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Abstract

This article provides a critique of work on urban public space that touts its potentialas a haven from racial and class conflicts and inequalities. I argue that social struc-tures and hierarchies embedded in the capitalist system and the state’s social con-trol over the racialized poor are not suspended even in places that appear governedby civility and tolerance, such as those under Anderson’s “cosmopolitan canopy.”Durable inequality, residential segregation, nativism, and racism inevitably shapewhat happens in diverse public spaces. Using an ethnographic study of an urbanfarmers’ market in New York City, I show that appearances of everyday cosmopoli-tanism, tolerance, and pleasure in difference coexist with conflict and reproductionof inequalities that are inextricable because the space is embedded within largerstructures, institutions, and cultural paradigms. By focusing on meaning-making ininteraction, I analyze situated accomplishment of diversity and consider the impli-cations for other types of urban spaces