Come Downtown & Play

Abstract

The newly anointed American cities of the late capitalist moment appear preoccupied with the reconstitution of urban space. More accurately, select parcels of urban America have been reconfigured into multifaceted sport, leisure and tourism environments designed for the purpose of encouraging consumption‐oriented capital accumulation. Within this paper, the focus is a critical exploration of the ways in which tangible and intangible forms of heritage have been employed, utilized and exploited within these urban transformations. Through focus on a city emblematic of the processes that have molded downtown cores under US capitalism – Memphis – the paper points to the role of heritage in the reconfiguration of the Memphian ‘tourist bubble’. In particular, discussion centers on the often problematic selection of histories and historical elements, forms and practices within the interests of capital space and thus raises a host of localized questions about whose collective memory is being performed in the present, whose aesthetics really count and who benefits. Conclusions address how such urban space is imbued with power relations, that is, how increasingly leisure‐oriented spaces can be seen as important sites of social struggle in which dominant power relations can be constructed, contested and reproduced.

Keywords:

• late capitalism
• urban space
• heritage
• power struggles

Notes

1. In the recently published interview with Alan Tomlinson (2006), Tomlinson reviews and assesses interrelationships between leisure studies, cultural studies and sport studies. Like Tomlinson, and given the economic, political and cultural imperatives of our present, I would position myself, albeit somewhat flexibly, at the boundaries or intersections of these fields.

2. For example, the nationally recognized and copied homeless and mental health program (Crisis Intervention Team), and public housing initiatives (such as the transformation of Le Moyne Gardens from a derelict and evacuated community to one in which there will be increased public space and a reduction of housing by 25% and the new, Belz built, Hurt Village and Lauderdale Courts which will provide a portion of its space [around 10%] to low income, tax credit apartments),

3. Of course, the ‘logic’ of accumulating sporting capital (with all the gendered, classed, racialized and sexual politics that this brings) does little to challenge feminist geographer’s claims that the man‐made environment is filled with images of macho men and sexually submissive women. Indeed, following Weisman (1992: p. 10), ‘man‐made space encodes and perpetuates white male power and superiority and inferiority of women and minorities’. The contestation and struggles over the construction of these facilities, as well as the governance and regulation of this space, are issues of import in their own right and form a central component of the overarching research project (see Silk, 2004; Silk & Andrews, 2006a–c).

4. Duncan Bell (2003) clearly distinguishes between memory and mythology. For Bell, memory is an under‐theorized and over‐used term that fails to recognize the difference between memory as an act of recall and in respect to the ways in which ‘memory’ is imposed through schools, art, music and so forth. Bell prefers the term myth here, a term he suggests conveys imposition, or active construction of certain representations of history. Clearly, memory and myth would not be mutually opposed and should not be considered as binary opposites; rather they could, at different levels, be mutually supportive, oppositional and (ir)relevant to diverse populations across temporal and spatial landscapes.

5. These retro‐style sporting properties offer an environment that not only encourages consumption (of sport, food, apparel, and souvenirs) but also builds upon heritage (no matter how false) as a (superficial) mark of differentiation (Bale, 1994; Hannigan, 1998; Friedman et al., 2004). The Pyramid, a visually extravagant, yet blatantly dysfunctional, stainless steel Pyramid Arena – the third largest pyramid in the world at 32 stories high, taller than the Statue of Liberty and the Taj Mahal, seated 21,000 during its time as an MBA/NCAA venue, and boasting half a million square feet of internal usable space – is a simulation of the Pyramid in Memphis, Egypt, complete with a faux Rameses statue. It is currently being redeveloped as a ‘consumption experience’ by outdoor retailer Bass Pro Shops.

6. The most overt example of the ‘stage‐set’ is Graceland, Elvis Presley’s former house, which attracts over 600,000 tourists each year. The experience is, quite literally, and if you’ll excuse the rather obvious pun, designed to feel as if Elvis has ‘just left the building’: the pool table with chalk and cues placed as though he had literally propped them there one minute before, the televisions in the basement playing his favorite shows, or his record collection, or desk accessories, all strategically placed to enhance the ‘feel’ of his former presence. However, plastic screens, ropes, prohibitive notices, and an interactive audio guide clearly demarcate and regulate visitors within this space, supplemented through the pathways that visitors must follow that meander through souvenir, restaurant and (‘official’ Pepsi) refreshment ‘opportunities’.

7. Kane (2004) provides an excellent account of King’s automortography – his account meanders through his own engagement with the Civil Rights Museum in which he goes back and forth in terms of seeing the site as a space of closure and as evidence of an unfinished history. His commentary on public reaction to the simulacrum of King’s coffee cup and the plastic catfish in King’s motel room suggests that the museum aids in creating a ‘melancholic public’ (p. 570). He suggests Jacqueline Smith’s protest exposes the mystification of the museum and extends the melancholy, yet, while he admires her commitment, suggests that we will not ‘exhibit’ it, that we could never be that committed, and that she lets the rest of us off the hook.

8. Although see Atwater and Herndon (2003) and to some extent Rushing (2004) for alternative experiential interactions with the National Civil Rights Museum.

9. This has certainly been the pathway I have taken in my recent work. Initially dazzled by all that the tourist bubble could offer, I have recently turned inwards, currently working on critical, reflexive autoethnography within the peripheries of urban glamor zones.