Selling Seattle: Representing Contemporary Urban America

by James Lyons

Starbucks, Microsoft, Amazon.com, World Trade Organization, the grunge music of such groups as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden -- all are synonymous with Seattle, Washington, as well as ubiquitous symbols of American culture. Selling Seattle is the first book to examine the impact of this city on contemporary culture and to account for the city's rapid rise to fame and influence over the last decade. Relying on current debates in various disciplines -- from urban geography and interrogations of economic and cultural globalization to cinema and media studies -- James Lyons looks closely at the city's representation in film, television, journalism, and literature to show how it became a symbol of urban desire and fantasy in the 1990s. Seattle's rise to prominence can be understood within the context of the city's fluctuating fortunes throughout its history. The Yukon gold rush of 1897 made the city an economic center, yet the aftermath of World War I and America's first general strike left the city in economic stagnation. Though it was a mixed success, the World's Fair endowed Seattle with a heightened profile, including those new icons of urban legibility, the Monorail and the Space Needle. Then grunge music on the one hand and such high-profile films as Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and Disclosure (1994) on the other, while sending seemingly contradictory messages, successfully sold the city as a vibrant, trend-setting urban locale. Such an unpredictable history, coupled with widescale economic and social restructuring in America's urban centers, underscores Lyons'argument that Seattle's ascent is linked to anxieties about the fate of the contemporary American city. From the land of opportunity to no-man's-land to media darling and urban mecca, Seattle is at once the quintessential American city and a city like no other. Selling Seattle is an eye-opening exploration for anyone seeking to understand the contemporary American city and the powerful trends that shape the urban landscape and its place in the popular imagination.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2004

About the author

James Lyons is associate professor of film studies at the University of Exeter.

Reviews

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but dense; reads like an academic thesis or research project (not surprising given the author is a university professor).

The subject is Seattle in the 1990's, a snapshot in time. Of interest to me because I moved to this city in 1991, the book's bulls-eye. The book was published in 2004, twenty years ago, but his narrow time slice probably helps keep the topic more focussed.

Lyons chooses half a dozen specific themes used by mass media in portraying the city during this time: technology, the northwest "great outdoors", "liveability", grunge music, and coffee houses. He illustrates many of his themes with quotes from magazine & news stories, films and TV shows of the time.

I was particularly struck by a couple of his observations: e.g. how Seattle appeared at the top of "liveable cities" listings, and how this was contrasted with "urban blight", "white flight" and other problems reported in other big US cities at the time. Coded language for the whiteness of Seattle. On the other hand, I did and still do feel that Seattle's walkable neighborhoods improve the town's "liveability", regardless of neighborhood's racial and ethnic mix.

His observation of the publicity granted to grunge music (white) over hip-hop (black) was also eye-opening for me.

In the chapter dealing with coffee (particularly Starbucks), Lyons states "...if the milieu in which gournet coffee emerged as a 'niche' market explains much, it still does not indicate why it should occur in Seattle..." (p. 147). The author totally misses the appeal of coffee in the climate of the Pacific Northwest -- interminable series of short gloomy cold grey days. Who wouldn't head to the nearest coffeehouse?

As a postscript, I'm curious why the author, a British film studies professor, selected Seattle as his subject. He is quite good at keeping personal bio details off the Internet.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating look at the various manners in which Seattle has been represented in various popular media.