Alicia Barber
Reno's big gamble: image and reputation in the biggest little city
University Press of Kansas, 2008
艾丽西亚·巴伯
雷诺的豪赌：最大小城市的形象和声誉
堪萨斯大学出版社，2008 年
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Becoming “The Biggest Little City”
1. “In the Middle of a Frightful Plain”: The Quest for a Reputation
2. “A Frontier Post of Civilization”: Chasing Modernity in the Progressive Era
3. Selling Reno in the Consumer Age
4. “City of Sinful Fun”: Reno Hits the Mainstream
5. Big City Struggles in the Biggest Little City
6. A New Reno for the New Millennium
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
目录
致谢
简介：成为“最大的小城市”
1. “在可怕的平原中央”：追求名声
2. “文明的前沿”：在进步时代追逐现代化
3. 在消费时代销售雷诺
4. “罪恶的乐趣之城”：雷诺成为主流
5. 大城市在最大的小城市中挣扎
6. 新千年的新雷诺
结论
注释
参考书目
索引
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many have contributed, in ways both wonderfully broad andminutely focused, to my research and mental health as I wroteand endlessly revised this manuscript. Thanks to my academic mentors: the American Studies faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, especially Steven Hoelscher, Jeff Meikle, andMark Smith; Shelley Fisher-Fishkin at Stanford; and GuntherPeck at Duke. Martha Norkunas was and remains aninspiration. Cary Cordova, Danielle Sigler, Kim Hewitt, Joel Dinerstein, and Tim Davis sustained me and this projectthrough graduate school and beyond with their intellectual insights and friendship.
My research in Reno was eased through the expertise andgenerosity of the Nevada Historical Society’s Lee Brumbaugh, Eric Moody, Michael Maher, and Marta Gonzalez-Collins. In Special Collections at the University of Nevada–Reno, myheartfelt thanks to Bob Blesse and Kathy Totton. Nevada statearchivist Guy Rocha was enormously generous with time andmaterials, as were local experts Karl Breckenridge, Neal Cobb, Philip Earl, and Dennis Myers. I received critical input andfeedback from a number of current and former facultymembers at the University of Nevada–Reno, including JamesHulse, James McCormick, Bill Eadington, Tom King, and PaulStarrs. My colleagues at the university have been sources ofilluminating conversation and encouragement, especially JenHuntley-Smith and Jen Hill. Nevada Historical Society historycurator Mella Harmon began as a valuable research contactand has become a treasured friend and colleague. I could haveno better models for combining scholarly achievement withcompassionate leadership and teaching excellence than theremarkable Scott Casper, of the Department of History, and Phil Boardman, of the Core Humanities Program, both at the University of Nevada–Reno, where I feel enormously grateful tohave found a home.
At the University Press of Kansas, I owe Nancy Jackson anenormous debt for her early support of my manuscript andKalyani Fernando and Fred Woodward another debt for notgiving up on me. Lastly, there is a reason authors profusely thank their families in these acknowledgments; no one elsecould withstand the years of agonized conversations, thegnashing of teeth, and the sporadic fits of despair and manicinspiration. I thank my parents, Peter and Karen, my sister, April, and my brother, Thomas, for their support, insight, andassistance through the years. And finally, to Mark: I was“almost” finished with this book when we met, “practically”finished with it when we got engaged, and “nearly” finishedwith it when we married. With our second anniversary nowbehind us, I thank you for your patience, love, and supportand welcome the opportunity to demonstrate to you that I amactually sane.
Reno’s Big Gamble
致谢
在我撰写和不断修改这份手稿的过程中，许多人以广泛而细致的方式为我的研究和心理健康做出了贡献。感谢我的学术导师：德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的美国研究系，特别是 Steven Hoelscher、Jeff Meikle 和 Mark Smith；斯坦福大学的 Shelley Fisher-Fishkin；以及杜克大学的 GuntherPeck。Martha Norkunas 曾经是、现在仍然是我的灵感来源。Cary Cordova、Danielle Sigler、Kim Hewitt、Joel Dinerstein 和 Tim Davis 以他们的智慧见解和友谊支持着我和这个项目，让我从研究生院毕业并毕业后继续支持这个项目。
内华达历史学会的 Lee Brumbaugh、Eric Moody、Michael Maher 和 Marta Gonzalez-Collins 的专业知识和慷慨帮助我顺利完成了在里诺的研究。在内华达大学里诺分校的特别收藏中，我衷心感谢 Bob Blesse 和 Kathy Totton。内华达州档案保管员 Guy Rocha 慷慨地提供了大量时间和材料，当地专家 Karl Breckenridge、Neal Cobb、Philip Earl 和 Dennis Myers 也是如此。内华达大学里诺分校的许多现任和前任教员都对我提出了批评性的意见和反馈，其中包括 JamesHulse、James McCormick、Bill Eadington、Tom King 和 PaulStarrs。我在大学的同事们一直是我富有启发性的谈话和鼓励的来源，尤其是 JenHuntley-Smith 和 Jen Hill。内华达历史学会历史馆长 Mella Harmon 最初是一位宝贵的研究联系人，后来成为我珍贵的朋友和同事。在将学术成就与富有同情心的领导能力和教学卓越性结合起来方面，我找不到比内华达大学里诺分校历史系的杰出人物 Scott Casper 和核心人文学科项目的 Phil Boardman 更好的榜样了，我非常感激能在这里找到归属。
在堪萨斯大学出版社，我非常感谢南希·杰克逊早期对我手稿的支持，也非常感谢卡利亚尼·费尔南多和弗雷德·伍德沃德对我的不离不弃。最后，作者之所以在这些致谢中对他们的家人表示深深的感谢，是有原因的；没有人能经受住多年来痛苦的谈话、咬牙切齿、偶尔的绝望和狂躁的灵感。我感谢我的父母彼得和凯伦、我的妹妹艾普丽尔和我的兄弟托马斯多年来的支持、洞察力和帮助。最后，感谢马克：当我们见面时，我“几乎”完成了这本书，当我们订婚时，“几乎”完成了它，当我们结婚时，“几乎”完成了它。我们的两周年纪念日已经过去，我感谢你们的耐心、爱和支持，并欢迎有机会向你们证明我实际上是理智的。
雷诺的大赌注
INTRODUCTION
Becoming “The Biggest Little City”
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln
In June 1999, public radio personality Garrison Keillor visitedthe campus of the University of Nevada–Reno, for a livebroadcast of his popular variety show, A Prairie HomeCompanion. As usual when taking his show on the road, hebegan with a description of his host city’s history. Reno, Keillorintoned, “was a Western town, it was a mining town, it hadthe nickname of ‘Sin Central.’ . . . It was a place where youcould do things that were illegal elsewhere in America, whichseemed to be the function of Nevada then and now.” In fact,he claimed, Nevada “to this day, among all the lower forty-eightstates . . . is the least known, the least inhabited, the most wild,the most strange country that we have in America.” He thenventured an explanation for the city’s offbeat offerings: “Thegambling and the brothels and the liquor laws, the divorceindustry, the marriage industry, the boxing, all as I say serve auseful function in a Puritan society. Everybody needs a place togo to do things and to see things that you would not want tosee in your own hometown, and that’s Reno.” At these finalwords, the local audience erupted into enthusiastic applause,hoots, and laughter. As Keillor indicated, and as his listenerswell knew, Nevada is best known as a place for visitors toshed their inhibitions, their morality, and, somewhat lesswillingly, their paychecks. As orchestrated by generations ofwilling state legislators, it was no mistake that Nevada becamethe primary outlet for mainstream America’s suppressed desires.
1
That legacy was visible just blocks from where Keillor spokethat night, witnessed in the clamor of bells ringing out jackpots;in the barrage of quarters clanking into metal trays specificallyengineered to amplify the sound of each coin falling; in thestrains of rock music blaring from casino entrances wherebarkers called out to passersby; in the cocktails flowingtwenty-four hours a day; in the streams of people hurryingfrom casino to casino, clutching to their chests colorful plasticcups full of nickels and dimes; and in the blazing neon archproclaiming Reno as “The Biggest Little City in the World.”To most Reno residents, the city’s reputation as a decadentand even sordid tourist town is a source of bemusement aswell as frustration. Whether new arrivals or fifth-generationnatives, locals are intensely aware of outside impressions oftheir city. Most have a completely different experience of Renothan its predominant image would suggest. Despite the raucousappearance of its central tourist district, Reno has housed afairly conventional residential community since its founding in1868, growing to a population in the year 2007 of just over200,000, with approximately 400,000 living in the metropolitanarea. It may feature slot machines in the supermarkets andmore all-you-can-eat buffets per capita than the averageAmerican town, but Reno’s anomalies are far outnumbered bythe similarities of its residential neighborhoods, schools,churches, suburban developments, and playgrounds to those ofany other mid-sized city.
In recognition of this dichotomy, Nevada historian JamesHulse has described the city as consistently “schizophrenic,” splitbetween the “two Renos” of the casino landscape and therespectable university town, which operate in close proximity buton different planes.2 However, as distinctive as thesecommunities may seem, the division between the two has neverbeen so clear cut. Throughout its history, Reno’s residential andtourist landscapes have been closely integrated, sometimesoverlapping, and often inseparable. Even now, Reno’s citycenter does not cater to tourists alone. This, too, is a productof its history. Unlike the Las Vegas strip, which transitioneddirectly from desert to resort, Reno had more than sixty yearsunder its belt before the legalization of gambling in 1931 beganto transform its existing downtown into a gambling mecca.
简介
成为“最大的小城市”
性格就像一棵树，名声就像它的影子。影子是我们所想的，而树才是真正的树。
——亚伯拉罕·林肯
1999 年 6 月，公共广播名人加里森·凯勒 (Garrison Keillor) 来到内华达大学里诺分校，现场直播他的热门综艺节目《草原之家伴侣》。像往常一样，他在节目上首先介绍了他所在的城市的历史。凯勒说道，“里诺是一个西部小镇，一个矿业小镇，有‘罪恶中心’的绰号。……在那里，你可以做在美国其他地方非法的事情，这似乎是内华达当时和现在的职能。”事实上，他声称，内华达“直到今天，在美国本土 48 个州中……是全美最不为人所知、人口最少、最荒凉、最奇怪的地区。”然后，他大胆地解释了这座城市的另类之处：“赌博、妓院、酒类法律、离婚行业、婚姻行业、拳击，所有这些都在清教徒社会中发挥着有益的作用。每个人都需要一个地方去做一些你不想在家乡看到的事情，那就是里诺。”听到这些话，当地观众爆发出热烈的掌声、欢呼声和笑声。正如凯勒所指出的，也正如他的听众所熟知的，内华达州最出名的是游客们可以在这里摆脱压抑、道德，以及不太情愿地摆脱薪水的地方。在几代心甘情愿的州立法者的精心策划下，内华达州成为美国主流社会压抑欲望的主要出口，这绝非偶然。 1
凯勒当晚发表演讲的地方附近几个街区就可以看到这种遗产，从中奖铃声的喧闹声中可以看到；从硬币掉落的声音中可以看到；从赌场入口处传来的摇滚乐声中可以看到，那里的叫卖者向路人打招呼；从一天 24 小时供应的鸡尾酒中可以看到；从赌场之间匆匆而过的人群中可以看到，他们胸前紧紧抓着装满五分硬币和一角硬币的彩色塑料杯；从宣称里诺是“世界上最大的小城市”的耀眼霓虹灯拱门中可以看到。对于大多数里诺居民来说，这座城市作为颓废甚至肮脏的旅游城市的名声既令人困惑又令人沮丧。无论是新移民还是第五代本地人，当地人都非常清楚外界对他们城市的印象。大多数人对里诺的体验与其主要形象完全不同。尽管里诺的中心旅游区看起来喧闹不堪，但自 1868 年成立以来，它就一直是一个相当传统的住宅社区，2007 年人口增长到 20 多万，其中约 40 万人居住在大都市区。里诺的超市可能有老虎机，人均自助餐数量也比美国普通城镇多，但里诺的异常之处远远超过了它的住宅区、学校、教堂、郊区开发和游乐场，与任何其他中型城市都相似。
内华达州历史学家詹姆斯·赫尔斯 (JamesHulse) 认识到了这种二分法，称这座城市一直处于“精神分裂”状态，分为赌场景观和受人尊敬的大学城的“两个里诺”，它们虽然距离很近，但处于不同的层面。2 然而，尽管这些社区看起来各有特色，但两者之间的界限从未如此清晰。纵观里诺的历史，它的居住和旅游景观一直紧密结合，有时重叠，但往往密不可分。即使是现在，里诺的市中心也不仅仅是为游客服务。这也是其历史的产物。与直接从沙漠转变为度假胜地的拉斯维加斯大道不同，里诺在 1931 年赌博合法化开始将其现有的市中心转变为赌博圣地之前，已经发展了 60 多年。
Even today, just blocks away from Reno’s flashy casinos, oneencounters the county courthouse and city hall, a post office, aperforming arts center, a movie theater, the county library,independent bars and restaurants, and, since 1885, theUniversity of Nevada–Reno. The city’s current skyline featuresapartment buildings and office buildings, hotel and banktowers—all the structures of a residential community standingproudly alongside those of the tourist industry.
In this respect, Reno is not unlike many other contemporaryAmerican cities where tourist and residential spaces overlap andintertwine.3 In Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston, for instance,many components of the everyday urban landscape double aspopular features of the tourist experience, unlike a wide arrayof western resort towns that present more obvious distinctions,both economic and aesthetic, between the two. But the specificappearance of downtown Reno, with its neon facades andsouvenir shops, is certainly distinct. After all, a casino is a verydifferent attraction than San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district,Boston’s Faneuil Hall, or Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Unlikethese commercial landscapes, a casino district can seem lesscompatible with the desired attributes of a hometown, andbecause it is such a visible departure, the reputation of thatarea, Reno’s city center—or “epitome district,” to use GradyClay’s term—has long shaped common perceptions of the entirecity.4
Unfortunately for Reno, that reputation has frequently beenfar from positive. The image of the city as a site of escapistfun, as described by Keillor, is the most generous spin onReno’s role in American society. But the predominant opinionhas often been much less flattering. In 1999, as Keillor spoke,Reno’s gaming industry was clearly struggling, and the “dingy,desultory properties” of its downtown, as described by a casinoindustry commentator just one month earlier, reflected thefinancial strain.
时至今日，在距离里诺奢华赌场仅几个街区的地方，你就能遇到县法院和市政厅、邮局、表演艺术中心、电影院、县图书馆、独立酒吧和餐馆，以及自 1885 年以来的内华达大学里诺分校。这座城市目前的天际线以公寓楼和办公楼、酒店和银行大楼为特色——所有这些住宅社区的建筑都自豪地与旅游业的建筑并肩而立。
在这方面，里诺与许多其他当代美国城市并无不同，这些城市的旅游空间和住宅空间重叠交织。3 例如，在西雅图、旧金山和波士顿，许多日常城市景观的组成部分都是游客体验的热门特色，这与众多西部度假城镇不同，这些城镇在经济和审美方面都呈现出更明显的区别。但里诺市中心的具体外观，其霓虹灯外墙和纪念品商店，无疑是独一无二的。毕竟，赌场与旧金山的海特-阿什伯里区、波士顿的法尼尔厅或西雅图的派克市场有着截然不同的吸引力。与这些商业景观不同，赌场区似乎与家乡的理想属性不太相符，而且由于它是如此明显的背离，该地区——雷诺市中心——或用格雷迪·克莱的话来说“缩影区”——的声誉长期以来一直塑造着人们对整个城市的普遍看法。4
不幸的是，对于雷诺来说，这种声誉往往远非正面。正如凯勒所描述的那样，这座城市作为逃避现实的娱乐场所的形象是对雷诺在美国社会中扮演的角色最慷慨的描述。但主流观点往往不那么恭维。1999 年，正如凯勒所说，里诺的博彩业显然举步维艰，而一个月前一位赌场业评论员所描述的市中心“昏暗、杂乱的建筑”反映了财政压力。
5
A number of established casinos had closeddown in the past decade, some remaining boarded shut foryears with no plans for reopening. Souvenir and T-shirt shops, pawnshops, liquor stores, and a small but visible homelesspopulation lent a seedy quality to many central streets, causingcity officials understandable concern about Reno’s future as atourist destination.
At that time, a primary reason for the visible decline wasincreasing competition from other gaming destinations, the mostobvious, although not the most direct, being Las Vegas. Renomay once have been known as “Sin Central,” but it was longago surpassed in the national imagination by “Sin City,” itsupstart successor to the south. By the turn of the newmillennium, Las Vegas had set a standard of scale, fantasy, andopulence that no other gaming destination could begin toimitate. Even with some recent multimillion dollar additions tothe skyline, including an eighty-lane bowling stadium andVictorian-themed casino, Reno’s skyline could still in no waycompete with the excessive monuments of its downstateneighbor. Constrained by the spatial limitations of a preexistingresidential community, Reno’s casino core featured no rooftoproller coasters, no full-scale dueling battleships, nochoreographed dancing fountains or towering replicas ofEgyptian pyramids arrayed in an unbroken sequence to form asolid entertainment landscape.
More direct competition for Reno’s tourist attractions stemmedfrom the riverboat and Indian casinos emerging across thecountry, from the Pequot tribe’s Foxwood Casino Resort inConnecticut to the unlikely high-rise hotel casinos of Tunica,Mississippi, to the increasing number of Native American–runcasinos throughout the state of California. Faced with the cutting-edge technologies and marketing strategies of suchenterprises, most appearing since 1990, Reno seemed in dangerof dismissal as the relic of a previous generation. What hadworked for the city in an earlier era no longer appeared to be succeeding. By the end of the twentieth century, Reno haddeveloped the reputation of an also-ran at a time whenuniqueness was more than ever a tourist destination’s mostprized possession. Although representing a very small fraction ofthe city’s total area, the deteriorating casino district gave theentire city a bad name, prompting concern about its overallrespectability and inspiring the dismay of Reno’s residentialpopulation, as they witnessed the literal and figurative batteringof their hometown.
But the explanation for Reno’s fraying reputation involvedmore than the relatively recent factors of economic competitionand aesthetic decline. Indeed, the process by which a placedevelops a reputation is gradual and complex. Civic reputation,the governing impression of a city or town from the outside, isjust one factor in the creation of place identity, a concept thathas at least two other components: the sense of place asexperienced by residents and the promoted image asdisseminated by city marketers.
Sense of place has been widely discussed in literary andenvironmental circles, as writers from Wallace Stegner to AnnieDillard and Wendell Berry have described and eloquentlyexplored the attachment of individuals, themselves included, tospecific locales and regions. Deeply personal, such a connection,called “topophilia” by some, is often inspired by the naturalenvironment, but as any dedicated urbanite knows, it can justas easily be rooted in a beloved neighborhood or a familiarskyline. To J. B. Jackson, sense of place is “a sense of beingat home in a town or city,” a sentiment that develops over aperiod of increasing familiarity. In recent years, urban plannersand architects have often cited the creation of a sense of placeas one of their primary goals in an increasingly impersonal andhomogenized world.6
On the opposite end of the spectrum of place identity is thepromoted image. This formulation is aspirational and idealistic,embodying how officials would best like a place to be perceived.As a professional activity, place promotion has developed overtime from boastful editorials in daily newspapers and citydirectories and the construction of landmarks like the St. LouisArch, to professionally crafted slogans, brochures, andpamphlets, to the sophisticated “branding” strategies ofcontemporary media campaigns. The promoted image maychange over time, based on official assessments of a city’sstrengths, weaknesses, and most direct competition. At theirmost successful, city slogans, like “The City of Brotherly Love,”might enter into the national lexicon; identifying what specificresponses such familiarity might breed is a task for marketresearchers employed by tourist bureaus everywhere. Promoterscannot control how a place will be perceived by outsiders,although they may certainly try, particularly throughmanipulation of the mass media. As Stephen P. Hanna writes,“Representations of places in media play crucial roles in thedevelopment and definition of those places.” Peter Borsayagrees: “Image is about power. Those who can control the waya place is represented can control the place itself.”
过去十年，许多老牌赌场倒闭，有些赌场关门多年，没有重新开业的计划。纪念品和 T 恤店、当铺、酒类商店以及数量不多但显而易见的无家可归者使许多中心街道显得破旧不堪，这让市政府官员对里诺作为旅游目的地的未来感到担忧，这是可以理解的。
当时，明显衰落的主要原因是来自其他博彩目的地的竞争日益激烈，最明显但并非最直接的就是拉斯维加斯。里诺可能曾被称为“罪恶中心”，但它早已在全国的想象中被其南部新兴的“罪恶之城”所超越。到了新千年之交，拉斯维加斯已经树立了规模、幻想和富丽堂皇的标准，没有其他博彩目的地可以效仿。尽管最近耗资数百万美元修建了天际线，包括一座八十道保龄球场和维多利亚主题赌场，但雷诺的天际线仍然无法与其南部邻居的华丽纪念碑相媲美。受现有住宅区空间限制的限制，雷诺的赌场核心没有屋顶过山车、没有全尺寸的决斗战舰、没有精心设计的舞蹈喷泉或高耸的埃及金字塔复制品，这些复制品以连续的顺序排列以形成坚实的娱乐景观。
雷诺旅游景点的更直接竞争来自全国各地兴起的河船和印第安赌场，从康涅狄格州佩科特部落的福克斯伍德赌场度假村到密西西比州图尼卡不太可能的高层酒店赌场，再到加利福尼亚州越来越多的由美国原住民经营的赌场。面对这些企业（大多出现在 1990 年之后）的尖端技术和营销策略，雷诺似乎有被当作上一代遗物而遭到抛弃的危险。早期对这座城市行之有效的做法似乎不再奏效。到 20 世纪末，在独特性比以往任何时候都更成为旅游目的地最珍贵的财富的时代，雷诺却成为了失败者的名声。尽管赌场区只占该市总面积的很小一部分，但它的衰败却给整个城市带来了坏名声，引发了人们对其整体声誉的担忧，并激起了雷诺居民的沮丧，因为他们目睹了家乡遭受的字面和象征性的打击。
但雷诺声誉受损的原因不仅仅是相对较新的经济竞争和审美衰退因素。事实上，一个地方建立声誉的过程是渐进而复杂的。市民声誉是外部对城市或城镇的主导印象，这只是地方认同感形成的一个因素，而地方认同感至少还有两个组成部分：居民体验到的地方感和城市营销者传播的宣传形象。
地方感在文学和环境界得到了广泛讨论，华莱士·斯特格纳、安妮·迪拉德和温德尔·贝里等作家都描述并雄辩地探讨了个人（包括他们自己）对特定地点和地区的依恋。这种联系非常个人化，有些人称之为“恋地情结”，通常受到自然环境的启发，但正如任何一位敬业的城市居民都知道的那样，这种联系也可以很容易地植根于心爱的社区或熟悉的天际线。对 J. B. 杰克逊来说，地方感是“一种在城镇或城市中感到宾至如归的感觉”，这种情感是在熟悉感不断增强的一段时间内形成的。近年来，城市规划师和建筑师经常将创造地方感作为他们在这个日益非人性化和同质化的世界的主要目标之一。6
地方认同的另一端是宣传形象。这种表述是抱负和理想主义的，体现了官员们最希望一个地方被如何看待。作为一项专业活动，地方宣传已经从日报和城市指南中的夸夸其谈的社论和圣路易斯拱门等地标的建设发展到专业制作的口号、小册子和宣传册，再到当代媒体宣传活动中复杂的“品牌”战略。宣传形象可能会随着时间的推移而改变，这取决于官方对城市的优势、劣势和最直接的竞争的评估。在最成功的情况下，城市口号，如“友爱之城”，可能会进入国家词汇；确定这种熟悉感可能产生什么样的具体反应是各地旅游局雇用的市场研究人员的任务。推广者无法控制外人如何看待一个地方，尽管他们当然可以尝试，特别是通过操纵大众媒体。正如斯蒂芬·P·汉纳所写，“媒体对地方的呈现对于地方的发展和定义起着至关重要的作用。”彼得·博萨亚也同意这一观点：“形象就是力量。那些能够控制地方呈现方式的人，也能够控制地方本身。”
7
Awareness of the powerful relationship between place andimage has been a key factor in the recent urban revitalizationof postindustrial cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh, whoseleaders have attempted to update their cities’ images through acombination of place marketing and redevelopment.8 Concernfor competition has led many contemporary city planners, asChristine Boyer writes, to “myopically focus on improving acity’s marketability” through enhancements of image, culturalofferings, and perceived “liveability.” Indeed, in today’simage-driven climate, marketing priorities can produce a ratherdistorted sequence of events. As Dennis R. Judd and Susan S.Fainstein write in their study The Tourist City, “The productmust plausibly resemble the representation, and thus cities oftenremake themselves in conformity with their advertised image,”noting that “the constant transformation of the urban landscapeto accommodate tourists has become a permanent feature ofthe political economy of cities.”9
Place marketers, of course, hope that the image they createand promote will become part of the civic reputation; they mayin fact be working quite deliberately to overturn an earlier, lessagreeable image. Likewise, staunchly devoted locals may besurprised or even offended that their sense of place differswidely from both the promoted image and the reputation, bothof which may be far from their own experience. However,despite their close association, each of these factors is oftendiscussed in isolation, although some recent historical scholarshiphas attempted to delve into the relationship between thepromoted image and residential sense of place.10
Unlike these two components, civic reputation is not so easilydefined or controlled. Most commonly applied to people,reputation is a sociological concept, a product of rampant publicdiscussion rather than individual reflection or tightly focusedmarket research. Everyone from high school to Hollywoodunderstands the destructive potential of a bad reputation; whileindividual impressions wield little power for the most part, theoverall pattern of impressions that emerges can become aformidable force with which to contend. In recognition of theeconomic value of reputation to the branding of consumerproducts, the field of marketing has generated the term“reputational capital,” identified as one of the most important ofa product’s “intangible assets,” as opposed to “cultural capital,”the supply of cultural resources that a place can use foreconomic gain. Such formulations attempt to assign a specificmarket value to reputation, no easy task.11 While a sense ofplace may be completely personal, just as a promoted imagemay be recognized by the marketing professional alone(although he/she would certainly hope not), a civic reputation isby definition an impression that is widely shared, perhaps notuniversally, but broadly enough to be recognized by a widecross-section of society. Like a community’s collective memoriesof the past, it is perpetuated communally and oftenincorporated into the broader culture.12
意识到地点和形象之间的强大关系是克利夫兰和匹兹堡等后工业城市近期城市复兴的关键因素，这些城市的领导人试图通过结合地点营销和再开发来更新城市形象。8 正如克里斯汀·博耶 (Christine Boyer) 所写，对竞争的关注导致许多当代城市规划师“目光短浅地专注于通过提升形象、文化产品和感知的“宜居性”来提高城市的市场竞争力”。事实上，在当今以形象为主导的环境下，营销优先事项可能会产生相当扭曲的事件序列。正如丹尼斯·R·贾德和苏珊·S·费恩斯坦在他们的研究《旅游城市》中所写，“产品必须与所呈现的形象相符，因此城市经常会根据其宣传的形象进行重塑”，并指出“城市景观不断变化以适应游客已成为城市政治经济的一个永久特征。”9
当然，地方营销者希望他们创造和推广的形象将成为城市声誉的一部分；事实上，他们可能正在非常刻意地推翻先前不太令人愉快的形象。同样，坚定的当地人可能会感到惊讶甚至生气，因为他们对地方的感觉与宣传的形象和声誉大相径庭，这两者都可能与他们自己的体验相去甚远。然而，尽管这些因素密切相关，但它们中的每一个因素往往被孤立地讨论，尽管最近一些历史学者试图深入研究宣传的形象和居住地对地方的感觉之间的关系。10
与这两个组成部分不同，城市声誉不那么容易定义或控制。声誉最常用于人，是一个社会学概念，是公众热烈讨论的产物，而非个人反思或严密的市场研究。从高中到好莱坞，每个人都知道坏名声的破坏力；虽然个人印象在大多数情况下影响不大，但整体印象模式可能会成为一股难以抗衡的强大力量。为了认识到声誉对消费品品牌的经济价值，营销领域创造了“声誉资本”一词，将其视为产品最重要的“无形资产”之一，与“文化资本”相对，后者是某个地方可以用来获取经济利益的文化资源供应。此类表述试图为声誉赋予特定的市场价值，这绝非易事。11 虽然地方感可能完全是个人的，就像宣传的形象可能只有营销专业人士才能识别（尽管他/她肯定不希望如此），但公民声誉从定义上来说是一种被广泛分享的印象，也许不是普遍的，但足以被社会各阶层广泛认可。就像一个社区对过去的集体记忆一样，它被社区延续，并经常融入更广泛的文化中。12
This does not necessarily make it accurate. Although a place’sreputation may be founded on seemingly objective factors,including geographic features, economic climate, and aestheticappearance, it is also dependent upon subjective assessments ofthose factors. The formulation of such impressions requires noforethought or knowledge and carries no responsibility. It canderive from informed opinion or sheer hearsay. It carries amoral dimension and implies a value judgment that is itself theproduct of the predominant beliefs and values shared by aculture at any given time. With respect to place, as culturalgeographer Yi-Fu Tuan writes, “warm conversation betweenfriends can make [a] place itself seem warm; by contrast,malicious speech has the power to destroy a place’s reputationand thereby its visibility.”13 Indeed, a dominant reputation canwield immense power, providing the motivation for collectiveaction, whether it be investment, visitation, disdain, or outrightavoidance. For these reasons, a positive civic reputation isparticularly valuable to a tourist destination that hopes to attracta continuous stream of visitors.
A city’s reputation is not created at a single moment, and itdoes not remain fixed; rather, it continuously evolves due to aseries of integrated processes. These may include changes inthe place itself, shifting marketing strategies, and, mostinterestingly, shifting cultural values and broader consumerdemands. Whatever their origins, as a critical mass of similarimpressions cohere, they can gain a powerful momentum untilthe original reasons for those impressions may no longer evenbe traceable, and the reputation alone survives.
These three components of place identity—sense of place,promoted image, and civic reputation—can resemble each otherclosely or differ drastically, but all depend fundamentally uponthe final factor in the matrix of place identity, the place itself.As the most tangible component in this equation, the physicalplace is ultimately prone to the most permanent alteration inthe quest to improve a city’s reputation. City leaders mayattempt to control the shape of the urban landscape, hopingthereby to create an attractive environment with broad appealand what Kevin Lynch defines as a visual “legibility” thatidentifies the place as a coherent whole. Such coherence isespecially necessary for a tourist destination in order to createa distinctive place identity that potential visitors can recognize.14
Certain cities have long benefited from such visual coherence,even if manufactured, as with Santa Fe, a city whoseharmonious appearance was legislated by a 1913 city ordinancecreating a single architectural style intended to create, in thewords of historian Chris Wilson, “a unifying vision of the city,its people, and their history.” A distinctive natural setting canprovide a clear identity for a waterfront city such as Seattle orthe angular charm of San Francisco. Other places, by nature oftheir geography, politics, or other factors, are more fragmented,complicating the formation of a coherent reputation; urbansprawl is often the culprit. Los Angeles is the prime example ofa place that, according to Mike Davis, has been “infinitelyenvisioned” amid an “anarchy of market forces,” featuring aplethora of outward projections that have never cohered into asingle, consistent image. In the marketing of such landscapes,the absence of unity and coherence can be a clear liability.15Although it certainly cannot guarantee a universally positiveresponse, visual appeal is, not surprisingly, one of the mostimportant factors in establishing a positive reputation. Economicand aesthetic decline, when witnessed by visitors, can cause acity’s reputation to plummet. A negative reputation, in turn, canaffect investment and visitation, thereby contributing to thedeterioration of the landscape, which is likely to damage thereputation further, and so on. In the worst-case scenario, thisproduces a vicious cycle whereby the battered landscape andreputation together spur an endless downward spiral.
这并不一定意味着准确。虽然一个地方的声誉可能建立在看似客观的因素之上，包括地理特征、经济环境和审美外观，但它也取决于对这些因素的主观评估。形成这种印象不需要深思熟虑或知识，也不承担任何责任。它可以来自知情意见或纯粹的道听途说。它具有非道德的维度，并暗示着一种价值判断，这种价值判断本身是一种文化在任何特定时期所共有的主流信仰和价值观的产物。关于地方，正如文化地理学家段义孚所写的那样，“朋友之间的热情交谈可以让 [一个] 地方本身显得温暖；相比之下，恶意言论有能力摧毁一个地方的声誉，从而破坏它的知名度。”13 事实上，主导声誉可以发挥巨大的力量，为集体行动提供动力，无论是投资、访问、蔑视还是彻底回避。出于这些原因，积极的公民声誉对于希望吸引源源不断的游客的旅游目的地尤其有价值。
城市的声誉不是一蹴而就的，也不是固定不变的；相反，它会因为一系列综合过程而不断演变。这些可能包括地方本身的变化、营销策略的转变，以及最有趣的文化价值观和更广泛的消费者需求的转变。无论它们的起源如何，当大量相似的印象凝聚在一起时，它们就能获得强大的动力，直到这些印象的最初原因可能不再可追溯，只有声誉才能存续。
地方认同的这三个组成部分——地方感、宣传形象和公民声誉——可以彼此非常相似，也可以截然不同，但从根本上讲，它们都取决于地方认同矩阵中的最后一个因素，即地方本身。作为这个等式中最有形的组成部分，物理场所最终容易在寻求改善城市声誉的过程中发生最持久的改变。城市领导者可能会试图控制城市景观的形状，希望以此创造一个具有广泛吸引力的迷人环境，以及凯文·林奇所定义的视觉“可读性”，将这个地方标识为一个连贯的整体。这种连贯性对于旅游目的地尤其必要，以便创造一个潜在游客能够识别的独特地方身份。14
某些城市长期以来受益于这种视觉连贯性，即使是人为的，比如圣达菲，这座城市的和谐外观是由 1913 年的一项城市法令规定的，该法令创造了一种单一的建筑风格，旨在创造，用历史学家克里斯·威尔逊的话来说，“对城市、人民和历史的统一愿景”。独特的自然环境可以为西雅图这样的海滨城市或旧金山的棱角分明的魅力提供清晰的身份。其他地方，由于其地理、政治或其他因素的性质，更加分散，使形成连贯的声誉变得复杂；城市扩张往往是罪魁祸首。洛杉矶就是一个典型的例子，根据迈克·戴维斯的说法，这座城市在“市场力量的混乱”中被“无限地设想”，其外在的规划过多，从未形成单一、一致的形象。在营销此类景观时，缺乏统一性和连贯性显然是一个缺点。15虽然视觉吸引力肯定不能保证普遍的积极反应，但它无疑是建立良好声誉的最重要因素之一。当游客看到经济和审美的衰退时，城市的声誉就会一落千丈。负面声誉反过来会影响投资和访问量，从而导致景观恶化，这可能会进一步损害声誉，等等。在最坏的情况下，这将形成一个恶性循环，受损的景观和声誉一起引发无休止的螺旋式下降。
For all of these reasons, Reno serves as an excellent subjectto study this process. The city’s reputation has played adetermining role in its development from the very beginning.More than in most other American communities, Reno’s leadershave been desperate to secure a positive reputation for theircity, while at the same time strangely willing to make decisionslikely to run counter to that goal. Although securing a positivereputation is critical to the success of any tourist destination, ithas been especially important for Reno, a town that came intobeing with the already dubious distinction of being located inNevada. Founded in 1868 as a tiny junction on thetranscontinental railroad, on the so-called “barren” Nevadafrontier near the California border, Reno appeared at first tohave little future beyond that of a support community for theComstock silver mining district, based in nearby Virginia City.
Saddled with stereotypes related to its industrial base andaustere landscape, city boosters found themselves on thedefensive from day one, resentful of their community’s poorreputation and determined to change collective impressions of it.That need strengthened in the troubled economic climate oflate nineteenth-century Nevada, prompting Reno’s businesscommunity to consider even more drastic measures to attractnew residents and visitors. While new mineral discoverieselsewhere provided economic security for the state, some ofReno’s early entrepreneurs saw another gold mine in theinstant economic gratification presented by the trafficking ofvice. They were divorce lawyers and gamblers, politicians andboxing promoters, carnival barkers and saloonkeepers, andtogether they aimed to shape the city into what Americanculture craved: an escape from society’s constraints, adeparture from the everyday.
As many residents committed themselves to the gratification ofAmerican desires, others bemoaned the ensuing damage toReno’s reputation. Their determination to keep Reno respectablepresented a difficult dilemma, borne of two seemingly opposedtrajectories. Predictably, as with most profitable ventures, thosein power hoped to cultivate additional capital by furtherdeveloping the resources that had met with such success. Thegradual dedication of the city center to visitors over residentsbegan in the early decades of the twentieth century, and yetthere was no sudden cataclysmic event or fatal moment whenoutsiders arrived in Reno to transform it into a tourist trap oreven an identifiable moment when city leaders consciouslydecided to embrace tourism wholeheartedly. Rather, thedowntown landscape simply edged out the residential, bit by bit.In this respect, Reno’s experience offers an alternative modelto a popular contemporary paradigm governing the study oftourism in the American West, a paradigm that posits theunwelcome encroachment of outside interests on western places,pitting tourist town against hometown, sacrificing the culturallandscape to outsiders, and destroying a place’s supposedlyinherent qualities. In this declensionist narrative, the impositionof the tourism industry by outside investors inevitably leads tothe destruction of a place’s intrinsic nature, or “soul,” definedvariously as the local lifestyle, aesthetic appearance, independentbusiness culture, and/or affordability. The rise of tourism isseen, in Hal Rothman’s words, as a “devil’s bargain” thatinitiates the rise of property values and renders a place lesslivable for its locals, by favoring marketing schemes overresident dreams. Overall, such accounts posit a mostlyunidirectional process by which outside influences operate to thedetriment of pristine local places, local residents are pushedaside, and sense of place is irretrievably lost.16
出于所有这些原因，里诺是研究这一过程的绝佳对象。从一开始，这座城市的声誉就在其发展中发挥着决定性作用。与大多数其他美国社区相比，里诺的领导人更渴望为自己的城市赢得良好的声誉，同时又奇怪地愿意做出可能与这一目标背道而驰的决定。虽然获得良好的声誉对于任何旅游目的地的成功都至关重要，但对于里诺来说尤其重要，因为里诺这座小镇诞生时就已经因其位于内华达州而声名狼藉。里诺成立于 1868 年，是横贯大陆铁路上的一个小枢纽，位于加州边境附近所谓“贫瘠”的内华达州边境，起初似乎除了成为位于附近弗吉尼亚城的康斯托克银矿区的支持社区之外，没有什么未来。
由于背负着与其工业基础和简陋景观相关的刻板印象，城市支持者从第一天起就发现自己处于守势，对社区的不良声誉感到不满，并决心改变人们对它的集体印象。这种需求在 19 世纪末内华达州陷入困境的经济环境中得到了加强，促使里诺的商业界考虑采取更激烈的措施来吸引新居民和游客。虽然其他地方的新矿藏发现为该州提供了经济保障，但里诺的一些早期企业家在贩卖恶习所带来的即时经济满足中看到了另一个金矿。他们是离婚律师和赌徒、政客和拳击推广人、狂欢节叫卖者和酒吧老板，他们共同致力于将这座城市塑造成美国文化所渴望的样子：摆脱社会的束缚，远离日常生活。
当许多居民致力于满足美国人的愿望时，其他人则为随之而来的里诺声誉受损而哀叹。他们决心让里诺保持体面，但这一决定带来了一个两难境地，这源于两条看似相反的轨迹。可以预见的是，与大多数盈利的企业一样，当权者希望通过进一步开发已经取得成功的资源来积累更多资本。从二十世纪初开始，市中心逐渐向游客开放，而不是向居民开放，然而，并没有发生突然的灾难性事件或致命时刻，外来者来到里诺，将其变成旅游陷阱，甚至没有出现城市领导人有意识地决定全心全意拥抱旅游业的明显时刻。相反，市中心的景观只是一点一点地取代了住宅区。在这方面，雷诺的经历为当代流行的美国西部旅游研究范式提供了一种替代模型，该范式认为外部利益对西部地区进行了不受欢迎的侵占，使旅游城镇与家乡对立，将文化景观牺牲给外来者，并破坏了一个地方所谓的固有品质。在这种衰落主义的叙述中，外部投资者强加旅游业不可避免地会导致一个地方的内在性质或“灵魂”的破坏，而“灵魂”的定义则多种多样，包括当地的生活方式、审美外观、独立的商业文化和/或负担能力。用哈尔·罗斯曼的话来说，旅游业的兴起被视为“魔鬼的交易”，它通过偏爱营销计划而忽视居民的梦想，引发了房地产价值的上涨，并使一个地方对当地人来说不那么适宜居住。总体而言，此类解释假定了一个几乎单向的过程，在此过程中，外部影响会损害原始的当地地方，当地居民会被排挤，地方感将无可挽回地消失。16
In somewhat less totalizing terms, some of thesedevelopments may indeed result from orienting communities totourism. But the history of tourism in the American West is farmore complex than this paradigm allows. While many westerntowns like Red Lodge, Montana, or Aspen, Colorado, werefounded around extractive industries and only later turned totourism, many others have been sites of tourism, to somedegree, for most of their history; in fact, many, especially thosethat were not originally sites of industrial extraction but railroadjunctions and early population hubs, have existed simultaneouslyas hometowns and tourist towns for more than a century, withcivic leaders stumping for tourists nearly as long as they haveboosted for residents.17
The polarization of tourism and residential sense ofplace—demonizing the former and bemoaning the loss of thelatter—has limited utility in a West where tourist and residentiallandscapes have long coincided and where both will continue toexpand and intersect in the years to come. The study ofwestern tourism can only benefit from additional models thatmore clearly explain a wider range of experiences. Byrecognizing the interdependence of resident and touristlandscapes, as well as residents and tourism promoters, we canavoid the economic determinism of a paradigm that ultimatelydismisses the agency of the very local populations it purports tovalue.
On the surface, Reno may seem a prime example of a placewhere consumer demand created a market for the prurient,favoring a tourist landscape that gradually expanded to thedetriment of the residential community. But the study of Renoreveals a far less contentious, and far less simplistic, process.Faced with the opportunity to provide unique attractions to anation thirsting for entertainment and release, Reno’spromoters—significantly, residents themselves—eagerly complied.As they clearly recognized, a tourist town that could caterconsistently to consumer demands could do quite well, and fora long time, Reno did.
The moment of crisis arrived, then, not with the introductionof tourism by outsiders or even with the corporatization of thetourist industry, but with the failure of civic leaders to recognizethe balance of resident and tourist space, the overall aestheticappeal, that had in the past ensured a reputation that worked,for the most part, in Reno’s favor. The relationship betweenReno’s outward reputation and local response has beencontinuously reciprocal, with awareness of that image wielding astrong influence over decisions about policy and development,and those factors in turn inspiring fluctuations in the city’soutward reputation, for better and for worse. As long as thelandscape provided what the broader public desired, and thecity’s reputation captured the national imagination, Reno couldcontinue its purveyance of vice undisturbed. But when just oneof these components failed, when the landscape suffered, whenbusiness lagged, or when America’s attention waned, cityleaders and residents alike were forced to live down theircarefree embrace of the unconventional. Their mistake was,perhaps, in growing accustomed to those shifts, in continuing toaccommodate cultural desires so readily without maintaining aconsistent vision of what the community should retain for itself.This, in essence, was Reno’s big gamble: risking its reputation,along with its aesthetic appeal, time and time again, in thedogged pursuit of economic gain.
To study the relationship between a place and its reputationis to trace a process that has no clear beginning. It is theultimate chicken-and-egg scenario. And yet, while a reputation’sorigin may be impossible to identify with any precision, itsdevelopment over time may be traced and analyzed. Defined bypublic perceptions, a civic reputation is expressed, reflected, anddebated through a diverse array of media, from magazine andnewspaper articles to travel guides, novels, film, television,speeches, advertisements, photographs, postcards, mediacampaigns, and more. Such materials are disseminated forpublic consumption; by their very nature they are theexpressions of an elite group, those possessing the power tocommand such public forums. Since Reno has long been anational destination, its most influential depictions have had anational audience; this study hopes to provide a representative,if not exhaustive, selection.
用不那么笼统的术语来说，其中一些发展确实可能源于将社区导向旅游业。但美国西部的旅游业历史远比这种模式所允许的要复杂得多。虽然许多西部城镇，如蒙大拿州的雷德洛奇或科罗拉多州的阿斯彭，都是围绕采掘业建立的，后来才转向旅游业，但许多其他城镇在其大部分历史中都在某种程度上是旅游景点；事实上，许多城镇，尤其是那些最初不是工业开采地而是铁路枢纽和早期人口中心的城镇，已经同时作为家乡和旅游城镇存在了一个多世纪，民间领袖为游客拉票的时间几乎和为居民拉票的时间一样长。17
旅游业和居住地意识的两极分化——妖魔化前者并哀叹后者的消失——在西部的作用有限，因为西部的旅游和居住地景观长期以来一直重合，而且在未来几年里，两者将继续扩大和交叉。只有通过更多模型才能更清楚地解释更广泛的体验，西方旅游业的研究才能从中受益。通过认识到居民和旅游景观以及居民和旅游推广者的相互依赖，我们可以避免范式的经济决定论，这种范式最终会否定它所声称重视的当地人口的作用。
从表面上看，雷诺似乎是一个典型的例子，消费者需求为好色之徒创造了市场，有利于逐渐扩大的旅游景观，损害了居民社区。但对雷诺的研究揭示了一个争议少得多、也简单得多的过程。面对为渴望娱乐和释放的民族提供独特景点的机会，雷诺的推广者——尤其是居民自己——热切地顺从了。正如他们清楚地认识到的那样，一个能够持续满足消费者需求的旅游小镇可以做得很好，而且很长一段时间里，雷诺确实做到了。
危机时刻的到来并非由于外来者引入旅游业，甚至不是由于旅游业的公司化，而是由于市政领导人未能认识到居民和游客空间之间的平衡，即整体的审美吸引力，而这些因素在过去在很大程度上确保了里诺的声誉。里诺的外在声誉和当地反应之间的关系一直是相互的，对这一形象的认识对政策和发展决策产生了强大的影响，而这些因素反过来又激发了该市外在声誉的波动，有好有坏。只要景观能满足广大公众的需求，城市的声誉能引起全国的想象，里诺就可以继续不受干扰地传播罪恶。但是，只要其中一个因素失败，景观受损，商业停滞，或者美国的注意力减弱，城市领导人和居民都被迫放弃对非传统的无忧无虑的拥抱。他们的错误也许在于逐渐习惯了这些变化，继续如此轻易地迎合文化需求，而没有保持一致的愿景，即社区应该为自己保留什么。从本质上讲，这是雷诺的豪赌：为了追求经济利益，一次又一次地冒着声誉和审美吸引力的风险。
研究一个地方和它的声誉之间的关系就是追踪一个没有明确开端的过程。这是终极的先有鸡还是先有蛋的难题。然而，虽然声誉的起源可能无法准确确定，但可以追踪和分析其随着时间的推移而发展的过程。公民声誉由公众的看法定义，通过各种各样的媒体来表达、反映和辩论，从杂志和报纸文章到旅游指南、小说、电影、电视、演讲、广告、照片、明信片、媒体活动等等。这些材料被传播供公众消费；从本质上讲，它们代表着一个精英群体，他们拥有掌控此类公共论坛的权力。由于里诺长期以来一直是全国性的旅游胜地，其最具影响力的描述也拥有全国性的观众；本研究希望提供一个具有代表性的、即使不是详尽无遗的选择。
Reno’s civic reputation has thrived, failed, and simplypersisted within an ever-changing cultural context. Examiningthe relationship between Reno’s reputation and that broadercontext is the task of this book. Throughout my study, Ijuxtapose the city’s reputation with the two other componentsof place identity—the promoted image and the residential senseof place—to explore the dynamics among all three. My goal isto shed light not only on how a civic reputation is created andtransformed, but also on the tangible consequences of thatprocess. Reno is not just my subject; it has become my home.It is a fascinating place with a rich and often neglected history.It is, above all, a city of contradictions, but one should expectno less from a town best known as “The Biggest Little City inthe World,” a proud paradox all its own.
在不断变化的文化背景下，里诺的市民声誉曾繁荣、衰落，也曾简单地维持着。本书的任务就是研究里诺的声誉与更广泛的背景之间的关系。在我的整个研究中，我将城市的声誉与地方身份的另外两个组成部分——宣传形象和居住地的场所感——并列，以探索这三者之间的动态关系。我的目标是不仅阐明市民声誉是如何创造和转变的，而且阐明这一过程的实际后果。里诺不仅仅是我的研究对象；它已经成为我的家。这是一个迷人的地方，有着丰富而经常被忽视的历史。最重要的是，这是一个充满矛盾的城市，但人们不应该对这个以“世界上最大的小城市”而闻名的小镇抱有如此的期望，这是一个自成体系的悖论。