Neil Smith’s “Building the Frontier Myth” addresses how frontier ideology wildly distorts and rationalizes social differentiation. At first glance, the frontier myth appears playful, optimistic, and even idyllic. However, the underlying incongruences that stems from displacing historical and geographical quality is quite dangerous.
The media has a lot of pull in establishing what we know as the “frontier myth” because of their happy-go-lucky portrayal of urban pioneers. Movies became a source of “fact,” and stories quickly stretched beyond their original context. Soon enough, history and even geography were distorted, reframed, and applied to different situations. The Old West frontier myth began to move east, where cities began its physical and demographic transformation. Whites ventured to new wilds (the City) where they infused middle class culture and ideals in places such as Ludlow and 42 Streets. Hence, the optimistic image of soaring real estate values that is commonly associated with the frontier myth ignores the exclusion that occurs below the surface.
With this in mind, Smith suggests that frontier ideology serves to tame the wild city and rationalize social differentiation. With the new urban frontier focused on nature and fads, there still remains an exaggeration of context (both historical and geographical) that classifies the ideology as “myth.” Smith believes such line of thinking displaces both class and race. People conform to social norms and those who refuse to follow are viewed as uncivil. Hence, in regards to social differentiation, classifying the poor and working class as “uncivil” is justified through the lens of frontier ideology because they cannot afford to conform. As a result, the happy-go-lucky image portrayed in movies, newspapers, and other sources of information is met with an image of exclusion and displacement that attempts to socialize an ideology.
Altogether, I found it interesting that Smith connected the frontier myth with the topic of gentrification (or social differentiation) because the connection is often overlooked. While his ideas are logically consistent and his criticism of the frontier myth seems justified, I question whether the resulting consequence was intended or simply a byproduct of urban pioneering.
