"We’re not against art or culture," [says Boyle Heights activist Maga Miranda.] "...But the art galleries are part of a broader effort by planners and politicians and developers who want to artwash gentrification."
"We’re saying that they need to make a bigger effort to amplify the voices of the people that are gonna be most affected by this, and that doesn’t happen to be artists in this situation. It happens to be people who can’t afford to live here anymore."
— LA Weekly
Amid widespread gentrification in LA, activists in Boyle Heights have been scrutinizing the art galleries that set up shop there in recent years — including significant spaces like Self Help Graphics, which helped put the Eastside neighborhood on the cultural map. While activists want to prevent developers from taking control and “artwashing gentrification”, some gallery owners have expressed mixed reactions. The debate gets even more convoluted considering that some activists are also working artists.
More on Archinect:
5 myths about gentrification, according to a GSAPP urban planning professor
A telltale sign of gentrification in Los Angeles
How a group of Boyle Heights residents are fighting gentrification
How L.A. can reboot its "creative economy" so artists can actually live in town
10 Comments
And the much awaited class warfare between the rich and the poor, the intelligentsia and the (I don't know the polite term for the onsite of Intelligentsia) Republican and Democrat has opened up a new front.
Art and it's role in gentrification and perhaps more accurately in this case ethnic cleansing of a long marginalized community is bound to get ugly fast. These galleries and other "indicators" of gentrification are bound to face vandalism at best and violence at worse.
People need to live somewhere, you cant just evict them and poof they disappear. And people are very angry that the basic civil services like police and trash collection only seem to come about when white people suddenly have an interest in the area.
The infuriating assertion that we know what is good for those people and that they should be grateful for the changes we have chosen for them is very much like the imperialistic attitudes and policies that can lead to violent push back once people of color and lower class realize that they have nowhere else to go. If a community doesn't want art galleries selling stuff that no one in this area can afford then maybe they should find someplace else to go instead of assuming they are going to be good for the people there.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Peter N, I agree with much of what you say (but also think it's a little narrow), but keep in mind marginalized peoples have known they have nowhere else to go for years(read decades)- despite their own desires for "social mobility" similar to the people moving in.
Peter, I think you set up the wrong battle front. It's not The Rich vs. The Poor per se, but more of a proxy war, as is typical of The Rich, it's a war between The Poor vs. The Middle Class.
The Poor = Minorities, Immigrants, LGBTQI
vs.
The Middle Class = White working class
The Hunger Games if you will.
Let's you and them fight.
Mark, I think one aspect of the gentrification problem is the way homeowners suddenly have a high tax bill because the assessed comparable properties in the area have gone up in value and thus they get taxed out of their homes and if not taxed then harassed for noise violations, weeds or too tall grass on the front lawn. Before you know it you owe the city thousands more for new taxes, fines and the most insidious thing used to force people out neighborhood association fees or development district fees that function like micro targeted tax increases to build "infrastructure" for the community. If you lose your home because the taxes went up faster than your income and local zoning limits how many folks can live in a house people get displaced and lose their perilous foot hold on the american dream and the upward mobility home ownership can bring.
People are not upset over having businesses move in they are upset or threatened by the incremental erosion of their home ownership and their community. It is ridiculous the fines people, home owners, get for having tall grass, weeds (also know as a vegetable garden) unauthorized businesses (fixing cars in your car port) and too many unrelated occupants. In some places you get fined for having abandoned cars on your property, they appear to be abandoned by the new white folks who always see them in the same place for over a week.
The marginalized folks don't have the resources and community wisdom to fight this death by a multitude of fines, and there are folks who spend all day looking up the rules and regulations to try and put out those noisy inconsiderate others who live next door.
Hell has no fury as a crunchy Granola person who thinks you did not thoroughly listen to their suggestions on how to fix up your yard, your house, your life, and your children.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Hell has no fury as a crunchy Granola person who thinks you did not thoroughly listen to their suggestions on how to fix up your yard, your house, your life, and your children.
Every now and then I get to see the ugly side of those social/community politics now, but I am familiar with them.
Lack or resources- yes. Lack of wisdom- no. Wisdom has nothing to do with it (nota bene: that comment is approaching the tone of the granolites you mention). These are communities that have been marginalized for longer that we have been alive (I'm making age assumptions), and they know what the solutions are- it's the access to these solutions that is repeatedly restricted or made difficult to maintain.
There are plenty of poor white people who are straight white guys. Actually, most poor people are white. I disagree with this demonization of white males. It's just a false narrative. I'm not denying "white privileges". That's a real thing. It's just hyperinflated way way beyond reality. White males have a slight advantage in some areas...true....but it's in no way a ticket to the easy life. Also, this idea of "white" is a very general term. I have a white friend who was a Bosnian refuge and saw parents get murdered...not sure how people like her get lumped into the same category as old money southern ladies.
I've yelled and yelled about gentrification being bad for a while...but too often the issue becomes an excuse to demonize the gentrifiers and glorify the gentrified. The "bad guy" is not the white guy who wants to buy affordable property and set up an art studio. The bad guy is the developer who razes areas and the state accomplices who facilitate it through regulatory exclusion, blight studies, zoning etc....it's ignorant and elitist to suggest (generally speaking, I'm not saying anyone on here is doing this) that these neighborhoods are culturally superior or completely externally victimized. some of the people in these neighborhoods are crooks and shit heads and make it miserable for the majority...most people will welcome an effort to make their area safer and wealthier. The key is to economically improve places without pricing out the people who live there and forcing them to change their cultural practices.
Peter, I agree with that last post...especially paragraph 1 and 2...
The regulatory system paves the way for gentrification by mandating sterile living....without it, most wealthy yuppies wouldn't want to move in...
Semi- related article in fast company. I agree with JLA (and the suggestion by b3ta) that this not about race, but if you expand these points they are still applicable and support the point JLA posited in saying it's the system.
But... even before these modern systems of planning and regulation, these spaces were being created at the cost of those who occupy them, no? All this regulation was in reaction to red lining, etc.
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