we want to experiment in making better public spaces. Cities are built in a very formal and classist fashion, which is at odds with the good that rapid production and public participation can do for urban development. — Huffington Post
Tidda Tippapart recently talked to Aurash Khawarzad ( founder of Change Administration + co-founder of the Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary collective DoTank) about the challenge of creating the post-Hipster city, gentrification, and what it means to (re)build New York City from the ground up.
12 Comments
I'm sorry what does this even mean...."The idea of the post-Hipster city, is a city where we are stopping DIY-displacement, and we're focusing on creating equitable communities."
This is stupid. So DIY is good when making your own chairs to lounge on a street, but not good when it displaces something???? Can we please get real journalism for a change?
None of the sound bites add up. I hope there's more to it or maybe it's not about a Post-Hipster city, but a Post-American city..... American meaning provocative sound-bites that mean nothing.
unavailable for comment
The trouble is that the term hipster has a such varied meanings. Tippapart is making a good point though. The current bloombergian mode of thinking in NYC is to simply clear the way for gentrification and let it spread as far as possible. And the young, creative people with discriminating taste are the front lines of that force. I am looking forward to a post-bloomberg post-occupy approach to community development in nyc.
But isn't the very nature of their social activism, the creation of leisure space within the city, the very mechanism that is used at the front lines that is being critiqued? Does it really make any difference if you ask a few community members what they think while you're doing? I think that is the missing criticality in so much of this "activism", the substitution of
"leisure" space for "public" space and the confusing of the very forces that act within an urban system. displacement is not engendered by consumption but by population movement, the tools of this are the mortgage loan and infrastructure spending. The new ghetto is the suburb, not the center city. we showed up at the battlefield and realized the war was over.
what Khawarzad is describing is simply Tactical Urbanism (a poor example of it though), he's just attempting to usurp these ideas as something else without being honest about the fact that he is part of a larger movement of designers (which seems to be a popular thing to do nowadays). It's the "insert adjective" urbanism trend.
I agree with some of the comments made below the article. As a Brooklyn native, people like him have contributed to the gentrification of Brooklyn in the first place. He's trying to save the artists that migrated to the borough over the last 10 years -- people who wouldn't even drive their cars through the borough with their doors locked 15-20 years ago. Unfortunately, most of the people who lived in Brooklyn for generations have already left -- what we are seeing is simply the next level of gentrification.
Dani Zoe, this word gentrification is waaaay too overused. Under context of population shifts (as mentioned by futureboy) that term loses all its meaning. 20 years ago USA had 60 million less people. 40 years ago it was 100M+ less. People have to live somewhere. In NYC they've embraced free-market solution to renting, which is having all kids of painful side-effects. I've seen the opposite condition as well, where rents are cheap but it's nearly impossible to find housing since everything is spoken for and there is little incentive to build more. It's hard finding the right balance, and I am not sure if dreaming of a post-hipster city adds anything to the equation.
Why is it that everyone who comes to this city feels the need to somehow change it? Change your own town. Stay where you are and make a difference there instead of coming to a new place and trying to teach the natives how to be more artistic. I hate these preechy people so much, they think that just because they lived in Brooklyn for 2 years on their parents dime, that they are suddenly better then everyone else whose been living there for their whole life. My idea of a post-hipster city involves all of thse "artists" being sent back to whatever red state they crawled out of and rebuilding the communities they've torn apart.
i'm puzzled by this guy. everything he says is shallow.
turn-up jeans, wayfarers and old school working class t shirts. LOALZ
has anyone heard of an ethnographic study on the arty community of brooklyn "a' la bourdieu" ? that'd be nice to read.
basically the post-hipsterism is about a class who realised that its aggressive consumer attitude altered the nature of the neighbourhood to an extent that its original character and potential for investment are gone.
Unfortunately, most of the people who lived in Brooklyn for generations have already left -- what we are seeing is simply the next level of gentrification.
those particular people cashed out when the prices went up - or simply followed their family out to the burbs - they weren't really displaced. it's fairly easy to live in an expensive city if your only major housing expenses are property taxes (and for seniors in most places, there are city and state exemptions that reduce those taxes to practically nothing). The main group of people that "gentrification" displaces are other more lower-income newcomers who rent - not families who have been there for "generations."
anyway - this seems more like people trying to recreate some mythical brooklyn scene of 10 years ago. the real next level of gentrification is if these people stick around after their kids reach school age.
i wanna be in the pre-hipster city so i can get some money and do my own architecture
do my own architecture? LOALZ.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.