Concrete Babylon: Life Between the Stars: To Dwell and Consume (with)in the Fold(s) of Hollywood, CA

In this paper, we utilize Martin Heidegger's notion of dwelling and juxtapose it with an examination of touristic consumption in order to elucidate the effects the consumption of place has on the lives of those directly involved—tourists and residents. Hollywood, California, serves as the empirical focus of this study. Here, we discuss how a popular imagination—fueled by an assemblage of emotion, thought, and perception—has come today to dominate the purpose(s) and trajectories of this space/place. To illustrate this, we show how recent gentrification projects—particularly the entertainment and shopping complex we call Concrete Babylon—attempt to actualize and validate this imagination through building(s) for consumption to the detriment of dwelling; the politics, ethics, and real-life effects of which are often largely overlooked or simply ignored.