http://www.slate.com
Hello Everyone:
I noticed today that we're edging closer to our goal of 5,000 page views by the end of the year. Yeah. Keep it up, I know we can make this goal. While you're at it, don't forget to show some love for Road Recovery
(http://www.roadrecovery.org). They're a great organization dedicated to helping young people with addiction issues. Thanks
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The High Line
Chelsea, New York City
timeout.com |
"Are artists to blame for gentrification?" This is the question that Ben Davis of
http://www.slate.com asks readers to consider. Would famous New York/Brooklyn neighborhoods SoHo, Chelsea, and Williamsburg have gentrified on their own? As you wander through the Chelsea art district and your attention might be on the sheep, not the mega-galleries. Yes, that's right, sheep, as in wool and lamb chops. The gas pumps that used to stand at the Getty (oil) station on 24th and 10th street are half buried in something that resembles a neatly fenced in green pasture. Herded in this seemingly out-of-place pasture, is a flock of adorable sculptural sheep. Fooled you for a minute. It's a little soft-core surrealism, perfect for an Instagram moment and could easily be mistaken for a whimsical public art installation.
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Chelsea stoop
Chelsea, New York City
en.wikipedia.org |
Only thing is that it's not what you think it is. Yes, those animal sculptures are sheep by the late French sculptor François-Xavier Lalanne. "Sheep Station," the title of the pop-up installation was executed with the help of the sculptor's dealer, Paul Kasmin. However, this surreal New York City moment was the idea of Michael Shvo, once referred to as New York's "most successful" and "most hated" real estate broker by
New York magazine. Many of these fluffy "sheep," half from Mr. Shvo's personal collection-his wife has publicly taken Instagrams of herself in sexual positions on the "sheep"-as some sort of publicity stunt to prop up her husband's proposed luxury residence development plan he has for the "pasture."
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Chelsea Market
Chelsea, New York City
nyartsprogram.org |
Art and real estate speculation are not exactly two things that you use in the same sentence, it's something that requires some real thought. Currently, there are three conflicting issues merging to make putting art and real estate speculation a big topic for art-watchers and urban policy makers. The first is enthusiasm which developers like Mr. Shvo have for promoting their schemes by associating it with art installations. Not feeling this one. Next, is the role of art as an engine for economic development, which has become the preferred talking point for government agencies and arts nonprofits looking to justify funds for cultural programming in frugal times. The third topic is artist angst when they're made complicit in pushing out low- and moderate-income communities-then being turned out themselves-as in the uber-hip New York neighborhood Bushwick or the Peckham district in London (see
The Guardian 8/30/13
http://www.theguardian.com/uk).
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SoHo street
SoHo, New York City
inetours.com |
The current story line in newsrooms, think tanks, studios, and galleries is art is the vehicle for urban transformation. However, according to Ben Davis, this is wrong or, at least, presented the wrong way. The classic case study of artist-led gentrification is SoHo. In the sixties, soon after the term
gentrification was coined by British sociologist Ruth Glass, experimental art maven George Maciunus took the lead in converting SoHo, a former industrial and light manufacturing district for a mostly Puerto Rican and African-American workforce, into artist cooperatives and live-work spaces. This sparked the final conversion of the neighborhood into a picture-perfect boutiques and up-scale restaurants. Civic leaders were so excited over what they saw, that they wanted to do the same in their own cities, the magic power of art used to in the service of urban renewal. I'm thinking Downtown Los Angeles in the eighties and nineties.
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Cobblestones on Mercer Street
SoHo, New York City
greenbuildingsnyc.com |
From outward appearances, SoHo seems like a clear cut case, right? In 2012 the Brookings Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts published a book called
Creative Communities: Art Works in Economic Development. In this book, urban policy analyst Jenny Schuetz notes that even in the most detailed studies of SoHo's gentrification process doesn't prove that it
would not have occurred with help from the creative community. To answer the question whether or not gallery clusters jumpstarted transformation. Ms. Schuetz examined every city block to find evidence of accelerated development in the years following the opening of an art gallery. Her conclusion was the difference was minimal. That's not to say that development didn't happen. The galleries were not the major "casual agent" they're often made out to be, they arrive in neighborhoods already in the process of change. Ms. Schuetz concludes, "These results suggest that galleries might not be the most effective or efficient target for economic development."
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Pocket parket
SoHo, New York City
tripadvisor.com |
Jenny Schuetz does leave open the possibility that other types of amenities such as museums or other cultural venues might be better suited for development. The oft-repeated story is it's not the galleries, but the young (mostly Caucasian) "creative types"who first move into an "abandoned" (read where the poor minorities live or work) and lure the more affluent in with vegan restaurants and charming "bohemian" outfits. These "creative types," who come across like something out of the movie
Moulin Rouge-glamorous but poor-are amenable to unconventional living spaces and in need of spacious studios. These individuals are seen as a type of neutral middle-class, somewhere between the disenfranchised they're slowly pushing out and the more elite classes. This the gospel according to urbanist Richard Florida. Once again, the causality of this phenomena is subject for debate-are these funky bohemians the engine of development or do cities with extra money simply manifest funky bohemian scenes? Again, suggesting that art is the agent of urban renewal is misleading. Mr. Florida broadly defined the creative class, that it covered about thirty percent of the working population including those occupations that aren't exactly conducive to artistic license. His "super-creative core," whose tendencies were alleged to play the lead role in "reshaping our geography, spearheading the movement back from outlying areas to urban centers and close-in walkable suburbs" actually encompassed twelve percent of workers and still included stereotypical non-creatiive types: doctors, lawyers, accountants, scientists, et cetera.
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Williamsburg stoop
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
nyls.net |
The frequent examples of artist generated gentrification of the East Village and Williamsburg are so used that it's easy to forget that are a number of other New York neighborhoods that have gentrified without the help of said funky bohemians. At the moment, the epicenter of the Lubavitcher Hassidism, Crown Heights, is experiencing a revival and the creative class is nowhere to be found just your typical white professionals looking for a nice affordable to live. Same goes for Harlem, which is experiencing rapid gentrification. Even Flushing,
Queens gentrifying. In Flushing, Jefferson Mao argues in his essay "On Gentrification in an Unhip Place," that it's the wealthy Asian immigrants that are leading the way. The point here is in the often bitter saga of neighborhood redevelopment, more depends on the larger forces average area income, social stratification, real estate speculation, and rent policy then the power of art. This would explain why the current trend of rebranding declining places as "cultural destinations" and jerry-rigging economic development doesn't work out. The financial crisis spawned a new line of thinking that decline, in some places, can't be stopped and it would be pointless to try. This leave decidedly unhip cities such as Elmira, New York out on their own. In the interim Richard Florida has disassociated himself from initiatives inspired by his theories such as Michigan's "Cool Cities" project. Without a larger source of economic support, art cities are left hanging.
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East Williamsburg
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
urbanedgeny.com |
The opposite is places in New York with their hyper-drive real estate market, artists aren't the agents of change. Even in the increasingly uncool Williamsburg, the amazing transformation it experienced over the last decade was the result of very conscious, hotly debated zoning regulations not just because of the rising art scene, including a far-reaching and disgraceful failure by city and private developers to follow through on any and all commitments on affordable housing. "To be honest, artists are the least of our worries," says Miguel Robles-Duran, director of the graduate program in urban ecologies at the New School who authored a study on Bushwick. Developers have seized on the presence of artists as a market ploy, mainly in service to their goals. "The current system is designed to make this happen," says Mr. Robles-Duran
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Greenpoint, Williamsburg resident
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
nydailynews.com |
Finally, it is possible for artist to move into an are and not completely upend the existing community. "I repudiate the notion that artists are the shock troops of gentrification," wrote researcher Anne Gadwa Nicodemus in her study of artistic communities in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ms. Gadwa Nicodemus claims, "The neighborhood is more racially and ethnically diverse than before the artist spaces and, better or worse, still has quite high poverty levels." In Bushwick, Miguel Robles-Duran and his associates plan to call attention to rampant development, even as the artists are being pushed out, through the bilingual media. Artists, by nature are exhibitionists. Drawing attention to themselves is part and parcel of the profession. Thus, it would stand to reason that developers would use that character trait to call attention to their projects. Gentrification isn't a lifestyle, it's about creating an aspirational lifestyle in the guise of rising living costs. Baaah
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