Creative Urbanity: An Italian Middle Class in the Shade of Revitalization Contributor(s): Guano, Emanuela (Author) |
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ISBN: 0812248783 ISBN-13: 9780812248784 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press OUR PRICE: $66.45 Product Type: Hardcover Published: December 2016 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - Social Science | Sociology - Urban - Social Science | Social Classes & Economic Disparity |
Dewey: 307.341 |
LCCN: 2016024738 |
Series: Contemporary Ethnography |
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6.3" W x 9.2" (1.10 lbs) 248 pages |
Themes: - Demographic Orientation - Urban - Cultural Region - Italy - Chronological Period - 1970's - Chronological Period - 1980's - Chronological Period - 1990's - Chronological Period - 21st Century |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: In the 1970s, the city of Genoa in northern Italy was suffering the economic decline and the despondency common to industrial centers of the Western world at that time. Deindustrialization made Genoa a bleak, dangerous, angry city, where the unemployment rate rose alongside increasing political violence and crime and led to a massive population loss as residents fled to find jobs and a safer life elsewhere. But by the 1990s a revitalization was under way. Many Genoese came to believe their city was poised for a renaissance as a cultural tourism destination and again began to appreciate the sensory, aesthetic, and cultural facets of Genoa, refining practices of a cultured urbanity that had long been missing. Some of those people--educated, middle class--seeking to escape intellectual unemployment, transformed urbanity into a source of income, becoming purveyors of symbolic goods and cultural services, as walking tour guides, street antiques dealers, artisans, festival organizers, small business owners, and more, thereby burnishing Genoa's image as a city of culture and contributing to its continued revival. |