UNIVERSITY*CITOYEN wrote:
Glenn wrote:
There is a very interesting letter in this week's UC
Review. Mitchell. Gordon responds to Paul Levy's letter
of last week and follows-up on his original opinion piece
about moderately priced housing. In this letter, Gordon
touches on the problems the rapid gentrification causes
for the young creative class that is the proclaimed focus
of Penn's marketing scheme for Philadelphia. He also
cites Daniel Brook's book, The Trap, Selling Out to Stay
Afloat In Winner-Take-All America.
brook writes: "The pace of gentrification has accelerated to the point
where bohemian communities can no longer take root in major cities
like new york. the greenwich village bohemia lasted for decades, soho
for ten years, the east village for five, williamsburg for two. the
game is over.... the rising cost of living in major cities snuffs out
the forms of noncommercial intellectual creativity for which our most
cosmopolitan metropolises have long been known."
- - - - -
and perhaps it's not just the 'noncommercial' intellectual creativity
being snuffed out.
there is an interesting, ironic detail in the gazette article about
laurie olin, penn's renowned landscape architect who transforms spaces
so that 'where once was abandonment, there is now vigor and
gentrification' -- we learn just how he got his start, back in 1976:
Well, this does raise a couple of interesting questions about creative
communities. The general pattern we're discussing is that there are
marginal or run-down areas of cities. Bohemians, artists, gays, and
radicals move in, because it's cheap to live there. Some of them are
motivated enough to fix the places up, make'em appealing, and suddenly
affluent people decide they want to live there as well; after all, they
have some taste, artists need audiences, and maybe they can bring
something to the community that's not necessarily artistis or radical,
but useful (grocery stores, coffee shops, boutiques, etc.) Now there's
more money in the nabe, the demand for housing goes up, and the bohos,
artists and radicals who _didn't_ get in on the ground floor can't
afford it anymore. So they move on... maybe to some other place, where
the next Talented Tenth will do the work to make things more interesting.
There's just one small change I'd make to the above account. Instead of
saying that the Creative Class moves in because it's cheap to live
there, I'd add that the areas are also _easily changed_. Which is easier
to reshape to your own desires-- a fully-preserved Victorian rowhouse in
West Philadelphia, or a run-down two-story row home in Northern
Liberties? Which is a blanker canvas-- an unused warehouse, or a
recently-built set of condos? Which is more fun to customize-- a
brand-new Lexus, or a vintage '68 Mustang? Where are creative people
more likely to exercise their creativity for the community-- a
tightly-regulated and policed Historic District, or a community with a
laissez-faire attitude towards one's fellow man?
There's a lot that bothers me about this creative-class discussion. For
one thing, if we cite these nomads of creativity as an engine for urban
improvement, and wail about their being priced out of neighborhoods, we
tend to forget about the _really_ poor people that _they_ displaced in
the first place. For another, it plays up a distinction between
creatives and non-creatives-- which appeals to a lot of peoples' taste
for snobbery and self-importance. You know: someone who designs posters
for metals bands is an artist, while someone who edits commercials for
an ad agency is a corporate drone. The guy who makes wall mosaics with
pottery is more an artist than an computer game designer. Thing is, for
every creative community, you need an audience. So why disparage people
who have taste merely because they don't create the same kinds of things
that artists-- real or imagined-- create?
(Which brings up another interesting question. How do we know when a
community qualifies as creative or not? Apparently, it's when the stuff
they create is _commercial_ enough.)
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