Read Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community)

Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community)

John Joe Schlichtman

4.9/5 (16555 ratings)

Description:High Point, North Carolina, is known as the “Furniture Capital of the World.” Once a manufacturing stronghold, most of its furniture factories have closed over the past forty years, with production shipped off to low-wage countries. Yet as manufacturing left, the city tightened its hold on a biannual global exposition that serves as the world’s furniture fashion runway. At the High Point Market, visitors from more than one hundred nations traverse twelve million square feet of meticulous design. Downtown buildings—once courthouses, movie theaters, post offices, and gas stations—are now chic showroom spaces, even as many sit empty between each exposition.In Showroom City, John Joe Schlichtman applies an ethnographic lens to the global exposition’s relationship with High Point after it defeated rival Chicago in the 1960s and established itself as the world’s dominant furniture center. In recent decades, following trends in global finance, private equity firms were increasingly behind downtown High Point’s real estate transactions, coordinated by buyers far removed from the region. Then, in one massive transaction in 2011, a firm funded by Bain Capital purchased every major showroom building, and the majority of downtown real estate was under one owner.Showroom City is a story of exclusionary growth and unchecked development, of a city flailing to fill the void left by its dwindling factories. But beyond that Schlichtman engages the general lessons behind both High Point’s deindustrialization and its stunning reinvention as a furniture fashion, merchandising, and design node. With great nuance, he delves deeply to reveal how power operates locally and how citizens may affirm, exploit, influence, and resist the takeover of their community.REVIEWS“The claim to fame may be esoteric, but the story is, in a way, a timeless one..”—Sarah HolderBloomberg CItyLab“Undoing the decades of racial, cultural and economic decisions that led to the current state of affairs in High Point will not be easy. But learning how it got to where it is now is the book’s value to anyone who makes their living buying, selling and creating furniture—or even sending it to the landfill.”—Warren ShoulbergBusiness of Home“Showroom City is an engaging and important analysis of how a small city like High Point, North Carolina, became an urban node of globalization with architectural gravitas and specialized flows of commerce, mediated by regional and racial complexities.”—Saskia SassenColumbia University“High Point defies most urban assumptions, classifications, and labels. Throughout his book, John Joe Schlichtman intersperses insights from his many interviews…with insights from the scholarly literature…”—Katrin B. AnackerJournal of Urban Affairs“Perhaps the most radical reconfiguration from High Point is the capacity to alter the meaning of time. . . . Here in High Point, there is showroom-time; it changes not only what goes on during Market weeks but also life tempo in preparing for those weeks, much of it backstage where materials are assembled and arrangements worked out. In the downtime the emptiness, as Schlichtman testifies, astonishes.”—Harvey Molotchfrom the Foreword“Showroom City is a fascinating study of the unique city of High Point and how the city came to be the ‘Furniture Capital of the World’…The in-depth study of High Point, NC, makes the reader consider how communities are shaped, grow and evolve, and how a community chooses to relate to the outside world, both locally and at large.”—Kathleen ParrottJournal of Family & Consumer Sciences“Part local history, part personal journal, part urban planning analysis and critique, Showroom City for the most part is easy reading, filled with voices of High Point residents. It is a story with only a handful of identified good guys—both men and women—and many everyday people who see the downtown as in the grips of largely impersonal, international forces they don’t understand.”—Guy LucasHigh Point Enterprise"High Point, North Carolina offers a fascinating glimpse into how cities have adapted to deindustrialization … [Showroom City] not only chronicles this unique place but produces a fresh understanding of how cities operate and, more important, how that can change."— Furniture WorldWe have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community). To get started finding Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community), you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: —

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: —

Release: —

ISBN: 0816699313

Description: High Point, North Carolina, is known as the “Furniture Capital of the World.” Once a manufacturing stronghold, most of its furniture factories have closed over the past forty years, with production shipped off to low-wage countries. Yet as manufacturing left, the city tightened its hold on a biannual global exposition that serves as the world’s furniture fashion runway. At the High Point Market, visitors from more than one hundred nations traverse twelve million square feet of meticulous design. Downtown buildings—once courthouses, movie theaters, post offices, and gas stations—are now chic showroom spaces, even as many sit empty between each exposition.In Showroom City, John Joe Schlichtman applies an ethnographic lens to the global exposition’s relationship with High Point after it defeated rival Chicago in the 1960s and established itself as the world’s dominant furniture center. In recent decades, following trends in global finance, private equity firms were increasingly behind downtown High Point’s real estate transactions, coordinated by buyers far removed from the region. Then, in one massive transaction in 2011, a firm funded by Bain Capital purchased every major showroom building, and the majority of downtown real estate was under one owner.Showroom City is a story of exclusionary growth and unchecked development, of a city flailing to fill the void left by its dwindling factories. But beyond that Schlichtman engages the general lessons behind both High Point’s deindustrialization and its stunning reinvention as a furniture fashion, merchandising, and design node. With great nuance, he delves deeply to reveal how power operates locally and how citizens may affirm, exploit, influence, and resist the takeover of their community.REVIEWS“The claim to fame may be esoteric, but the story is, in a way, a timeless one..”—Sarah HolderBloomberg CItyLab“Undoing the decades of racial, cultural and economic decisions that led to the current state of affairs in High Point will not be easy. But learning how it got to where it is now is the book’s value to anyone who makes their living buying, selling and creating furniture—or even sending it to the landfill.”—Warren ShoulbergBusiness of Home“Showroom City is an engaging and important analysis of how a small city like High Point, North Carolina, became an urban node of globalization with architectural gravitas and specialized flows of commerce, mediated by regional and racial complexities.”—Saskia SassenColumbia University“High Point defies most urban assumptions, classifications, and labels. Throughout his book, John Joe Schlichtman intersperses insights from his many interviews…with insights from the scholarly literature…”—Katrin B. AnackerJournal of Urban Affairs“Perhaps the most radical reconfiguration from High Point is the capacity to alter the meaning of time. . . . Here in High Point, there is showroom-time; it changes not only what goes on during Market weeks but also life tempo in preparing for those weeks, much of it backstage where materials are assembled and arrangements worked out. In the downtime the emptiness, as Schlichtman testifies, astonishes.”—Harvey Molotchfrom the Foreword“Showroom City is a fascinating study of the unique city of High Point and how the city came to be the ‘Furniture Capital of the World’…The in-depth study of High Point, NC, makes the reader consider how communities are shaped, grow and evolve, and how a community chooses to relate to the outside world, both locally and at large.”—Kathleen ParrottJournal of Family & Consumer Sciences“Part local history, part personal journal, part urban planning analysis and critique, Showroom City for the most part is easy reading, filled with voices of High Point residents. It is a story with only a handful of identified good guys—both men and women—and many everyday people who see the downtown as in the grips of largely impersonal, international forces they don’t understand.”—Guy LucasHigh Point Enterprise"High Point, North Carolina offers a fascinating glimpse into how cities have adapted to deindustrialization … [Showroom City] not only chronicles this unique place but produces a fresh understanding of how cities operate and, more important, how that can change."— Furniture WorldWe have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community). To get started finding Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community), you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Special Offer | $0.00

Special Offer! | $0.00

Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community)

Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World (Globalization and Community)

More Books

Gentrifier

Gentrifier

Introduction to Sociology: A Collaborative Approach

Introduction to Sociology: A Collaborative Approach