What Is Urban?

Erin Patton of BlackElectorate.com weighed in on the question, what is urban? Patton writes, “I came to the conclusion that, in America’s consumer-driven matrix of 2003, that has become the billion dollar question. Up until now, particularly over the past decade, ‘urban’ has pretty much come to be inextricably linked to Hip-Hop, especially since the art form was born out of the inner-city black experience. Hence, the term had come to represent a fairly narrow perception and conjured up certain stereotypes in the minds of the mainstream. As such, if you were to look up the term ‘urban’ in Corporate America’s marketing dictionary, a 50 Cent-type of image would have been all the image is worth.” Read more.