adventures in arts-based urban revitalization: the RoboCop statue in Detroit
On February 7th, someone tweeted the mayor of Detroit with a passing thought: “Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky & Robocop would kick Rocky’s butt. He’s a GREAT ambassador for Detroit.” The city’s mayor (and former NBA all star) Dave Bing replied, “There are not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop. Thank you...
please skill me: the growing credentialism of NYC’s rock underground
Using an admittedly unscientific sample of 38 indie-rock groups from Brooklyn, I poked around the bands’ Wikipedia pages and their underlying sources to look for any members’ college affiliations. In no time at all [update: and with further information from my sources; see below], I found information for 26 groups. Even if we assume the remaining...
making the scene in the creative city
In exploring how cities sustain musical creativity, you eventually get around to the creative city thesis. This is most commonly associated with Richard Florida, the regional planning professor and urban consultant who contends in books like The Rise of the Creative Class that the most prosperous cities and regions are the ones with the highest density of...