Postindustrialization and the City of Consumption

Abstract

Asbury Park, New Jersey, flourished as a seaside destination from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. Middle- and working-class visitors from New York to Philadelphia frequented the city’s hotels, commercial amusements, and beach. During the 1960s and 1970s, as with many cities across the country, Asbury Park experienced physical and socioeconomic decline. Over the past three decades, a range of public and private actors have made several attempts at postindustrial renaissance, including privately funded waterfront redevelopment, music tourism–based historic preservation, and renovation and gentrification led by a largely gay and lesbian population. While Asbury Park’s revitalization continues today, the varied outcomes of these disparate processes suggests the significance of multiple small-scale, locally rooted investments to the postindustrial city’s sustained growth and resilience. In complement to the substantial attention scholars have paid to the mid- to large-sized cities of industrial production, Asbury Park’s story also illustrates the significance of cities of consumption—both big and small—to the history of postindustrial revitalization.