The Good Life

This study examines the discursive strategies used within US city magazines to create imagined communities of readers and idealized versions of cities. Using textual analysis, the author evaluates editorial content in three issues each of five frequently award-nominated city magazines—Los Angeles magazine, Cincinnati magazine, Portland Monthly, Memphis magazine, and Indianapolis Monthly. The findings reveal that these publications directed their content toward highly educated, affluent, engaged readers through emphasizing ways they could experience their cities through consumption and highlighting issues and perspectives important to upper-class “insiders.” The magazines also prioritized lighter content focused on positive aspects of cities, ultimately constructing sanitized depictions that often neglected opportunities to address the challenges of urban life. Overall, the magazines tended to promote meanings that appeal to the powerful, subverting opportunities to educate readers about how to fully experience and contribute to their cities. Therefore, the author suggests means through which these publications can empower their readers to respond to community challenges, including enhanced diversity among sources, incorporating calls to action within coverage, and providing insight and analysis into cities' most pressing problems.