How Artists Drive Gentrification and Political Issues
discounts, or even denigrates the contributions made by non-white counterculture and bohemian pioneers of aesthetic urban revitalization. Although it is important to avoid the neoliberal misappropriation of artist-driven gentrification, the process has net positive outcomes in improving quality of life in urban spaces by conjoining disparate social groups and encouraging diversity (Markusen 2006). Gentrification deserves to be reconsidered as a desirable process that only sours when corporate interests undermine the ethos and aesthetics of original art-driven community-oriented progress. Because artists have higher rates of self-employment versus other urban denizens, they can potentially boost community empowerment and self-reliance overall. With spillover effects to the non-artist residents… Continue Reading...
