Branding cities - A social history of the urban lifestyle magazine

The author traces the emergence over the past 30 years of a new media genre in U.S. cities: the urban lifestyle magazine. With the shift in the primar y role of U.S. cities from production sites to consumption spaces after Wor ld War II, these magazines facilitated the branding of consumer-oriented ur ban imaginaries. Using New York Magazine, Atlanta Magazine, and Los Angeles Magazine as examples, the author shows how these "branded cities" changed over time, discursively reflecting and contributing to the socioeconomic re structuring of their namesake cities and the formation of a new urban middl e-class niche market.