New York City

¶ … Sharon Zukin's Whose Culture? Whose City? My visit to Times Square confirmed that Sharon Zukin's characterization about the corporate domination of the landscape is quite accurate. First, virtually everything imaginable is associated with one corporate entity or another, as hardly any physical surface other than the asphalt of the streets is covered with corporate logos. From below eye-level to as high as one can look up at buildings, there are advertisements beckoning people to buy luxury goods, entertainment tickets, clothing brands, and every type of food fare in existence.

Even the taxi cabs are festooned with endless advertisements, in high-tech format like television screens atop their roofs as well as inside facing riders as soon as they enter the passenger compartments. Without looking at street signs and well-known landmarks it might be difficult to know whether you are in New York City of Las Vegas, because the amount of flashing neon lighting is similar these days. Moreover, there also seems to be a deliberate attempt to appeal to shoppers and tourists of every socioeconomic level.

For bargain hunters, there are two-for-one deals and early-bird specials at restaurant after restaurant, and happy hours at every bar and nightclub. For the more adventurous (or "seedy," depending on your point-of-view), there are individuals handing out discount cards at every corner advising lucky prospective patrons of half a dozen nearby "gentlemen's" clubs that admission is free with the presentation of the "VIP" card and that "lap dances" can also be had two for the price of one, just like virtually everything else being hawked nearby.

Possibly, Zukin's most accurate characterization is that the goods and services being advertised in and around Times Square, wherever the eye falls are designed to appeal to potential consumers of every ethnic and racial and cultural group as well. There are signs advertising foods in English and Spanish as well as in various different Asian languages.

Some of the signage associated with them actually depict the exact customers they apparently hope to attract to their establishments: single young African-American and Hispanic people in groups, middle aged Caucasian couples and small parties dressed in fashionable expensive-looking clothing, and attractive single-looking young men and women probably hoping to meet their respective counterparts.

On one hand, Times Square advertising certainly seems like an "equal opportunity" venture in that there is not a single imaginable demographic group not represented in advertising and other commercial imagery that is everywhere in Times Square. On the other hand, one could make the argument that it is less a matter.