Why I am becoming an intellectual Marxist

This article from "The Mountain Press," based in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, "Past comes alive through Main Street Marketplace" demonstrates that the commodification of "authenticity" has an inexorable momentum.

From the article:

PIGEON FORGE - The developers of Main Street Marketplace intend to create a living postcard of America's small town past on 35 acres of the former Jake Thomas farm. As Michael McCall, president of Strategic Leisure Inc., sees it, the new attraction will evoke the best of a bygone world by providing shopping and dining in an interpretation of a small-town main street from the late 19th or early 20th century.

We've distilled it down to the essence of Main Street America," he said. "This is about giving Pigeon Forge the Main Street they don't have. What we've committed to bring to the market is a level of execution that may have not existed before.

"Where empty meadow currently exists, the developers plan to build about five entire city blocks. Walking down the street, shoppers will encounter archetypical buildings from the nation's urban past - such as a stables, a bank, an exchange, a train station and a post office. Architect/designer George Chang, who contributed to a redesign of Madison Square Garden in New York, has been the guiding hand in developing the visual look for the Pigeon Forge project...

The "Main Street" of Bowie Town Center in Maryland--no non-retail uses. No libraries, no churches, no non-profit organizations, no post office, no government offices, no schools. Just places to buy consumer goods, from branches of the same stores located in the same kinds of shopping districts everywhere else across the country.

Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Carytown, Richmond. Photo by Steve Pinkus.

The Green Trolley transports Shoppers between The Grove and Famers Market, Photo © Zeke Quezada.

(Text from Transit Rider.) Los Angeles has a streetcar line you may never have heard of. I am not talking about the lines run by MTA or even the San Pedro Red Car or Angels Flight. Off in Mid Wilshire, at the Farmers Market and The Grove shopping center is single battery powered car that shuttles over about a quarter mile (400m) of track. Unlike the San Pedro Red car, the streetcar itself is not a replica of anything in particular. Because there is only one car, there are no switches, sidings, or any other extra track work.

The Grove is a shopping center with stores that look like buildings dating from about 1900s to 1930s. The center of the shopping center is made up like a street complete with tracks set in bricks. The tracks continue west, crossing Gilmore Lane and ending at the Farmer's Market.