What does City mean?

Kotkin laments the loss of the middle class in San Francisco, and reads its loss as the result of the growth of upscale bars and boutiques - the ephemeral city. Cities are definitely changing, isn't that why we're spending time writing about them? This romanticized lamentation, though, seems to be a moot point.

John King answers back, reading the shifting city as just another evolution in urban development. He's not accepting it as good necessarily - he just notes the change as complex and stimulated by factors beyond the city's boundaries.

"Take the loss of dockworkers: Burly laborers weren't chased from the waterfront by the folks running that silly caviar bar at the Ferry Building; they're the victims of the shipping industry's shift from loose cargo to sealed containers in the 1960s."

And ephemerality? I can't think of another institution pushing ephemerality more to the middle class than those national chain theme restaurants and stores that you see everywhere not in cities throughout the United States. Applebee's, Pizza Hut, Ruby Tuesdays, TGIFriday, Outback Steakhouse, Starbuck's - the list goes on and one. Our nation's landscape has become eerily recognizable anywhere you go.

At least the city's restaurants - theme parks, if you must - are more human-made, and not so dominated by the projection of a single culture defined by corporations.

Also see theboxtank's comments.