Page 39 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Place, Space, and Geography 23

was a resort destination in the late nineteenth century. Most do not possess
cars, and they take buses out into the countryside where the casinos are
located. One of them, a Hispanic woman who is a single mother of three
children, works the night shift while her children are sleeping. There is no
sense here, as in the Borough, of easy wealth and of leisurely living. The
poverty of the city affects the ability of the school district to hire good
teachers, and it also erodes the ability of parents to provide a culturally
nurturing environment for their children. Some enter the local illegal
economy of drugs, and some end up in prison or get murdered. Because
the physical landscape has been allowed to become eroded by shopkeepers

who fled to the new mall outside town or by landlords who have no incen-
tive to invest their earnings in maintaining the buildings they own, the feel
of many parts of the city is depressing. The vitality that one feels in a com-
mercial culture of small shops in a place like Mystic is not present, and few
people other than the homeless and the unemployed are to be seen on the
streets during the day. One of the busiest parts of town is the Court House
where small claims cases are heard, a symptom of an economic situation
in which scarce resources lead to fi ghts over their distribution.
While a landscape can be read as a text and interpreted for its embedded
meanings, it is also a place where power relations assume physical exist-
ence. Beyond Mystic, further out into the water, is Mason ’ s Island. It was
the reward given to John Mason, the man who led the massacre of the
Pequots. A few middle - class people live there, but mostly it is the home of
doctors and owners of car dealerships and landscape architects. It is a place
of great physical beauty; the houses are far apart and all well designed; it
is hugged by the water on all sides. The experience of being there can be a
relief from the Mystic crowds. But it is a gated community. Not everyone
is allowed to enter, and a guard gate keeps out those who do not have an
“ M ” on their windscreen. That exclusion and that “ exclusiveness ” foster a
sense of being in a community of equally wealthy people apart from the
common lot. One can count on one ’ s friends to be roughly in the same
income bracket as oneself, especially at the yacht club where so much of
the island ’ s community life occurs. That personal feeling embodies what
are called class relations , the difference between social groups as that is
tallied by wealth held and income earned. By controlling the pricing and
wage - setting mechanism of the unregulated market economy, the wealthy
inhabitants of the island assure that they will take more of the total social
resources than others. Those others in turn will have to make do with less
income and live in places that are much less beautiful – in Mystic or the