UB sociologist links theming of America to decline of cities

By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Director

Whether city dweller or suburbanite, these environments increasingly characterize our daily lives. We eat in the franchised world of fast food outlets or in theme restaurants, shop in "galleria"-style malls and vacation at theme parks and attractions.

This preoccupation with themed environments is due in large part because these spaces provide the type of pedestrian urban experience that in the past was found in cities, a UB sociologist maintains.

In his new book, "The Theming of America: Dreams, Visions and Commercial Spaces" (Westview Press, 1997), Mark Gottdiener, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at UB, contends that these themed environments are selling an experience that for many is lacking due to the decline of cities, and reflects the increasing competition among commercial spaces for consumer dollars.

The book is the first to explore comprehensively the origins, nature and future of themed spaces.

"Airports, malls, theme parks, casinos all offer the same kind of experience ­ being a pedestrian, a walker in an urban milieu with others in a crowd" ­ that was once freely available in the downtown sections of most American cities, Gottdiener says.

But as popular as themed environments have become, they never will take the place of a bustling urban center, he adds.

"Our themed environments are only limited substitutes for the kind of rich public spaces that are nurtured in a healthy society with open cities and a strong public sphere of action," he writes.

The book also raises concerns "about the way in which the needs of consumption now dominate society and how they negatively affect our culture," he says.

He offers several theories to explain why Americans have such a strong need for themed environments:

­ Commercial establishments need a theme to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive business environment. Although the products that are being sold ­ such as food and gambling ­ are essentially the same, each restaurant or casino must have a theme to attract customers, he says.

­ Environments must entertain, as well as sell merchandise. Walt Disney pioneered the concept during the 1950s when he built Disneyland, and that park has provided the inspiration for the multitude of others to follow, Gottdiener says, adding that it also has influenced malls, such as the Mall of America outside Minneapolis, and museums such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

"The Disney vision has had a great effect on the construction of tourist spaces all over the globe," he says.

­ People find thematic environments entertaining and enjoyable. "Las Vegas and Disney World are the world's top tourist attractions," he says.

In the book, Gottdiener provides historical context for this present-day obsession.

In the earliest civilizations, everyday life was "over endowed" with symbols and themes, most of which were derived from religious and cosmological ideas, he says. This use of symbolism progressed to a period in early industrial society when the social use of themes in the environment was discouraged, he says. Later, the modernism movement minimized the use of symbols, he adds.

But the extensive use of themes crept back into society during the 1960s with the development of consumerist values and their associated social institutions, such as advertising, mass marketing and the rise of the mass media, he says.

While the book examines the use of themes and symbols principally in commercial spaces, it also looks at museums, airports and educational and monumental architecture.

Gottdiener offers case studies of themed environments of everyday life, including restaurants, malls and even airports such as those in Pittsburgh and Denver, whose concourses have become mini shopping malls.

He also devotes a chapter to the Las Vegas casino and theme parks, themed environments that "depart from the everyday." As opposed to malls or restaurants, these spaces were constructed principally to entertain, with merchandising as a secondary function.

Las Vegas, he writes, "is an entire metropolitan area that is quite literally themed" and whose function is "the seduction of the consumer."

Individually, casinos possess separate themes "that reflect some desirable fantasy aspect of American culture," he writes.

Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino, for example, is designed as an immense Roman villa. The Mirage Hotel and Casino stands as a "tropical paradise," while the MGM Grand-the largest casino-hotel in the world-elaborates the theme of Hollywood glamour and movie memorabilia.

In examining theme parks, Gottdiener provides two examples: Disneyland, the granddaddy of all theme parks, and Dollywood. Dollywood is proof that the theme-park environment, as perfected by Disney, can be replicated in any setting-in this case Pigeon Forge, Tenn., he says.

The book also discusses cultural experiences that are not commercial enterprises, but have nonetheless become themed environments. Gottdiener calls the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.-the first successful "built environment that represents the unrepresentable." The concept has been copied in other memorials, such as the memorial to commemorate the Battle of Okinawa, and museums such as the Holocaust Museum in Washington, he says.

A UB faculty member since 1994, Gottdiener is an internationally known authority on urban and cultural studies. "The Theming of America" is his 10th book. He currently is conducting research for a book about Las Vegas.

PHOTOS BY MARK GOTTDIENER