VIRTUAL: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

Placed within the context of social change in London, this paper brings attention to the urban social elite amid growing inequality in the city. The discussion aims to contribute to studies of elites that have challenged notions of the death of class, and made evident the significance of class analysis in understanding the social structures of our cities in the contemporary period. In this study, it is the visual markers of social class that are of interest, and the relationship between the growth of an urban elite and their concentration in specific areas of the city which are recognisable through the distinctive visual grammar of their neighbourhoods; the facades of their residences and the prettified spaces and places of leisure. The paper examines the visual techniques of the localities of the top levels of social class that invite a touristic gaze and have been adopted and utilised by tourism promotional media to construct a visual language of London. Visual and textual analysis of Condé Nast Traveller’s 2017 feature on London, published in the magazine’s 20th anniversary issue, will be the focus of the discussion. Semiotic analysis will be used to examine the seven-page account of the ways in which London was changing. I aim to articulate the visual aesthetics that are constructed to produce a specific meaning of London, brought about by creating a unified style of architectural design and interior design as cultural productions that communicate gentrification and visually represent London as a ‘pretty’, suburbanized space, devoid of the varied histories, racial, cultural and social class contexts that have shaped and continue to be used to define and construct London as an expression of neoliberal capitalism.