Selling the City: Language, Ethnicity, and Commodified Space

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Chapter 10
Selling the City: Language,
Ethnicity and Commodified Space
JENNIFER LEEMAN and GABRIELLA MODAN
Introduction
Material manifestations of language are an integral part of the urban
public sphere: Cities are full of linguistic signs created by a panoply of
public and private actors. Although linguistics research on space often
speaks of language as located within a particular landscape, a landscape
is not a container that holds objects like a picnic basket filled with lunch
items. Instead, much as Reddy (1979) deconstructed the language-as-
container metaphor, cultural geographers have emphasized that spaces
are not merely holders for things that are in them. Rather, they are
topographies that shape and are shaped by the items with which they are
collocated (cf. Massey, 1999). Instead of functioning as distinct objects
enclosed inside a territory, then, material manifestations of language in
the built environment constitute key elements in shaping city spaces as
urban places imbued with social meanings.
1
This is a dialectical relation-
ship, however: the language that appears on city streets is shaped and
constrained by other facets of the built environment, and particularly
in central city commercial areas governed by municipal, regional or
national linguistic and zoning regulations. These regulations are shaped
not just by government bureaucrats, but also by a variety of interested
parties, including civic organizations, NGOs, ethnic coalitions, devel-
opers and business owners. Because words on the street are part and
parcel of the texture of urban landscapes, a full understanding of any
urban linguistic landscape (LL) must be undergirded by in-depth
knowledge of the ways in which cities themselves are shaped.
In this chapter, we propose a theoretical framework for thinking about
the various political and economic interests that currently govern the
development of urban spaces in North America and, increasingly, in
urban centers throughout the world. We argue that in late modernity,
much language in the urban landscape is both an outcome of, and a
vehicle for, the commodification of space. Elsewhere, we have called for a
contextualized approach to the LL (Leeman & Modan, 2009) and argued
that the scholarship of cities can benefit from a consideration of the role
of language (Leeman & Modan, 2010). Here, we draw on research from
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To appear (2010) in:
E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds.) Linguistic Landscape in the City.
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urban studies, sociology and tourism studies to propose an interdisci-
plinary approach for analyzing material manifestations of language
specifically in the urban context. Our goal is to investigate how research
on the social, political and economic landscapes of cities can offer new
insights into the use of language in the built environment. Throughout
the exposition of our theoretical framework, we provide illustrative
examples primarily from Washington DC’s Chinatown to demonstrate
how minority languages are used as strategic tools in contemporary
urban redevelopment initiatives and the construction of ‘destination
locations’ for tourists and residents alike.
2
Material manifestations of
language interact with other design elements in the built environment to
construct commodified urban places cities for sale.
A Contextualized Approach to the Linguistic Landscape
Most LL research has investigated commercial zones; although
researchers include governmental and other non-commercial signs,
they generally study areas with a large number of stores and restaurants,
as these areas tend to display more material manifestations of language
than primarily public sector or residential neighborhoods. Many LL
studies implicitly assume that the ratio of languages in the landscape is a
direct reflection of the relative status of various ethnolinguisitic groups
within the community. In addition, with the exception of recent studies
that have noted the use of English as an index of sophistication,
cosmopolitanism or modernity (e.g. Cenoz & Gorter, 2006; Huebner,
2006; Ben Rafael et al., 2006), many LL researchers seem to presuppose
that the target audience of a given language consists largely of people
who can read and/or understand that language.
We seek to expand the disciplinary boundaries of LL research and to
break from the primarily quantitative tradition by adopting a contextua-
lized interdisciplinary approach, one that attends to the linguistic and
spatial contexts within which texts are located. In the case of a written
street or store sign, the language on that sign gains its meaning from the
extralinguistic phenomena such as the political and economic interests
that led to its creation or its location in space (cf. Scollon & Scollon, 2003),
as well from the language of the other signs around it. We illustrate the
role of context in shaping the meaning of the language on signs by
examining the Chinese and English signage on two Starbucks coffee
shops, one in Washington DC and the other in Shanghai (see Figure 10.1).
Although both stores display ‘Starbucks’ written in both Chinese and
English, the symbolic meanings of the Chinese and English writing
are quite different. As we discuss below, Washington DC’s Chinatown
is a ‘themed’ shopping and entertainment district in which the city
government has mandated the use of Chinese design elements. The
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English writing on this Starbucks shop functions to identify and brand
the store as Starbucks to potential customers; because English is the
dominant language in the US, its use in Washington DC is unmarked. By
contrast, the Chinese writing on the DC store self-consciously references
Chinatown, and reinforces the area as a themed ethnoscape. It is only
within this landscape that the use of Chinese makes sense; were the sign
located at a Starbucks outside of Chinatown, the presence of Chinese
writing would be quite puzzling.
Both the Chinese and the English writing have very different symbolic
meanings on the signage at the Shanghai Starbucks, which is located on
Nanjing Road Shanghai’s‘5th Avenue’. In this context, Chinese is the
unmarked language, and it identifies the name of the shop. The English
writing identifies a specific brand, much as it does in Chinatown, but it also
constructs an air of cosmopolitan sophistication. This meaning is heigh-
tened spatially through the shop’s location in a western-style shopping
area. In terms of linguistic context, the distinction of ‘Starbucks’in English
is reinforced contextually through its location near other English-language
signs in the vicinity, including the ‘open’sign to the right.
As this discussion illustrates, a contextualized approach to the LL
necessitates an explanation of both the extralinguistic and linguistic
environments in which signs are located, as well as a consideration of
the sociohistorical factors that have shaped their production (Leeman &
Figure 10.1 Left: Starbucks in DC’s Chinatown (#Jennifer Leeman); right:
Starbucks on Shanghai’s Nanjing Rd. (#Hai Zhang)
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Modan, 2009). Our approach pays special attention to the symbolic
functions of language and their role in the construction of places or social
spaces (see also Shohamy & Waksman, 2008).
Symbolic Economies and Themed Environments
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there has been an interna-
tional trend toward the commodification of culture and the commercia-
lization of public space, a trend that has had a tremendous impact on
urban environments and the LL. We stress the importance of acknowl-
edging and problematizing the predominance of commercial language in
the built environment, investigating the reasons for this predominance
and analyzing the ways in which commercial interests influence material
manifestations of language in urban places.
With the decline of Fordism the system of large-scale standardized
manufacturing production and mass consumption preeminent in indus-
trialized economies through the mid-20th century many cities have
undergone a shift to service-based economies. In the US, this shift was
accompanied by widespread outmigration of the middle class to the
suburbs, a demographic movement promoted by the construction of a
vast highway system and exacerbated by the urban riots of the 1960s. The
growth of suburban shopping malls, which occurred during the same
period, resulted in cities’loss of sales taxes as well as residents. In order
to make up for lost revenue, cities have sought to attract suburbanites
and out-of-town visitors alike via the ‘symbolic economy’, which Zukin
(1995: 3) defines as ‘the intertwining of cultural symbols and entrepre-
neurial capital’.
In the symbolic economy, cultural symbols play a significant role in the
selling of products and services, and entrepreneurs invest in projects that
rely on cultural symbols to attract consumers. Further, culture, products
and services are bundled together and marketed as ‘experiences’.For
example, in addition to food and service, restaurants market a range of
experiences; themed restaurants such as Hardrock Cafe
´surround patrons
with rock and roll memorabilia, ‘ethnic’restaurants provide diners with a
taste of the ‘authentic’or ‘exotic’, and restaurants showcasing locally
grown or organic foods offer a sense of sophistication or cultural cache
´.
Themed restaurants sometimes offer customers souvenir goods for sale
(such as t-shirts and drinking glasses), with the experience of having eaten
in the restaurant used to sell those products, just as the products and the
theme are used to sell the restaurant. Along the same lines, retailers
promote the concept of ‘shopertainment’, in which shopping is conceived
of as a leisure activity, rather than a chore (Hannigan, 1998), and shopping
malls commonly now include culture and entertainment spaces such as
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movie theaters, bowling alleys, art exhibits and sit-down restaurants
among the shops and department stores.
This interweaving of culture, services, products and experiences, and
the use of one to sell the others, is utilized in the marketing of all kinds of
goods and services, as well as entire neighborhoods and cities. Urban
developers deploy culture by pairing the ‘retail experience’with unique
physical settings, such as historic buildings or districts (e.g. the Old Post
Office and Union Station in Washington, Faneuil Hall in Boston) or
unique new construction (e.g. Harbor Place in Baltimore, Niketown and
Apple stores). Although merchants have long used cultural artifacts to
stimulate consumer desire, the development of shopping districts in
historic or scenic locales takes this process to a new level, with urban
spaces themselves entering the marketplace (Crawford, 1992). Because
the transfer of qualities between culture and commodity is reciprocal, not
only does culture provide added value to commodities, but those
commodities also impute economic value to culture (Crawford, 1992).
Urban areas that integrate historical preservation or other architectural
themes with retail and entertainment intentionally aestheticize the city,
turning it into a type of ‘tableau’where tourists consume the built
environment and the place, as well as the food and retail (Boyer, 1992).
The commodification of culture and marketing of places, goods and
services is mutually reinforcing and it takes place at multiple scales;
when individual businesses, neighborhoods and cities sell products and
experiences, they not only create a stream of revenue, they also enhance
the touristic and leisure value of the places themselves.
3
As post-Fordist cities have come to rely on commodified culture and
experience to revitalize downtown neighborhoods, the symbolic econ-
omy has become a driving force behind urban policies around the world,
many of which are supported by public/private partnerships between
municipalities and entrepreneurs. Part and parcel of this trend is the
growth of the travel and tourism industries, with cities increasingly
carrying out marketing campaigns as they compete to attract local,
national and international visitors. Cities put culture to use for economic
development in a variety of ways; typical strategies include culture-
based projects such as art museums and performing arts centers, as well
as downtown arts districts with high concentrations of galleries and
artists’studios. Many cities have also sought to draw visitors via the
construction of convention centers and/or major league sports arenas, as
well as through the creation of specialized retail and entertainment
districts. Indeed, entertainment and spectacle have been a key part of this
mix, with city planners working hard to convince suburbanites that
‘cities are fun’(Hannigan, 1998).
Washington DC offers an illustrative example of this trend, with the city
having developed a complex network of public-private partnerships
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devoted to attracting individual visitors and residents, as well as
conventions, tradeshows and conferences. Created specifically to serve
as the US national capital, Washington DC has always sought to attract
visitors and tourists, in large part to promote public confidence in, and
allegiance to, the new federal government (Luria, 2006). In the late 20th
century, however, these efforts were ramped up, with the mayor and the
municipal government working to increase revenues by counteracting
the city’sreputationasthe‘murder capital of the US’and solidifying its
status as a ‘world class city’(Wheeler, 1986a). Promotional activities are
conducted not only by the traditional government institutions, such as the
Office of Planning and the National Capital Planning Commission, but by
a whole array of economic development-geared city agencies, including
the Clean City Initiative, the Sports and Entertainment Commission,
Motion Picture and Television Development, the Washington Convention
Center Authority and the Washington DC Convention and Tourism
Corporation, as well as private and non-profit entities working in
collaboration with the city government, such as Cultural Tourism DC
and the Main Streets Initiative, which promote business development and
tourism in a number of the city’s mixed-use neighborhoods (Figure 10.2).
Figure 10.2 F St. NW, rechristened ‘Fun Street’in Washington DC’s
redeveloped downtown (#Jennifer Leeman)
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Selling Culture
Culture and cultural symbols have become key elements in the
promotion of real estate development and commercial interests. How-
ever, as Zukin (1998) notes, culture is used not only to frame public space
and to attract consumers of goods and services, but also to legitimate the
appropriation of that space by private and commercial interests. The
strategies employed by city planners to encourage economic develop-
ment include using public funds for the construction of ‘flagship’
projects, providing special tax incentives or zoning exceptions and
establishing Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). BIDs are non-profit
entities whose goal is to create consumer-friendly urban spaces that
attract visitors who might otherwise feel anxious about urban crime or
dirt; the hallmark of BIDS are spaces that convey an urban feel through
historic architecture and/or lively walkable streets, but that have a
standardized and sanitized built environment designed to appeal to
mass-market tastes and allay any fear of ‘the urban’(cf. Mitchell, 2003).
BIDs typically impose fees on all business owners and service providers
in a district to enhance services normally offered by municipal govern-
ments, such as increased trash pickup and private security guards, and
they mandate or regulate street banners, standardized trashcans and
various types of signs. They therefore have a key role in shaping the LL.
The influence of the BID model is particularly clear in Washington DC,
which has embraced the symbolic economy and BIDs in its efforts to draw
suburbanites and tourists via a development plan promoting Downtown
as a historical, cultural and entertainment zone. In addition to capitalizing
on the area’s 19th-century architecture, recent years have seen massive
construction in the Downtown BID, including flagship commercial
and civic buildings: two convention centers, a sports arena, a performing
arts center, shopping complexes and upscale residential properties. A
key component of these initiatives was the redevelopment of Chinatown,
an area consisting of nine city blocks within the Downtown BID.
Although city leaders see public/private partnerships as crucial to the
revitalization of cities, the extent to which these partnerships make urban
planning dependent on private interests should not be overlooked.
Moreover, because these models are based on the need to attract middle-
class visitors, contemporary cities are less attuned to the needs of
residents; rather than significantly investing in public transportation in
non-tourist areas, healthcare, sewage systems, schools or neighborhood
recreation centers, they instead devote enormous resources to promoting
themselves as places for the middle class to play (Eisinger, 2000).
Furthermore, special districts such as BIDs constitute a privatization of
public space in which decisions are made by non-elected Boards of
Directors, and in many cases, private security forces patrol city streets
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(cf. Christopherson, 1994; Mallett, 1994). Under these conditions, the line
between public and private development is erased. As we discuss
elsewhere (Leeman & Modan, 2009), this has important implications for
research on the LL, which has often posited a strong dichotomy between
public and private signage.
Ethnoscapes and the Symbolic Economy
Deploying symbols of ethnicity and national cultures to attract tourists
is a common strategy on the part of urban municipalities. In cities the
world over, neighborhoods once inhabited by persecuted ethnic mino-
rities are now marketed as leisure and tourism destinations. For example,
in Granada, Spain, the former Arab quarter has been reconfigured as a
tourist attraction, 500 years after the forced conversion and expulsion of
Muslims, while in Krakow, Poland, the Old Jewish Quarter is a major
draw (Shaw et al., 2004). So too, current or former immigrant neighbor-
hoods like Little Italys or Greektowns are often targeted for touristic
commodification. The cultural images and experiences that are marketed
in these ethnic enclaves, however, are often ‘safe, sanitized versions of
the original’(Hannigan, 1998: 67), which mediate tourists’conflicting
desires for the foreign and the familiar, the exotic and the safe. Around
the globe, Chinatowns that were once considered dangerous and dirty
have been reconfigured as themed exotic-yet-safe tourist destinations,
reflecting changes in conceptions of ethnicity and diversity as well as of
tourism (Santos et al., 2008).
Washington DC’s Chinatown is a prime example of this phenomenon.
Business associations, ethnic institutions, corporations and the municipal
government have joined forces, deploying culture to market Chinatown
as an ethnic destination location. The economic value assigned to
Chinese cultural symbols can be seen in the city’s Comprehensive Plan
(1984/1999): ‘[Chinatown’s] role as a major regional and tourist attrac-
tion should be strengthened by... developing a stronger Chinese image
in its building facades and street improvements, and by attracting new
development to reinforce its economic viability’(Title 9 Section 900.27).
Developers of ethnic enclaves and downtown areas often manipulate
the visual facade of the built environment to define the neighborhood
via architectural preservation or innovation, or banners adorning the
streets (Zukin, 1998). Historic neighborhoods tend to rely on visual
images appropriated from the past, ignoring the human beings who
built or inhabited those spaces and reshaping collective memory in
order to offer the consumer a selective and conflict-free image of place
(Boyer, 1992; Smith, 1992; Sorkin, 1992). Furthermore, as mentioned
above, new development often overlooks the interests of current
residents, focusing instead on building and environmental innovations
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that turn neighborhoods into themed urban spaces with spectacle used
to sell places and goods (Crawford, 1992; Sorkin, 1992; Zukin, 1998). As
Harvey (1991: 60) puts it, ‘an architecture of play and pleasure, of
spectacle and commodification, emphasizing fiction and fantasy,
replaced that of function’. The architecture of spectacle is a staple of
Chinatowns around the world, from Pagoda phone booths and
‘‘‘double happiness’’ themed bike racks’in Victoria, Canada (City of
Victoria,2009),totheKing’s Birthday Celebration Arch in Bangkok
(Dararai, 2002).
This pattern of visual theming can be seen clearly in Washington
DC’s Chinatown. Once the center of the Washington area’sChineseand
Chinese American community, Chinatown underwent the outmigration
and disinvestment typical of US urban neighborhoods in the 1960s and
1970s. Since then, two waves of redevelopment and gentrification have
brought massive demolition and building, with row houses and family
businesses (many of which were Chinese-owned) replaced by large-
scale complexes, national and international chains, luxury apartment
buildings and the MCI (now Verizon) sports arena. A key aspect of
these public/private redevelopment efforts was the ‘branding’of the
neighborhood through Chinese-themed visual elements. This began in
the 1980s with the construction of the Wah Luck House, a low-income
publicly supported senior housing project exhibiting Chinese-style
architectural features, the changing of the local Metro stop’snameto
include the word ‘Chinatown’and the erection of the ornate Friendship
Arch. In the 1990s, these were joined by such street ornamentations as
Ming-dynasty inspired iron brackets holding banners that offer wishes
of good health and happiness, and stylized Chinese lampposts (see
Figure 10.3 and 10.4).
It is important to note that despite the symbolic economy’s commo-
dification of culture and authenticity, themed environments are valued
by some precisely for their artificiality and consistency, as well as their
referencing of leisure and entertainment. As Chinatown architect and
developer Alfred Liu said, ‘you create an image of ‘‘city.’’ It’s the theme
park concept. People say it’s fake, but they do enjoy it’(Fisher, 1995).
Thus, while some urbanites disparage what they see as ‘Disneyfied’
cityscapes and simulated neighborhoods, others see them as fun places
to visit, eat and shop.
Language is a key element in the creation of themed ethnic neighbor-
hoods. Not only does language play a crucial role in the institutionaliza-
tion of neighborhoods as places, such as in planning documents and
municipal regulations, but it is also deployed in the commodified
aestheticization of the built environment, as we discuss in the next
section.
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Language and Ethnic Commodification
Language’s status as a readily identifiable index of ethnicity and
cultural authenticity casts it as a selling vehicle par excellence. For
example, Heller (2003) has documented the use of French as a marker
of authenticity in the marketing of heritage tourism in Quebec to
Figure 10.3 Friendship Arch at the intersection of Chinatown’s two
commercial corridors (#Jennifer Leeman)
Figure 10.4 Banners along Chinatown streets (#Jennifer Leeman)
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Francophone tourists. Souvenirs with writing in another language signal
that one has been somewhere foreign, exciting or exotic, and thus serve
as commodified markers of distinction as well as keepsakes of the
experience. Further, the use of a ‘foreign’language as a selling point is
heightened when that language has a different orthography from the
language of the target consumer. In such cases, language is valued
primarily as an index of ethnicity and for its purely aesthetic qualities,
rather than for its semantic content. Whereas a viewer unable to read a
given orthography is aware at some level that the orthography conveys
phonological or semantic meaning, she or he is less likely to instinctively
process it as an encoding of linguistic information. Hence, for a viewer of
an unfamiliar orthography, the linguistic valence of the writing system
becomes backgrounded, and the aesthetic qualities become more salient.
Mementos with ‘your name in Chinese’or ‘your name in Arabic’that
are sold in themed ethnic neighborhoods are cases of the language
itself being sold, rather than being used to sell another product (see
Figure 10.5). The aesthetic nature of orthography can also be capitalized
on through font design; consider the added exotifying function of Roman
fonts designed to look like Chinese, Arabic or Hebrew, while still
retaining comprehensibility to those unfamiliar with those orthographies
(see Figure 10.6).
We argue that material manifestations of language can enhance
particular commodities and, much like architectural elements, serve as
vehicles to spatialize the commodification of culture; encountering a
‘foreign’or minority language can give leisure visitors the sense of
having visited an authentic place (rather than going to a mere ‘tourist
trap’). However, in many ethnic enclaves reconfigured as urban attrac-
tions, the actual, authentic histories are not part of the experience, for in
many such places the speakers of minority ethnic languages have been
forced out by resettlement, expulsion or genocide (cf. Jacobs, 1998; Shaw
et al., 2004), and, more recently, by rising rents and corporate-based
economic redevelopment (cf. Lloyd, 2004; Mele, 2000). In such cases,
material manifestations of minority languages work as sanitized visual
references to cultural groups that neither rely on their actual presence,
nor tell the full story of what happened to them. In the case of
Washington DC’s Chinatown, the massive development in the last
decade of the 20th century led to a doubling of the neighborhood’s total
population (from 787 to 1470). Concurrently, the number of residents of
Chinese birth or ancestry fell from 526 to 491 (US Census Bureau, 1990,
2000), and the center of Chinese commerce moved north to Rockville,
Maryland (cf. Ly, 2006.). Thus, Chinatown’s visual image became more
Chinese at the exact moment when the Chinese residential and
commercial sectors were shrinking.
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Aestheticizing Written Language
Material manifestations of language in contemporary urban themed
environments are sometimes the direct consequence of intentional
aestheticization and commodification of language, as when letter size,
font style and sign colors are dictated in planning and zoning documents
that standardize the visual qualities of the built environment. In
Washington DC, for example, the Office of Planning stresses the aesthetic
qualities of language in their guidelines for the development of new
businesses in Chinatown, capitalizing on the exoticism of Chinese writing
Figure 10.5 ‘Your name in Arabic’for sale in the Arab Quarter of Granada,
Spain (#Jennifer Leeman)
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to reconfigure the neighborhood as an enticing cultural destination. As the
guidelines explain:
Signage and Chinese characters are important design elements.
Liberal use of Chinese characters in signage and decoration will
provide needed Chinese ambiance in Chinatown (Section 6.91
Chinatown Design Review Guidelines, 1989: 42)
While the phrase ‘Chinese characters in signage and decoration’
implies signs written in Chinese, it is telling that the term ‘characters’,
rather than ‘language’is used. Whereas ‘language’implies a coherent
communicative system, ‘Chinese characters’does not imply any seman-
tic coherence; any random characters could be used to comply with these
guidelines, regardless of whether or not they had a coherent meaning.
The choice of the word ‘characters’is consistent with the guidelines’
description of Chinese characters as ‘design elements’rather than as
vehicles for communication. The guidelines thus cast the value and
purpose of Chinese writing as solely aesthetic.
In keeping with the tenor of the guidelines, the Chinese-language
elements of Chinatown’s current LL overwhelmingly serve aesthetic
functions: the vast majority of Chinese signs are name-signs
4
on chain
stores and restaurants. In these establishments, Chinese is not used to
communicate any semantic content that one might need in order to
conduct a service encounter and in the vast majority of these
businesses, no workers speak Chinese. This is not to say that minority
languages do not serve any communicative function in themed ethnic
Figure 10.6 Simulated Arabic fonts in Granada, Spain (#Jennifer Leeman)
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enclaves. In many cases, such languages are used in and by small
businesses that are still owned by and cater to members of the ethnic
communities in question. In addition, heritage tourism initiatives
promote ethnic enclaves to visitors of the same ethnic background.
Thus, themed ethnoscapes also include material manifestations of
minority languages that go beyond the aesthetic to serve communicative
functions. For example, small businesses are scattered among the mass-
market sit-down restaurants and upscale cosmetics chains of Washington
DC’s Chinatown. In these small businesses, content-bearing signs such as
menus and help-wanted ads are often written in Chinese sometimes
without complete translation into English and service encounters may
also be conducted in Chinese. For viewers who cannot read Chinese,
such signs can also communicate cultural authenticity, intentionally or
not. For example, Chinese-language menus posted on the walls of a
restaurant add to the restaurant’s‘Chinese ambiance’in addition to
communicating information about the food available. These signs are
thus polysemous imparting different messages to different viewers.
The meanings of material manifestations of language are shaped by
contexts operating at multiple scales. Thus, it is important to consider not
only the micro-scale of their immediate settings, but also the meso-scale
of the neighborhood, and the more macro-scales of the city, the nation
and the global urban context. A multi-scalar analysis may reveal complex
interactions of complementary and contradictory meanings. In Washing-
ton DC’s Chinatown, the meso- and macro-scales heighten the symbolic
meaning of many signs apparent at the micro-scale. For example, within
the spatial context of the themed Chinatown environment, a handwritten
flyer advertising an apartment for rent or a restaurant lunch menu
posted on a door is part of a themed environment, and it takes on a
symbolic value because it is interpreted within a commodified context.
At the same time, because such signs communicate that there are Chinese
people using the landscape to conduct daily life, they add an air of
authenticity to the experience of visiting Chinatown; therefore they, too,
contribute to the image of Chinatown as an exotic, exciting destination
location. Thus, just as multiple scales of context shape their meaning,
individual Chinese signs also have effects at multiple scales. At the micro-
scale of an individual establishment, a Chinese sign adds value to the
products or services offered. At the meso-scale of the neighborhood, the
agglomeration of signs works in tandem with other Chinese-themed
design elements of the built environment to enhance the neighborhood as
a destination location. Finally, at the more macro-level of the city, Chinese
signage ups the status of Chinatown as an interesting neighborhood in a
‘city of neighborhoods’(one of Washington DC’s current marketing
slogans), thus helping Washington DC to compete against other cities for
tourist, leisure and business dollars.
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Conclusion
Not all neighborhoods are targeted for economic development,
promoted as tourist destinations, or even paid much attention by public
or private institutions or investors. Nonetheless, all cities and neighbor-
hoods have a relationship with the municipal bodies that govern them.
Whether that relationship is one of regulation, investment, suppression,
negotiation or neglect, it has a bearing on the ways that social actors are
encouraged or discouraged, desire, or are able to write (on) the
landscape. To understand that writing, we need to know the backstory
of how it came into being, and of the interests that constrained or enabled
the form that the urban landscape ultimately takes.
In this chapter, we have stressed the role of socioeconomic and
political forces shaping contemporary urban landscapes, and we have
argued that material manifestations of language work in conjunction
with other elements of the built environment to create particular kinds of
urban places. As we have shown, language is a visual index of ethnicity
that, when linked to various products, places and experiences, con-
tributes to the commodification of culture typical of the symbolic
economy. Inscribed on storefronts, for sale on souvenirs and hanging
from ornamental banners that line the streets, written language is
anchored to territory and becomes a vehicle both for the spatialization
of culture and the commodification of space.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Hai Zhang for his Starbucks photograph,
Aurelio Rı
´os Rojas for his help with Arabic translations, and Xu Huafang,
Ben Kao, Hai Zhang and Weili Zhao for their help with Chinese
translations.
Notes
1. For more on space and place theory, see Low and Lawrence-Zun˜ iga (2003)
and Cresswell (2004).
2. For in-depth analyses of Chinatown’s LL see Leeman and Modan (2009), Lou
(2007 and this volume). The Chinatown examples included in this chapter are
drawn from Leeman and Modan (2009), where details regarding data
collection, coding and analysis are provided.
3. Although occasionally the products marketed are locally produced such as
local crafts or baked goods more commonly the production sector where
goods are produced is not part of the local economy. For example, the
majority of Washington DC’s tourist trinkets are made in China.
4. These may be translations or transliterations of a business’s name, or a
description of the products sold. In either case, they serve as a gloss for the
store name.
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