The urban establishment

de Frederic Cople Jaher

In their ability to signify and evoke essential stages and forces in our past, cities are mythic as well as actual communities. To their own inhabitants and to outsiders, Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles embody different styles, accomplishments, and attitudes. No group has equaled the urban upper class in being conscious and proprietary of the symbolic aspect of metropolitan life and in developing, articulating, and projecting a unique and affirmative urban image. These privileged groups, assisted by local publicists and literati, have been largely successful in gaining acceptance - at home and abroad - for their versions of their class and city....Even unsympathetic observers, however, have conceded the attributes that these elites attached to themselves and their environs, although they have not always seen the traits as unmitigated virtues.