DescriptionThis dissertation looks at the transformation of 14th Street, New York, from a bargain mecca into a lifestyle destination over a thirty-year period during which the city as a whole experienced massive socioeconomic and political transformation. It looks at neighborhood level changes (business and demographics) and examines local planning initiatives and places them into the city’s socioeconomic and political contexts. In doing so it advances two main arguments: first that the transformation of Fourteenth Street was part of a larger process of neoliberal restructuring that was taking place in the city, one that prioritized and legitimized property-based interests at the expense of the interest of other socioeconomic groups, and second that retail change far from being a side-effect, was an integral component of it.