Consumption and Urban Culture

Abstract

The drive for ever-increasing and differentiated consumption opportunities to allow people to construct new lifestyles became, for some analysts, the defining characteristic of urban life towards the end of the twentieth century. The new millennium began with a series of parties and events emphasizing the hedonistic, spectacular and playful character of the social world and contemporary urban life. From the first sunrise parties of the new millennium to the jet setters trying to race the dawn around the globe to the celebratory festivals and events, the new millennium dawned with an array of consumption experiences. For many analysts and commentators, this was an indication that the central life interest in the twenty-first century would be based around consumption activity. These shifts have led to a debate about whether the old relationship between production and consumption, seen at the centre of modernist urban life, has now been reversed. Life will be determined by our access to, and use of, an ever-increasing range of goods and services, which will allow more individuation to develop. The consequence of this will be that social differentiation will be around issues of lifestyle and life course rather than work and employment. How we spend our money will be more significant than how we make it. New discourses of consumption have been drawn upon in the debate regarding urban consumption from the field of cultural and literary studies and cultural psychology. Such material has opened out the way to a consideration of a much wider set of processes than those contained within the previous rather productivist treatment of consumption (Featherstone 1991).