Sabir Khan

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Hyphen-Nation: Ethnicity along the Suburban Strip

Today the all-American narratives of (upward) mobility and assimilation are, as often as not, played out among the strip centers, drive-thrus, and outlet malls of suburban America. We see evidence of this shift in the 'tropicalization' (in Mike Davis' phrase) of the commercial strip: polyglot signage, ethnic restaurants, global markets, and foot traffic.

This new staging – of an America that is multiply hyphenated but whose vernacular landscape is uniform and homogenized – offers the possibility of tracking two trajectories against each other; the transformation of both a particular suburban type (through the ethnic make-over of ribbon retail) and of diverse immigrant communities (through various degrees of assimilation).

Ethnic retail strips and the populations they serve are perhaps the most visible markers of the new hyphenated-American communities that insist themselves into, and upon, the deracinated, one-size-fits-all landscape of mobility and convenience. Yet hidden behind their exotic visual overlay, or the business-as-usual banality of their design and development formulas, perhaps important social and physical negotiations are afoot.

A focus on the social and formal transformation of ribbon retail under immigrant pressure allows us t ask a number of questions about the cultural, financial, architectural, and planning models simultaneously at play in these made-over strip centers.

To list a few:

Type of transformation.
Are the changes cosmetic, adaptive, hybridized? Or do they present a mutation in the evolution of the suburban strip into something new? Are the transformations ethnic-specific (does the prehphen translate into spatial difference, for example?). Are there new programs and uses in the making? Does minority-majority translate into a whole new ball game (ethnic strip centers in areas that have passed the demographic tipping point open up another dimension)?

Mode of transformation.
Are the changes an aggregation of local, independent, decisions? Or are they systematic, reflecting cultural, real estate, or market values? Are there differences between strip centers rehabilitated y ethnic entrepreneurs and those developed from the ground up by ethnic developers, for example?

Scale of transformation.
Is the (potential) locus of change the interior space, the architectural shell, the definition of collective space, real-estate practices, or the site and landscape strategies? Or do the transformations begin to engage the formula and mechanisms trough which strip centers are developed, designed, and used?