Soulless Cities: Ann Arbor, the Cutting Edge of Discipline: Postfordism, Postmodernism, and the New Bourgeoisie

Ann Arbor, Michigan's success as a postindustrial city reflects the massive shift toward knowledge-based economies and the ascendancy of a new bourgeoisie class of corporate and university knowledge brokers. Aside from high-tech commodities, however, the city and its attendant "aristocracy of innovators" must also produce the cultural narratives to legitimize and rationalize a new capitalism. This article explores how Ann Arbor's elite creates new stories that both inscribe the physical and social landscape with their triumph and act as weapons in the ongoing struggle to solidify a hegemonic project.