A Disenchanted World

Ritzer's article talks about various corporations and such that glorify spending money and being "what's in." While reading this article, it really made me think about something that we talked about in my UPP101 course: tourist bubbles. Tourist bubbles are places created by a city to draw profit. For example, Chicago has Milennium Park and all of its various activities. There's also Navy Pier and the Magnificent Mile. All of these draw tourists from all over the country--and even the world--and the city profits from it. Furthermore, througout these locations, there are expensive restaurants and hotels. Since they are the ones offered in the area of the "bubble" those are the ones that tourists tend to stay in--which brings in more profits for the city. These "bubbles" are advertised and glorified making it seem as though they are what they city has to offer. Often times, tourists are so caught up in visiting all of the "tourist bubbles" that they tend to miss out on the real essence of the city--the neighborhoods, the "mom & pop" restaurants and stores, and everything else.
Ritzer's article talks of Cathedrals of Consumption, and I think this is where I made the connection. I guess I just never got that idea out of my head. Because now that I'm looking through it again, I'm realizing that he's talking about stores and malls and such. Either way, both ideas generally come down to this: their main goal is to make money--and lots of it. Places that sell items in bulk do so in order to charge higher prices and places make themselves glamorous so that people have to pay high prices to go there. It seems as though that's everyone's main motive in life these days: get rich quick.