The City as “Dissonant” Fetish: Urban (Re)production, Gentrification, and the Conceptual Limits of Commodity Fetishism

This article exposes important conceptual limits to urban commodification in theorizing urban (re)production. We interrogate the concept of commodity fetishism—the process through which commodities come to be seen as performing the social and economic relations of their production in the marketplace—and argue that efforts to commodify the city for consumption generally produce a “dissonant fetish.” We examine urban commodity fetishism among...