Ironies of Cultural Displacement
- isobelaraujo
- Jan 12, 2018
- 2 min read
"These footloose 'creatives', the story goes, are constantly on the move, always innovating and producing value as long as there are spaces and infrastructures that encourage them to congregate and interact. Cities can harness this energy by attracting creatives with the amenities they desire—the arts, livability, social tolerance—or they can leave money on the table, and let creatives go to other cities they like better." -The Post-Industrial “Shop Floor”: Emerging Forms of Gentrification in San Francisco's Innovation Economy, John Stehlin, 2015
Photo of the Casa Aztlan mural, painted in 1971 in the historically Mexican and Mexican-American neighborhood of Pilsen in Chicago, in the process of being painted over after being bought by a developer. From 2017 Chicagoist article. Photo courtesy of Tim Arroyo
The “back to the city” movement has brought with it an obsession with innovation and creativity, none of which seems to be possible without educated white millennials. Is innovation and creativity (as it is currently understood by private and government organizations) overrated? And why can't cities develop policies to foster strong innovative and creative industries without attracting educated white millennials?
The photo above is taken from an article written this summer about a historic mural celebrating Mexican heritage and culture that was painted over after being bought by a developer to be converted into luxury apartments. The irony lies in the fact that Pilsen has been marketed specifically as a arts and culture hub for young creatives- but existing strongholds of arts and culture aren’t valued, and are sometimes actively (and literally) erased in the interest of attracting a different type creative industry. Furthermore, I think that the perceived “authenticity” of these cultures is conflated with visible evidence of poverty. With this, a weird contradiction emerges- when neighborhoods start to become recognized for a strong presence of arts and culture, municipalities and developers begin to buy up property and market the area as “up-and-coming,” while actively erasing the original institutions and markers of arts and culture that were used to market the neighborhood in the first place.
There is also a good amount of literature on how this urbanist obsession with innovative and creative industries in general is actually detrimental to the maintenance and upkeep of cities as a whole- such as when tax-exclusion policies for companies buying property in cities, which then set up their own transportation networks and exclusive services, allowing for public services and infrastructure within the city to fall into disrepair without the necessary financial support. The trickle-down economics model of attracting innovation and creativity to cities doesn’t seem to always work.
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