GENTRIFICATION AND CULTURE
International meeting : urban planning and culture. A gentrification inevitable ?
In Genève september 28th and 29th, 2011
As part of the project U-ZN lead by L’Usine, U.E.C.A (Union of the self-managed cultural spaces) and ARTfactories/Autre(s)pARTs are working together on setting days of discussion about the place of the culture in the urban planning.
The Anglo-American literature argues that artists influx, especially the underground ones (that we call off), is the key element to trigger the gentrification process in a neighbourhood. These artists are considered as pioneers of the symbolic revalorisation process and as the agent of atmosphere change that brings wealthier gentrifiers to settle down. This article reassesses this scheme, based on the case of Belleville neighbourhood in Paris. It relies on two pieces of researches. The first one analyses the inhabitants’ point of view on their neighbourhood, in two gentrified streets. The second one focuses on real estate markets. It seems that artists are more indicators of gentrification than triggers or catalysers. They are part of a wider process that revalorises centrality and its resources (especially cultural ones). This is all the more pronounced since the “artist†ethos is spreading all over social structures.
Read more (in french only)
Source : Elsa Vivant et Eric Charmes in the web magazine Métropole
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