes Ericksen: “it is the group that reifies the language of space” and it is at that point that “the land and the things upon it come to mean what the community says they mean.” 4. When trying to explain the social-spatial organization of a place, it is crucial to pay attention at the interlacing of competitive interaction and communicative interaction since both are the social processes that drive the appropriation and transformation of space, namely, the territorial act. 5. Since the “territorial act” can only be understood on the basis of the meaning ascribed to it by the performers, it must be studied interpretively. Now, how is Ericksen's human ecology to be restated in order to develop that economic human ecology that is missing from Park's theory of the city? Perhaps in the following way: 1. The economic processes of production, exchange, and consumption jointly performed by a number of individuals are, in this case, the focus of the economic human ecology. The main question is then: “How do producers, traders, and consumers go about encompassing the spatial world about them?” 2. Production, exchange, and consumption are to be explained in connection with the individuals' interests. Such interests, in Park's sense, drive individuals to act in a technicalrational and disciplined manner. Unlike orthodox urban economists, urban economic sociologists acknowledge the fact that individuals are socialized and that, for that very same reason, their economic behavior is indirectly restrained by the norms of those economic institutions they, alongside others, give shape to. In other words, consumers, intermediaries, and producers perform their economic activities while embedded in a myriad of formal and informal economic institutions. The appropriation and transformation of space takes place on the basis of such norms. 3. The “economic territorial act” must be explained in connection to the economic plans, symbols and images shared by those groups of consumers, traders and producers who shape the city. Those groups are the ones that generate the areas of production, places of commerce and spaces of consumption characteristic of any given city. 4. When studying the economic-spatial organization of the city it is necessary to pay attention to the differentiation and imitation processes that drive the “economic territorial act” performed by the individuals. 5. Since the “economic territorial act” is only to be understood of the basis of the individuals' interests, that is, on the basis of their ideas and their wishes, it must be studied qualitatively and not, as is usual among orthodox urban economists, quantitatively. This economic human ecology, when connected to Park's theory of the city and Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption allows one to study design districts as living economic urban spaces appropriated and transformed by individuals when performing a very peculiar “economic territorial act” The role of conspicuous consumption as a process in shaping the city The process of conspicuous consumption described by Thorstein Veblen in his book The Theory of Leisure Class, refers to consumers who buy expensive items to display wealth and income rather than cover real needs of the consumer. The consumer uses this behavior to maintain or gain higher social status. Most classes have consumers that affect and influence over the other classes seeking to emulate the behavior. The result of this process, according to Veblen, is a society characterized by wasted time and money. Consumption, displays of consumption and leisure were the means to demonstrate one´s superiority. Whether you were rich or poor everyone attempts to impress others and seek to gain advantage through conspicuous consumption and the ability to engage in conspicuous leisure. Consumption is used as a way to gain and signal status. Through conspicuous consumption often came conspicuous waste. “The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests its pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods” (1899, págs. 63-64) Veblen divided human behavior in modern industrial societies into two opposing categories: pecuniary and economic. Conspicuous waste is a pecuniary motivation whereas the instinct of workmanship (as manifested in industrial production), suppressed and in a dialectic with the pecuniary, is economical. There is a ‘survival instinct’ limit to the degradation of conspicuous waste. The evolutionary process means that, in the end, the “conservative” leisure class will be supplanted by new forms of economic institutions as the workmanship instinct surpasses the pecuniary habit, with lag time, because institutions do not keep up with transactions. According to Robert E. Park, the city is not merely a geographical and ecological unit; it is at the same time an economic unit. The economic organization of the city is based on the division of labor. The multiplication of occupations and professions within the limits of the urban population is one of the most striking and least understood aspects of modern city life. The city cannot fix land values, and we leave to private enterprise, for the most part, the task of determining the city's limits and the location of its residential and industrial districts. Personal tastes and convenience, vocational and economic interests, infallibly tend to segregate and thus to classify the populations of great cities. In this way the city acquires an organization which is neither designed nor controlled. As the city increases in population, the subtler influences of sympathy, rivalry, and economic necessity tend to control the distribution of population. Business and manufacturing seek advantageous locations and draw around them a certain portion of the population. There spring up fashionable residence quarters from which the poorer classes are excluded because of the increased value of the land. When the configurations of the city start to be driven by economic processes, the consumption practice start to acquire cultural characteristics that bring some other changes to the spaces. The centralization of economic processes is accompanied with the centralization of specific cultural symbolisms that, finally, determine how a fashionable district positions in the city. Shaping Vía Primavera as a Fashionable District As stated in previous paragraphs, according to Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption, members of an evolved leisure class are not required to work, instead they appropriate a surplus produced by the working class. Once a surplus is produced the relationship between private property and status becomes very important since accumulation retains one’s good. The most distance from the work required to accumulate, the most status and honor its provided on the social hierarchy. Therefore, extensive leisure activities and expenditure on consumption and services responds to a waste of time and goods, which become the key of the esteem of other social groups that are arranged in a specific space. Vía Primavera is a fashion design district in Medellin, Colombia where some social groups are symbolically ordered with lifestyles that are supported or approved by socioecomic practices as conspicuous consumption. It´s a space where a concern about showing and being seen by others is constantly expressed. At least that’s what our investigation “Fashion, City and Economy: Consumption and spaces of consumption of dress, accessories and shoes in Vía Primavera of the city of Medellín” has revealed so far. The consumption patterns where the less affluent classes emulate the more affluent classes have developed a framework in the space with which the norms are changing the economy and the social fabrics over time. (Veblen, 1899) That situation reflects on the transformation that the moral and physical organization of this district of the city have has/suffer. As determined by Park (1999), these two ways in which a city is organized are constantly interacting with each other and alluding to the construction of primary and secondary social relations, the last ones predominating and in most cases substituting the primary ones as a result of mobility. In a city, there are places where certain ways of doing stand out, economic habits of consumption, production or circulation. In Medellin, for example, in the fashion district of Via Primavera, economic habits of consumption prevail, and it has been observed that conspicuous consumption overcomes. Consequently, social distances have increase, and the importance of being seen is related to gaining prestige but not making intimate bonds with others consumers in the space. The transition from primary to secondary social relations, has caused new configurations in the economic system, and therefore in the space shaping Via Primavera. The houses that once were built to be residential became fashion commercial businesses with physical configurations that respond to the desire of exposure when consuming. In the same way, gastronomical places as cafes and restaurants have been establishing in order to improve the idea of remaining to consume conspicuously, showing the goods obtained in the place, or just the ones that are being used. The phenomenon of exposure when consuming has improved the constantly changing of those fashion commercial businesses, and has invigorated the way they emerge in the space. When you observe Via Primavera, you don’t see just a design district, but a public street that is supposed to be reachable to all individuals/social groups. Despite that/even though the commercial activity has become a mechanism of privatization of the street as a meeting and socialization space. Veblen suggests conspicuous consumption is intrinsically connected with the origin of social institutions as private property (1899) however, in Via Primavera, a dichotomy between the public and the private is shown; the public as all of what is being exposed to others and simultaneously what is acquiring a private character thanks to whom is consuming there and how is consuming. This way, we can understand the city as a psychophysical mechanism in which and through which private and public interests find a collective and organized expression. The dichotomy expressed before has revealed a problematic that is constantly stated in Park’s work where he refers to the vices or bad habits, which appear with the breaking of local ties and the weakening of inhibitions of primary groups, under the influence of the urban environment that shows up when there is a weak separation line between what is public and private. The biggest problem here is when those vices become independent institutions that mobilize indiscriminately; then, socio-cultural practices are susceptible to find expression on those vices. Every city or every space has some forces responsible of organizing the population and its institutions. (1999) One of those forces are consumption practices that unify and centralize some cultural and economic dynamics, that’s the case of Via Primavera. This phenomenon of putting those dynamics together in a district, specially in fashionable district, responds to the desire of social exposure, recognition, and gaining prestige. In the same way, consuming conspicuously on these kind of districts, is a practice that has a unifying function; that is, the places that are usually recognized as the places where “you have to go” or “you have to buy”, and become into opportunities to connect mutual interests of different classes, in this case, upper classes. At the same time, with the possible interaction of an exclusive social class, the space shaping Via Primavera, becomes a space of exclusion. Through the investigation about Via Primavera, it has been observed that the meaning of conspicuous consumption has changed while the space also is changing. Today, Consumers use product symbolism to interact with others. Conspicuous consumption now its also related to symbolic ostentation, instead of the ostentation of wealth, in order to reference groups. It is necessary to be aware of the consumption patterns that appear with the shaping of the city or specific spaces, since they are accompanied by habits that represent life manners which can modify collective conscience and social institution, regardless of their public or private character. References Park, R. (1999). La Ciudad. Sugerencias para la investigacion del comportamiento humano en el medio urbano. En R. Park, La Ciudad y otros ensayos de ecologia urbana (E. Martinez, Trad., pág. 141). Espana: Ediciones del Serbal. Veblen, T. (1899). Teoría de la Clase Ociosa. Chicago: MM Publicacion.