M/C Journal, Vol. 14, No.

5 (2011) - 'zone'
Zones of Authentic Pleasure: Gentrification, Middle Class
Taste and Place Making in Milan
http://journal.media-
culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/427

Giovanni Semi

Introduction: At the Crossroad
Well, Ive been an important pawn [in regeneration], for instance,
changing doors and windows, enlarging them, eliminating shutters
and thus having big open windows, light [.] Then came the florist,
through a common friend, who was the second huge pawn who
trusted in this [.] then came the pastry shop. (Alberto, 54, shop
owner).
Alberto is the owner of Pleasure Factory, one of two upmarket restaurants in a
gentrifying crossroads area in northern Milan. He started buying apartments and
empty stores in the 1980s, later becoming property manager of the building where he
still lives. He also opened two restaurants, and then set up a neighbourhood
commercial organisation. Albertos activities, and those of people like him, have been
able to reverse the image and the usage of this public crossroad. This is something of
which all of the involved actors are well aware. They have "bet, as they say, and
somehow "won by changing peoples common understanding of, and approach to, this
zone.
This paper argues for the necessity of a closer look at the ways that place is produced
through the multiple activities of small entrepreneurs and social actors, such as
Alberto. This is because these activities represent the softer side of gentrification, and
can create zones of pleasure and authenticity. Whilst market forces and multiple public
interventions of gentrifications "hard side can lead to the displacement of people and
uneven development, these softer zones of authenticity and pleasure have the power
to shape the general neighbourhood brand (Atkinson 1830). Speaking rhetorically,
these zones act as synecdoche for the surrounding environment.
Places are in part built through the "atmosphere that consumers seek throughout
their daily routines. Following Gernot Bhmes approach to spatial aesthetics,
atmosphere can be viewed as the "relation between environmental qualities and
human states (114) and this relation is worked out daily in gentrified
neighbourhoods. Not only do the passer-bys, local entrepreneurs, and sociologists
contribute to the local making of atmosphere, but so does the production of the
environmental qualities. These are the private and public interventions aimed at
refurbishing, and somehow sanitising, specific zones of central neighbourhoods in
order to make them suitable for middle class tastes (Julier 875).
Not all gentrification processes are similar however, because of the unique influence of
each citys scalar rearrangements. The following section therefore briefly describes the
changes in Milan in recent times. The paper will then describe the making of a zone of
authentic pleasure at the Isola crossroads. I will show that soft gentrification happens
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through the making of specific zones where supply and demand match in ways that
make for pleasant living.
Milan, from Global to Local and Back
Milan has a peculiar role in both the Italian and European contexts. Its metropolitan
area, of 7.4 million inhabitants on a 12 000 km surface, makes it the largest in Italy
and the fifth in Europe (following Ruhr, Moscow, Paris and London). The municipal
power has been pushing for a long-term strategy of population growth that would
make Milan the "downtown of the overall metropolitan area (Bricocoli and Savoldi
19), and take advantage of scalar rearrangements, such as State reconfigurations and
setbacks. The overall goal of the government of Milan has been to increase the tax
base and the local governments political power. Milan also demonstrates the
entrepreneurial turn adopted by many global cities, evident in the amount of project-
based interventions, the involvement of international architecture studios ("La citt
della Moda by Cesar Pelli; "Santa Giulia by Norman Foster; "City-Life and "the Fair
by Zaha Hadid and David Libeskind), and the hosting of mega-events, such as the
Expo 2015.
The Milan growth machine works then at different scales (global, national, city-region,
neighbourhood) with several organisational actors involved, enormous investments
and heavy political struggles to decide which coalition of winning actors will ride the
tiger of uneven development. However, when we look at those transformations
through the lens of the neighbourhood what we see is the making of zones within the
larger texture of its streets and squares. This zone-making is similar to leopards spots
within a contained urban space, it works for some time in specific streets and
crossroads, then moves throughout the neighbourhood, as the process of gentrification
goes on.
The neighbourhood, which the zone of authentic pleasure Im describing occurs, is
called Isola (Island) because of its clustered shape between a railroad on the southern
border and three major roads on the others. Isola was, until the 1980s, a working-
class residential space with a strong tradition of left-wing political activism, with some
small manufacturing businesses and minor commercial activities. This area remained
quite removed from the overall urban development that radically shifted Milan towards
a service economy in the 1960s and 1970s. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, the
land price impacts of private activities and public policies in surrounding
neighbourhoods increasingly pushed people and activities in the direction of Isola.
Alberto explains this drift through the example of his first apartment:
Just look at the evolution of my apartment. I bought it [in the
1980s] for 57 million lira, I remember, then sold it in 1992 for 160,
then it was sold again for 200 000 euros, then four years ago for
250 000 and you have to understand that were talking about 47
square metres. If you consider the last price, 250 000, Ill tell you
that when I first came to the neighbourhood you could easily buy an
entire building with that money. The building at number five in this
street was entirely sold for 550 millions lira-you understand now
why Isola is a huge real estate investment, people like it, its central,
well served by the underground-well it still has to grow from a
commercial standpoint.
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This evolution in land prices is clear when translated into the price for square metre:
2.4 euros for square meter in 1985, 3.4 in 1992, 4.2 in 2000 and 5.3 in 2006. The
ratio increase is 120% in 20 years, demonstrating both the general boost in the
economy of the area and also what is at stake within uneven development.
What this paper argues is that parallel to this political economy dimension, which may
be called the "hard side of gentrification, there is also a "soft side that deserves a
closer attention. Pastry shops, cafs, bars, restaurants are as strategic as real estate
investments (Zukin, Landscapes 195). The spatial concept that best captures the
rationale of these activities is the zone, meaning a small and localised cluster of
activities. I chose to add the features of pleasure and authenticity because of the role
they play in ordinary consumption practices. In order to illustrate the specific
relevance of soft gentrification I will now turn to the description of the Isola crossroad,
a place that has been re-created through the interventions of several actors, such as
Alberto above, and also Franca and her pastry shop.
A Zone of Authentic Pleasure: Franca's Pleasure Corner
Were walking through a small residential street and arrive at a crossroad. We turn to
look to the four corners, one is occupied by a public school building, the second and
the third by upmarket restaurants, and the last by a "typical Sicilian pastry shop and
caf. We decide to enter here, find a seat and order a coffee together with a small
cassata, a cake made with sweet cheese, almonds, pistachios and candied fruit. While
we are experiencing this southern Italian breakfast at some thousand miles of spatial
distance from its original site, a short man enters. Hes a well renowned TV comedian,
best known for his would-be-magician gags. Everybody in the caf recognises him but
pretends to ignore his presence, he buys some pastries and leaves. Other customers
come and go. The shop owner, an Italian lady in her forties called Franca, approaches
to me and declares: "as you can see for yourself, we see elegant people here. In this
kind of neighbourhood it is common to see and share space with such "elegant and
well-known people, and to feel that a pleasant atmosphere is created through this
public display.
Franca opened the pastry shop three years ago, a short time after the upmarket
restaurants on the other corners. However, when we interviewed her she wasnt yet
satisfied with the atmosphere: "when I go downtown and come back, I feel depressed
. its developing but still has not grown enough . Isnt one of the classic rich places in
Milan-its kind of a weird place. Through these and other similar statements she
expressed a feeling of delusion toward the neighbourhood-a feeling on which shes
building her tale-that emerged in contrast to the kind of environment Franca would
consider more apt for her shop.
Francas a newcomer, but knows that the neighbourhood has been "sanitised. "It
really was a criminal area she states, using overtly derogatory terms just like they
were neutral: "riffraff for the customers of ordinary bars, "dull for the northern part
of the neighbourhood where "there even are kebab shops. In contrast she lists her
beloved customers: journalists, architects, two tenors, people working at the theatre
nearby, and the local TV celebrity described earlier. When she refers to the crossroad
she speaks of it as, "maybe the gem of the neighbourhood. At some point she
declares what makes her proud:
A place like this regenerates the neighbourhood-to be sure, if I ever
open a harbour bar Id attract riffraff who would discredit the place.
In short its not, to make an example, a club where you play cards,
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that bring in the underworld, noise, nuisance-here the customer is
the typical middle class, all right people.
The term "all right people reoccurs in several of Francas statements. Her initial
economic sacrifices, relative though if, as she says, shes able to open another shop in
a more central place ("we would like to become a chain-store), are now compensated
by the recognition she gets from her more polished clients. She also expresses a
personal satisfaction in the role she has played in the changes in Isola: "until now its
just a matter of personal satisfaction-of seeing, Ive built this stuff.
Francas story demonstrates that the soft side of gentrification is also produced by
individuals that have little in common with the huge capital investment that is at stake
in real estate development, or the chain stores that are also opening in the
neighbourhood. In one way, Franca is alone in her quest for regeneration, as most
entrepreneurs are. In another way, though, she is not. Not only is she participating in
the "upgrading together with other small business owners and consumers who all
agree on the direction to follow, thus building together a zone of authentic pleasure,
but she can also rely on a "critical infrastructure of architects, designers and
consultants (Zukin, Landscapes 202) that knows perfectly how to do the job.
With much pride in her interior design choices, Franca pointed out how her caf mixes
chic with classic and opposing them to a flashy and folk dcor. She showed us the
black-and-white pictures at the wall depicting Paris in the 1960s, the unique design
coffee machine model she owns, and the flower vases conceived by a famous designer
and filled by her neighbour florist. The colours chosen for the interior are orange, tied
to oranges-a typical product of Sicily, whereas the brown colour relates to the land,
and the gold is linked to elegance. The mixing of warm colours, Franca explained,
makes the atmosphere cosy. Where did this owner get all these idea(l)s? Franca relied
on an Italian interior design studio, which works at a global scale furnishing hotels,
restaurants, bars, shops, bathing establishments, and airports in New York, Barcelona,
Paris, and Milan. The architect with whom she dealt with let her "work together in
order to have an autonomous set of choices that match the brands offer. Authenticity
thus becomes part of the dcor in a systematic way, and the feeling of a pleasant
atmosphere is constantly reproduced through the daily routines of consumption.
Again, not alone in the regeneration process but feeling as if she is "on her own,
Franca struggles daily to protect the atmosphere shes building:
"My point is avoiding having kids or tramps as customers-I dont
want an indiscriminate presence, like people coming here for a glass
of wine and maybe getting drunk. I mean, this is not the place to
come and have a bianchino [cheap white wine]. People coming here
have a spumante, and behave in a completely different fashion.
The opposition between a bianchino, the cheap white wine, and the spumante is one
that clarifies the moral boundary between the targets of soft gentrification. In Italian
popular culture, and especially in the past, it was a common male habit to have
bianchino from late morning onwards. Bars therefore served as gendered public
spaces where common people would rest from working activities and the family
sphere. Franca, together with many new bars and cafes that construct zones of
authentic pleasure in gentrifying neighbourhoods, is trying to update this cultural
practice. The spumante adds a sparkling element to consumption and is branded as a
trendy aperitif wine, which appeals to younger tastes and lifestyles.
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By utilising a global design studio, Franca connects to global patterns of urban
development and the homogenising of local atmospheres. Furthermore, by
preferencing different consumption behaviours she contributes to the social
transformation of the neighbourhood by selecting customers. This tendency towards
segregation, rather than mixing, is a relevant feature here, since the Francas
favourite clientele are clearly "people like us (Butler 2469). Zones like the one
described above are thus places where uneven development shows its social,
interactive and public faade.
Pleasure and Authenticity in Soft Gentrification
The production of "atmosphere in a gentrifying neighbourhood goes together with
customers taste and preferences. The supply-side of building the environmental
landscape for a "pleasant zone needs a demand-side, consumers buying, supporting,
and appreciating the outcome of the activities of business people like Franca. The two
are one, most of the time, because tastes and preferences are linked to class, gender,
and ethnicity, which makes a sort of mutual redundancy. To put it abruptly: similar
people, spending their time in the same places and in a similar way.
As I have shown above, the pastry shop owner Franca went for mixing chic and classic
in her interior design. That is distinctiveness and familiarity, individualisation and
commonality in one unique environment. Seen from the consumers perspective, this
leads to what has been depicted by Sharon Zukin in her account of the crisis of
authenticity in New York. People, she says, are yearning for authenticity because this:
reflects the separation between our experience of space and our
sense of self that is so much a part of modern mentalities. Though
we think authenticity refers to a neighbourhoods innate qualities, it
really expresses our own anxieties about how places change. The
idea of authenticity is important because it connects our individual
yearning to root ourselves in a singular time and place to a cosmic
grasp or larger social forces that remake our world from many small
and often invisible actions. (220)
Among the "many small and invisible actions are the ones made by Franca and the
global interior design firm she hired, but also those done daily by her customers. For
instance, Christian a young advertising executive who lives two blocks away from the
pastry shop. He defines himself an "executive creative director [in English, while the
interview was in Italian]. Asked on cooking practices and the presentation he makes to
his guests, he declares that the main effort is on:
The mise en place-the mise en place with no doubt. The mise en
place must be appropriate to what youre doing. Sometimes you get
the mise en place simply serving a plateau, when you correctly
couple cheese and salami, even better when you couple fresh cheese
with vegetables or you give a slightly creative touch with some fruit
salad, like seitan with avocado, no? They become beautiful to see
and the mise en place saves it, the aesthetics does its job .
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Do you feel there are foods, beverages or consumption occasions
you consider not worth giving up at all?
The only thing I wouldnt give up is going out in the morning, and
having a cappuccino down there in the tiny pastry shop and having
some brioches while Im at the bar. Those that are not frozen
beforehand but cooked just in time and have a breakfast, for just
two euros, two euros and ten [.] cappuccino and fresh brioche,
baked just then, otherwise I cannot even think-if Im in Milan I
hardly think correctly-I mean I cant wake up really without a good
cappuccino and a good brioche.
Christian is one of the new residents that was attracted to this neighbourhood because
of the benefits of its uneven development: relatively affordable rent prices, services,
and atmosphere. Commonality is among them, but also distinctiveness. Each morning
he can have his "good cappuccino and good brioche freshly baked to suit his taste
and that allows him to differentiate between other brioches, namely the industrialised
ones, those "frozen beforehand. More importantly, he can do this by simply crossing
the street and entering one of the pleasure zones that are making Isola, there and
now, the new gentrified Milanese neighbourhood.
Zones of Authentic Pleasure
In this paper I have argued that a closer attention to the softer side of gentrification
can help to understand how taste and uneven development mesh together, to produce
the common shape we find in gentrified neighbourhoods. These typical urban spaces
are made of streets, sidewalks, squares, and walls, but also shop windows and signs,
pavement cafs, planters, and the street-life that turns around all of this. Both built
environment and interaction produces the atmosphere of authentic pleasure, which is
offered by local entrepreneurs and sought by the people who go there. Pleasure is a
central feature because of the increasing role of consumption activities in the city and
the role of individual consumption practices. I f we observe closely the local scale
where all of these practices take place, we can clearly distinguish one zone from
another because of their localised effervescence. Neighbourhoods are not equally
affected by gentrification. Internally specific zones emerge as those having the
capacity to subsume the entire process. These are the ones I have described in this
paper-zones of authentic pleasure, where the supply and demand for an authentic
distinctive and communal atmosphere takes place. Ephemeral spaces; if one looks at
the political economy of place through a macro lens. But if the aim is to understand
why certain zones prove to be successful and others not, then exploring how soft
gentrification is daily produced and consumed is fundamental.
Acknowledgments
This article draws on data produced by the research team for the CSS project `Middle
Class and Consumption: Boundaries, Standards and Discourses.
The team comprised Marco Santoro, Roberta Sassatelli and Giovanni Semi
(Coordinators), Davide Caselli, Federica Davolio, Paolo Magaudda, Chiara Marchetti,
Federico Montanari and Francesca Pozzi (Research Fellows). The ethnographic data on
Milan were mainly produced by Davide Caselli and by the Author. The author wishes to
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thank the anonymous referees for wise and kind remarks and Michelle Hall for editing
and suggestions.
References
Atkinson, Rowland. "Domestication by Cappuccino or a Revenge on Urban Space?
Control and Empowerment in the Management of Public Spaces. Urban Studies 40.9
(2003): 1829-1843.
Bhme, Gernot. "Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics.
Thesis Eleven 36 (1993): 113-126.
Bricocoli, Massimo, and Savoldi Paola. Milano Downtown: Azione Pubblica e Luoghi
dellAbitare. Milano: et al./Edizioni, 2010.
Butler, Tim. "Living in the Bubble: Gentrification and Its `Others in North London.
Urban Studies 40.12 (2003): 2469-2486.
Julier, Guy. "Urban Designscapes and the Production of Aesthetic Consent. Urban
Studies 42.5/6 (2005): 869-887.
Zukin, Sharon. Landscapes of Power. From Detroit to Disney World. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1991.
---. Naked City. The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. New York: Oxford
UP, 2010.
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