First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Protecting Suburban America explores the dynamics and conflicts inherent in preserving historic twentieth-century suburban landscapes in America.Bridging architecture, anthropology, planning, and urban studies, its unique approach combines a study of historic preservation with multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, to shed fascinating light on issues of heritage, preservation, gentrification, class, ethnicity, and contested values in suburbia. These are subjects which reach far beyond the setting of the book’s focus in California to touch on topical debates in cities, suburbia, and gentrifying neighborhoods worldwide.At the heart of the book is a detailed comparative ethnography of preservation practices and the changing landscapes of five suburban cities, where affluent homeowners have begun to restore their early twentieth-century houses in neighborhoods once suffering from decline. Not every neighbor, however, shares the same aesthetic values, and complex dynamics can arise. The study compares experiences in five different cities, and in different long-term, immigrant, and gentrifying populations. Themes revealed include homeowner restoration practices, aesthetic contestations, local advocacy, and public policy, alongside an exploration of the social construction of the historic restoration process, and how homeowners construct ‘historical’ meaning in their homes and neighbourhoods. These are themes with consequences for national and global settings – of interest wherever contested preservation aesthetics and regulations are reshaping older residential neighbourhoods and their social dynamics.

This book shows how the release of the free market in the last part of the twentieth century produced a rise in inequality and violence, the development of a huge criminal economy and the degradation of social and cultural life. It questions the silence of academics in the face of these changes and asks how much they have been incorporated into the priorities of commerce and governments. Many academics in the social sciences, media and cultural studies have avoided critical issues and become occupied in obscure theoretical debates such as post-modernism. The effect was to draw inellectuals and students away from the engaged and empirical work needed to identify key social problems and possibilities for change. The authors of this book point to the need for independent research which can criticise political policies and reveal their effects. They show, for example, why contemporary policies on drugs and education are creating more problems than they solve. The book features contributions from a wide range of academic disciplines including mass communications, sociology, politics, geography, philosophy and economics, and points to new directions for radical science. It also examines the possibilities for a free and democratic media and calls for the development of critical and open debate.

The Active Consumer discusses how consumers seem to delight in trying new solutions and exploring new combinatory possibilities. This book provides an economic-theoretical understanding of this phenomenon and the many ways in which innovation can structure consumer choice. The authors show from different points of view how central novelty can be in consumer behaviour, how it relates to technical change and how new consumer capabilities are developed and organized.

Inspired by Walter Benjamin's classical Arcades Project, Consuming Media is a pioneering exploration of the interface between communication, shopping and everyday life. Based on a six-year study by over a dozen scholars on a specific site, it analyses the links between power, media and consumption in contemporary urban culture.Illustrated with rich ethnographic detail, Consuming Media scrutinises four main media circuits - print media, media images, sound and motion, and hardware machines - to assess how media texts and technologies are selected, purchased and used.Exploring the relations between different media, the nature of cultural citizenship and the power relations of public space, Consuming Media presents an ethnography of globalisation and develops a new approach to understanding media consumption.

This shrewd and probing book seeks to theorize shopping as an autonomous realm. It avoids the reductionist characteristics of economics and marketing. At the same time it avoids the moralizing tone of many contemporary discussions of shopping and consumption. It also contains an appendix which gives a brief history and selected literature of shopping.

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Sociology serves as a repository of insight on the complex interactions, challenges and potential solutions that characterize our shared ecological reality. Presenting innovative thinking on a comprehensive range of topics, expert scholars, researchers, and practitioners illuminate the nuances, complexities and diverse perspectives that define the continually evolving field of environmental sociology.

Consumer culture influences virtually all activities within modern societies and has become an important area of study for businesses. Logical analysis of consumer behavior is difficult as humans have different reasons for repeatedly buying products they need or want, and it is challenging to follow why they buy unneeded or unwanted products regularly. Without a comprehensive understanding of consumer culture as the basis, market discussions become empty and produce little insight into the power consumers hold in affecting other individuals and society. Multifaceted Explorations of Consumer Culture and Its Impact on Individuals and Society provides emerging research from different perspectives on the basis and ramifications of consumer culture, as well as how it affects all aspects of the lives of individuals. While providing a platform for exploring interpersonal interactions and issues related to ethics in marketing, readers will gain valuable insight into areas such as consumer vs. producer mentality, the effects of consumerism on developing countries, and the consequences of consumerism. This book is an important resource for marketing professionals, business managers, sociologists, students, academicians, researchers, and consumer professionals.

-- Elise Mellinger, University of Hawaii--Manoa, Korean Studies