Get Rich or Die Trying

The city of Dongguan is configured as a series of satellite towns adapted from the Garden City model, which all surround a historic sector, “but each village is also…given an asset” (Smith,291). The notion of dispersing a city into fragments which all seem to revolve around a central historic core, yet each individual fragment receives an ‘asset’, becomes a fascinating way to promote wealth into an entire city. This closely relates to Bauman’s views on the aesthetic of consumption as he notes, “they [consumers] need to constantly be exposed to new temptations in order to be kept in a state of constantly seething, never wilting excitation and, indeed, in a state of suspicion and disaffection” (Bauman, 26). It becomes apparent that Dongguan uses the satellite, Garden City model, to not only disperse inhabitants of the city, but more importantly to keep the whole city economically active by not secluding certain areas, and seemingly making no one place more important than the next. Through this condition, every satellite is capable of ‘enticing’ consumers, which according to Bauman becomes the most important aspect of a consumer market. After realizing the continuity in the work of both Bauman and Smith, it becomes hard to ignore the effect Destiny USA will have on New York State, and America as whole. Could Destiny serve as a model for malls [cities] to come, or is Destiny just another ‘enticement’ in which consumers are supposed to be tempted for some time and then move on to the next? It is interesting to put Destiny on the level of Dongguan, because it not only becomes just another ‘asset’ to upstate New York, but internally creates a city of its own where a whole new level of temptations reveal themselves.