I was reading some promotional piece about a US city. It said how 'authentic' it was. Because, you know, there are a lot of unauthentic places out there.
Think for a moment and name a place in the US that isn't authentic...
I guess you *could* say LA or Las Vegas. But of course that's just a massive generalization of perhaps very small niches in those markets.
Authentic is a word that appears on briefs and strategy documents far more than it should. It's deceivingly defining. Like 'beautiful' or 'love'. Tolstoy wrote about this well in What Is Art?
As is always the case, the more cloudy and confused the conception conveyed by a word with the greater self-assurance do people use that word, pretending that what is understood by it is so simple and clear that it is not even worth while to discuss what it actually means.
So I bet the city I read about was authentic. Just like every other place in America.