The Fireplace and Gentrification
“He needs a fire, the one who has just come in, his knees are shivering. Food and dry clothes will do him well, after his journey over the mountains”
In a way, gentrification has been around longer than when it was defined in 1964 by Ruth Glass as a process of re-investing in “depressed” regions of cities with a demographic shift toward a creative class of affluent Caucasians. The inception of gentrification intertwines with that of the creative economy through commercial and fine arts. Commercial art industries are typically more closely associated with rapid growth and gentrification while the fine arts weaves in with slow growth and revitalization, although it could still lead to gentrification. Also, an overarching issue to acknowledge is how the overall art market’s growth has led to its professionalization and has become embedded into global finance. Not only this but “white flights” that take place from suburbia by individuals who return to the city and transmigrate their aesthetics, economics, and spatial values with them. This flight can lead to displacement of existing residents and artists, who play roles in its developments. How does this happen and what can we do to ensure there’s still a fireplace for the artist and legacy residents to sit and warm their hands at?
According to Zukin, artists will—through their sweat equity—appropriate and revitalize spaces to be more aesthetically pleasing and as a byproduct create a kind of “neo bohemia” filled with studios, galleries, bars, coffee shops, and restaurants. They’re leveraged by local policymakers in strategies for urban policies and planning through funding of institutions such as museums, theaters, performing arts, and art districts to drive the bottom-line of creating economic revenue. In Brooklyn, Death by Audio started as a small business selling pedals and hosting underground music in a dilapidated warehouse within the Williamsburg neighborhood. They were featured in Vice, a punk music publication, and contrarily pushed out by this company when they took over their building as an office space. This is one of the less desirable outcomes of gentrification by creative producers that resulted in displacement and exclusion of these legacy artists. Another case is when London Kaye’s crochet art yarn bombed a building in the Bushwick neighborhood of Los Angeles back in 2015. Today we see a Bushwick with rents that have soared by forty-four percent over the past twenty years and an amplified white, middle-class voice and aesthetic spilling over and flooding the legacy culture of original residents. Studies argue that there are positives to gentrification such as attracting property developments, jobs, increasing real estate values, and inviting in talent but who does this benefit? This is a key question in determining whether gentrification is beneficial or not.
Policy is a key component to address the challenges of gentrification through government oversight of speculators, zoning permits, and public and private partnerships. When areas such as Baltimore’s Station North Arts and Entertainment (A&E) district is built off the sweat equity of artists there’s a danger for organizations of speculators to piggyback off these efforts and buy up properties that would otherwise be available to future homeowners. This is a long enduring trend and in 2023 investors purchased a record high number of homes and housing became the least affordable it’s ever been for middle class Americans. To combat this, congress introduced two bills—the Stop Wall Street Landlords Act and End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act to impose taxes and bans. Unfortunately, passing bills are time consuming and these two propositions are still in the introductory phase. Plus, these bills wouldn’t sufficiently address the crisis of housing costs, only the buying up of properties by investors. Ultimately, the macro issue is the market supply of homes being insufficient in relation to the demand and landlords of renters profiting from this. To combat landlords’ excessive profitability, one proposal would be to tax their profits to curb the issue around affordable housing.
This leads into policy around zoning and permits as well as subsidizing new construction for affordable housing to combat how gentrification displaces longtime residents and artists because they can no longer afford the spaces they’ve put their sweat equity into. Artist and Public Life Residency (APLR) is an example of a solution that created an affordable housing program of eighteen homes in Garfield Park near the Tube Factory art space. APLR’s affordable housing is thirty to fifty percent off market rates and tailored to artists. It’s also a public and private partnership with Big Car and other organizations to make this endeavor possible. There’s also Station North’s sixty-nine-unit City Arts Apartments built as a low-income housing tax credit for artists. We could also propose that Austin could reduce the barrier to entry for music venues—the cultural value that makes Austin the “music capital of the world”—by reducing the over twenty permits needed to establish such an entertainment business.
There are policies we can implement to curb the less desirable effects of gentrification but they’re complex, take time, require capital, and more but it’s not impossible. Why should we pursue such policies? Why does the issue of gentrification matter? With the arts becoming more entrenched in capitalism and MFA programs determining who’ll be given entry into the social and political reward system, our culture is at risk of not only reduced innovation but a deepening divide of inequality. The cost of living and lack of affordable housing may draw artists to create for aesthetic and not social value—becoming more market driven than creating works that are original. Shelter is also one of the basic human needs that should be a right not a privilege. If gentrification benefits a more privileged group and displaces minorities or those of lesser privilege, then this form of revitalization needs to be revisited and reformed with some of the policies mentioned. Everyone needs a fireplace, a spot to rest their weary head and a space to create community and produce art.
Sources
Grodach, C., Foster, N., and Murdoch, J. (2014). Gentrification and the Artistic Dividend: The Role of the Arts in Neighborhood Change. Journal of the American Planning Association, 80(1), 21-35.
Rich, M. A. and Tsitsos, W. (2016). Avoiding the ‘SoHo Effect’ in Baltimore: Neighborhood revitalization and arts and entertainment districts. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40(4), 736-756.
Big Car. (2019). APLR Affordable artist housing. Big Car, Indianapolis, IN.
Budds, D. (2017, August 9th). Gentrifying cities are trying to save the art that made them cool. Fast Company.
Moskowitz, P. (2017, September 11th). What role do artists play in gentrification? Artsy.
Sackllah, D. (2015, July 9th). The crisis of gentrification hits the Austin music scene. Pitchfork.
Goodnight Brooklyn: The Story of Death by Audio. (2016). Gravitas Ventures. El Segundo, CA
Fairweather, D. (2024, March 6). Ban corporate landlords: A housing crisis solution or a distraction?. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/darylfairweather/2024/03/05/ban-corporate-landlords-a-housing-crisis-solution-or-a-distraction/
