The tolerant coast

Abstract

Land uses readings of Lawrence Durrell, Amos Oz and Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff to introduce the concept of coastal exceptionalism. The tolerant coast may be a utopian space, a permissive arena for expatriate Europeans, a zone of nostalgia, or a centre of synergy. The chapter examines the examples of the Levant and the West Coast of the United States in some detail. The belief that there is a specific local quality that makes port towns uniquely tolerant places offers an interesting counterpoint to recent debates about the universal values of cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and superdiversity. Land concludes with a discussion of Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley as a coastal expression of Saskia Sassen’s neoliberal global city, both hosting innovative firms and marketing themselves as stylish and transgressive.