The powerfully evocative chapters in Global Cities, Local Streets: Everyday Diversity from New York to Shanghai take you walking on the streets to be familiar with the various stories of shopkeepers, stakeholders and narratives of upscale and downscale urban formations in everyday lives of local shopping streets in six different cities. Sometimes as a tourist or just someone eyeing the merchandise, but mostly as a familiar neighbor, you will be appropriating the special but global taste of each public streetscape through the ethnographic data that the editors provide in the book. In this sense it is not inaccurate to say that Global Cities, Local Streets thus appeals not only to urban studies audiences, but also beyond an academic readership to public intellectuals. Divided into eight chapters with six case studies ranging from gentrification, globalization, market dynamics, immigration policy and rules governing real estate, role of local government in urban renewal and consumption, Global Cities, Local Streets intends to charter a path and define a role for local streets as critical ingredients in the cultural ecosystem that undergird cities’ sense of globality. In this sense, editors in Global Cities, Local Streets view local shopping streets as not simply about the exchange of money for goods and services, but extol these districts as spaces of where we experience everyday diversity. At the core of their framework lies a unique picture of how the course of gentrification and globalization manifested in the local streetscapes of New York, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Berlin, Toronto, and Tokyo and the lives of its residents. In broad terms, editors argue that there is a dilemma between being global and staying local because what makes a place global is its uniqueness, but then what makes this place vulnerable to standardization are the same forces that are brought by its global fame.

The powerfully evocative chapters in Global Cities, Local Streets: Everyday Diversity from New York to Shanghai take you walking on the streets to be familiar with the various stories of shopkeepers, stakeholders and narratives of upscale and downscale urban formations in everyday lives of local shopping streets in six different cities. Sometimes as a tourist or just someone eyeing the merchandise, but mostly as a familiar neighbor, you will be appropriating the special but global taste of each public streetscape through the ethnographic data that the editors provide in the book. In this sense it is not inaccurate to say that Global Cities, Local Streets thus appeals not only to urban studies audiences, but also beyond an academic readership to public intellectuals. Divided into eight chapters with six case studies ranging from gentrification, globalization, market dynamics, immigration policy and rules governing real estate, role of local government in urban renewal and consumption, Global Cities, Local Streets intends to charter a path and define a role for local streets as critical ingredients in the cultural ecosystem that undergird cities’ sense of globality. In this sense, editors in Global Cities, Local Streets view local shopping streets as not simply about the exchange of money for goods and services, but extol these districts as spaces of where we experience everyday diversity. At the core of their framework lies a unique picture of how the course of gentrification and globalization manifested in the local streetscapes of New York, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Berlin, Toronto, and Tokyo and the lives of its residents. In broad terms, editors argue that there is a dilemma between being global and staying local because what makes a place global is its uniqueness, but then what makes this place vulnerable to standardization are the same forces that are brought by its global fame.