Citation

Centner R. City Community 2008; 7(3): 193-223.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Section on Community and Urban Sociology, American Sociological Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1540-6040.2008.00258.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Drawing from interviews and fieldwork with former dot-com workers in San Francisco, this article examines how their spatialized consumption practices formed exclusionary places of privilege during the city's millennial boom of internet companies. I focus especially on the personalized deployment of uneven social power in situations where space is at stake. After considering how this group differed from a history of other urban newcomers, I develop a framework for addressing their spatial effects as gentrification involving privileged consumption practices that surpass residential encroachments. I argue there is an exertion of spatial capital that represents the misrecognition of territorial claims, enabling this cohort to literally take place. I show this through several consumption practices that convert to and from economic, cultural, and social capital. A concluding discussion reflects on the usefulness of this case and framework for reinvigorating key urban-sociological analytics while confronting influential but unsociological characterizations of contemporary city life.