Shopping Not The Answer?

Harvard historian Lizbeth Cohen reflects on the negative social implications of our contemporary consumer landscape.

1 minute read

December 12, 2002, 10:00 AM PST

In this New York Times opinion piece U.S. historian Lizbeth Cohen considers how federal policies since WWII encouraging consumer spending have contributed to social inequality: " The regional shopping centers became the quintessential retail structure to emerge in postwar America. In a remarkably short time, they displaced urban downtowns... By 1976, 78 percent of total department store sales took place in branch stores, most of them in shopping centers strategically located at highway exits and along the busiest thoroughfares in suburbia..."

Thanks to Matt Lasner

FULL STORY: Trying to Buy Our Way Out of Trouble

Wednesday, December 11, 2002 in The New York Times

Social / Demographics United States

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