Fantasy City

Following a wave of de-industrialization and cutbacks in public spending, American downtowns are reinventing themselves in the image of Disneyland and Las Vegas. Fantasy City looks at the changing face of the city and what it means for its citizens and for the future of urban development.

America's central cities more and more begin to resemble theme parks. While this appears to have brought a new energy and hope to the urban landscape, it has yet to deliver an economic miracle to the surrounding residents and merchants. Local communities struggle to maintain their distinctiveness even as they embrace the commercial fantasies offered by global entertainment companies. John A. Hannigan shows how the growth of the fantasy city reflects an ongoing search for risk-free mass entertainment by middle-class consumers.

By discussing examples from a wide variety of venues, including casinos, malls, heritage developments and theme parks, Hannigan traces the rise of urban entertainment at the beginning of this century, its decline after World War II to its surprising renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s. He offers provocative insights into urban development from structuralist, cultural and constructionist perspectives. By drawing on extensive material from business, cultural studies and urban planning, he shows that the growth of the fantasy city signals not only the arrival of a new urban space, but also the eventual destruction of the "inner city".