Commerce as the Structure and Symbol of Neighborhood Life: Reshaping the Meaning of Community in Venice, California

Abstract

Abbot Kinney Boulevard is a central commercial artery that serves as the structure and symbol of neighborhood life in Venice, a coastal community in Los Angeles. In recent years, the street has become an upscale commercial scene made up of independently owned, small–scale shops and restaurants. New residents and merchants work to preserve this new “anticorporate” commercial culture as an authentic version of community life, labeling its distinct identity as “Brand Venice.” Commerce generates community vitality, but this article raises the question, whose definition of community? The construction of a neighborhood brand has consequences. Building on over 3 years of ethnographic and historical research, this article shows how local actors set Abbot Kinney Boulevard on a course of economic transformation by reshaping the meaning of community in such a way that now excludes long–time, lower–income residents who define the new neighborhood identity as an inauthentic version of Venice community life.