Archinect - News

From the Ashes, Detroit continues to rise.

2017-12-18T11:30:00-05:00

An 800-foot-tall centerpiece is coming to Detroit's resurgent downtown as the city continues to build momentum about three years after exiting the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Detroit continues its steep climb back to normalcy and growth. As one of America's hardest-hit areas by the Great Recession, Detroit unemployment was running nearly three times as high as the national average in 2009 at a staggering 28 percent — and the city was bleeding population, losing inhabitants every year for the last six years.

Through all this, Detroit has powered back and hinted its potential as a location of a modern-day renaissance allowing for unhindered creativity and possibilities. Returning to Detroit's legacy of a booming urban center, altogether, the projected projects of downtown look to bring up to 24,000+ jobs to the region with companies such as Microsoft and Ally Financial looking to make a move to Downtown Detroit.

How L.A. can reboot its "creative economy" so artists can actually live in town

2015-12-11T14:26:00-05:00

But if L.A. is going to remain a creative capital, its civic and cultural leaders are going to need to do more than offer really great talk about how great we are...This can start with the Otis Report on the Creative Economy...If this report is to be more than just a feel-good data dump, it could use some solid recommendations on how L.A. compares to other cities culturally and how we might improve the situation for artists and cultural organizations, both small and large.

More about arts districts on Archinect:

Venice Beach's ongoing grapple with the tech titan invasion

Downtown LA's vision of an architecture and design super cluster

How one urban planner is helping revamp a Miami suburb "without gentrification"

With a little compromise, illegal urban squats like Ljubljana's Metelkova Mesto can do a city good

How Many Artists Does It Take to Make an Arts District?

Leading street artists weigh in on the gentrification debate

2015-11-16T18:32:00-05:00

Earlier this week, the online street art community was abuzz about an article by Rafael Schacter for The Conversation, From dissident to decorative: why street art sold out and gentrified our cities. [...] Basically, Schacter argues that street art isn’t rebellious anymore. Rather, that it’s most notable form is as a tool used by corporations to spur gentrification. Agree or disagree, the article is a must-read.

Vandalog author RJ Rushmore reached out to some of the influential figures in street art and muralism to get their reactions to Schacter's claim that street art has sold out and become complicit in the corporate gentrification of our cities. He received responses from Buff Monster, Living Walls, 1xRun, Jeffrey Deitch, Libray Street Collective, Tristan Eaton, John Fekner, Gaia, Ganzeer, Carlo McCormick, The Painted Desert Project, Jessie Unterhalter, Vexta, Wall Therapy and shared their views here.

Related news and one exclusive interview with Buff Monster on Archinect: