{"id":328,"date":"2011-04-01T20:21:52","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T20:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicurbanism\/?p=328"},"modified":"2012-11-10T04:56:25","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T04:56:25","slug":"just-stay-put-an-alternative-vision-for-arts-based-urban-revitalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/2011\/04\/01\/just-stay-put-an-alternative-vision-for-arts-based-urban-revitalization\/","title":{"rendered":"just stay put: an alternative vision for arts-based urban revitalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are some thoughts about a different way to think about arts-based urban revitalization, written in the form of a suspiciously confident manifesto.\u00a0 These ideas are completely pie-in-the-sky and fly in the face of the prevailing wisdom in this field, but I’m fine with that if it reveals some fallacies and unspoken assumptions of most strategies for arts-based urban revitalization (ABUR) today.\u00a0 I draw on my observations as an urban sociologist who studies the new urban economy, a phenomenon that’s increasingly understood and promoted through the “creative city” paradigm popularized by Richard Florida and others.\u00a0 I’m also interested in the role of place in the new urban economy, which I worry has been reduced to a postcard experienced to be consumed by the creative class, tourists, and second-home owners.\u00a0 Finally, I’m responding to the changes ushered in by music technology and the music industry, which seem to have exhausted the opportunities for most musicians to make a living by recording and touring.<\/p>\n

My vision of ABUR revolves around music, more specifically popular music, and in particular those genres of rock, R&B and country that assign some value to innovation and artistic development.\u00a0 Possibly this proposal could extend to other creative industries that draw on collaboration and a collective infrastructure (rehearsal spaces, performing venues, retailers of equipment and other specialized goods and services).\u00a0 In fact these are often assumed to be general conditions of creative industries, but there may be important differences between popular music and other creative industries that I’m not ready to address yet.<\/p>\n

The problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem with most thinking about ABUR today is that it focuses predominantly on supply-side questions of attracting and retaining creative people.\u00a0 The fawning over bohemian enclaves like Williamsburg and Austin illustrates how the field emphasizes critical mass and fails to consider the broader contexts that draw creative-class migrants, and that shape their relationship to places.\u00a0 Absent such considerations, researchers and planners often import into the ABUR field assumptions specific to musical bohemians: that they’re a restless, mobile population with few commitments (e.g., dependents to take care of, jobs they’ve trained a long time for) and therefore an ability to give up the semblance of a regular life for their art.\u00a0 In short, ABUR strategies are too often premised around the model of indie-rock bands composed of 20-something, college-educated hipsters working beneath the financial norms for their socioeconomic class.\u00a0 Such a population can of course be found in large numbers in the bohemian enclaves of big cities and college towns; their presence is no doubt a necessary prerequisite for these places’ prosperity in the creative economy.<\/p>\n

However, this population’s relationship to place is rootless; more to the point, it ismarket-based<\/em>.\u00a0 This means, first, creative-class types stay put only as long as the costs of their social reproduction are agreeable to them.\u00a0 So, if they choose to have families (fewer are choosing to do so, the demographic evidence suggests), cramped apartments and poor public schools push them out.\u00a0 Also, they move out when rents go up, leaving behind them a wake of coffeeshops and lifestyle boutiques to be patronized (or not, more likely) by the older, affluent residents who remain. Second, the creative externalities to be found in these places have to remain positive for them; this is a function of rent and business costs, but also ephemeral currencies of cool.\u00a0 In fact, these shifts often occur simultaneously, one sometimes giving meaning to the other’s experience \u2014 e.g., the 20-something flight from Manhattan and San Francisco.<\/p>\n

If gentrification is your issue, you can fit it into this scenario quite easily.\u00a0 I think it highlights the more general context for gentrification: a consumerist, commitment-free relationship to place.\u00a0 This kind of relationship to place isn’t a sustainable basis for ABUR, unless the latter is only a code word for “rising property values.”\u00a0 It’s also not a sustainable basis for great art.\u00a0 Consider the navel-gazing handwringing we see in the manifestos, debates, and scholarship that fall under the umbrella ofhipster studies<\/em>.\u00a0 Within the music itself, the dialectical yearning for\/detachment from authenticity that has informed rock music since punk rock \u2014 and which, if you ask me, has made for often boring, solipsistic art of late \u2014 reflects this contradiction of the new urban economy.<\/p>\n

Why are musicians in such a hurry to leave the places that shape their creative impetus: the places where they grew up, maybe went to college, or where family and friends live?\u00a0 Yes, we know from the baby-boomer rock legends how alienating, conformist, or dull the suburbs, towns, or dismal cities they hailed from could be.\u00a0 However, in case no one has noticed, those qualities can now be found in so-called thriving cities as well.\u00a0 As musicians and other creative types persist in striking out for uncharted terrains of authenticity \u2014 maybe it’s the countryside, maybe Detroit \u2014 it begs the question,\u00a0What happens if they just stay put?<\/em>\u00a0 Perhaps this way lies the accomplishment of ABUR’s loftier ambitions: the stimulation of creative milieus, efficient use of the creative resources and infrastructure already in place, the development of genuinely local styles and local traditions, the cultivation and integration of local talent into a meaningful enterprise.\u00a0 Maybe some property values would even rise when all is said and done, who knows?<\/p>\n

The proposal<\/strong><\/p>\n

The critical issue isn’t what places can do to attract musicians, but\u00a0what musicians can do for the places they inhabit<\/em>.\u00a0 Framing the problem this way means we can push all those supply-side, if-you-build-it-they-will-come approaches to arts-based urban revitalization to the side for our later consideration (or perhaps disposal). Below, I articulate an alternative vision of music-based urban revitalization in the form of a proposal \u2014 really, a challenge \u2014 to the musical creative class. \u00a0I proceed on three premises.\u00a0 First, musicians and other creative types can come from just about anywhere.\u00a0 Yes, the research shows that most of them (again, usually in their 20s and 30s) move from anywhere to cluster in just a few places, but the raw material of musical creativity is more or less randomly dispersed. \u00a0And second \u2014 it’s time to bring this issue to the foreground \u2014 musicians are already abandoning the traditional record-and-tour career model that the music industry and digital music sharing have just about brought to their knees.<\/p>\n

First, find a place to a call home and lay down roots.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0We know that, like other artists \u2014 indeed, like most everyone \u2014 musicians seek a meaningful relationship to the places they live.\u00a0 This doesn’t mean bars, coffeeshops, parties, industrial lofts and other “creative amenities,” but places that fuel the expressive, productive impulse within musicians.\u00a0 Even places that are alienating can provide this relationship; just because artists don’t need to suffer to make great art, doesn’t mean they require a superficially “fun” place to live, either. \u00a0In fact, if a possible destination seems attractive only so long as it retains its “cool” (a non-local, consumerist currency if there ever was one), then it should be eliminated from the short-list of places to live.\u00a0 Just about any place can work, so musicians should decide what’s a good place to do their thing \u2014 not just make music, but to have a life \u2014 and then commit themselves to living there, making new relationships, raising families there (if that’s in the cards), and participating in the existing community in good faith.\u00a0 The self-segregation of hipsters in lifestage-specific enclaves is to be avoided. \u00a0There’s no need to do this alone; musicians could encourage\u00a0<\/strong>their\u00a0<\/strong>friends and fellow musicians to join them in this sample and make the same commitment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

performance at the Community Music Space, Red Hook, NY<\/p><\/div>\n

Second, stop selling recordings.<\/strong>\u00a0 The market is already glutted with too many recordings, which has only diminished listeners’ attention to and appreciation of music in general.\u00a0 CDs and digital music for sale commoditize music, the first step in drawing local music into the global market and surrendering musicians’ ambitions to the unit-shifting demands of the music industry.\u00a0 It really doesn’t matter whether a band is signed to a transnational music conglomerate or an independent label.\u00a0 If music can be sold on Amazon, much less any brick-and-mortar retailer, the thresholds of profits mean most recording artists will face the necessity of financially discounting their music or being ignored altogether.\u00a0 In either case, there goes any chance to make a living on recorded music.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, musicians are driven to record, to hear themselves and demo new work.\u00a0 They’re also compelled to share their recordings with remote strangers, still the quickest way to reach the greatest number of ears, and still the quickest way to inflate their egos.\u00a0 We’re lucky that the internet makes all of that possible today. \u00a0But if music is as easily accessed as a tweet, the reality of digital sharing is that most people won’t pay for it, at least not at a price sufficient for musicians to make a living by recording music only.\u00a0 It’s fine to pursue that small market niche exsts for specialty goods that can be sold at a premium (handmade releases, extensive liner notes, limited releases); the economy for this kind of output more resembles the market for material arts and crafts then music.<\/p>\n

Third, stop touring.<\/strong>\u00a0 Or at least ratchet it down significantly.\u00a0 Playing live is the foundation of musical expression, but touring is more than just playing live.\u00a0 Or rather, it’s less.\u00a0 Too often, it’s about promoting new recorded product via one-night stands in venues with corporate fees or liquor licenses to pay off, located in large markets where listeners already have enough choices for their entertainment dollar.\u00a0 It’s common knowledge among performers that some of the best places to play are off the beaten path, yet the industry denigrates these places as b-list or c-list destinations \u2013 yet another contradiction that’s killing music.\u00a0 The economics of touring mean that most performers have to rely on the sale of merchandise.\u00a0 Hey, I like a concert t-shirt as much as the next guy, but let’s be absolutely clear: a t-shirt doesn’t convey music so much as a band’s brand.<\/p>\n

Notice what happens when musicians stop selling recordings and touring: by today’s industry standards, they effectively become\u00a0amateurs<\/em>.\u00a0 This is entirely a good thing.\u00a0 Music no longer serves as a means to an end (e.g., making a living, becoming rich) but becomes an end in itself.\u00a0 Now, musicians needn’t sacrifice their life for work \u2013 and selling CDs and touring is indeed work, the dreariest, least artistic aspect of the musician’s career. \u00a0Now, music is no longer the province of 20-somethings eager to work “start-up hours.”\u00a0 Now, art can be integrated genuinely and sustainably back into the musician’s life, alongside friends, family, community, and, yes, making a living in some other enterprise.<\/p>\n

Fourth, make as much new music as possible.<\/strong>\u00a0To do so, they’ll generally have to turn local, working with friends and nearby musicians and setting up local studios.\u00a0 Let a thousand home recordings bloom \u2013\u00a0and, when you’re done, share your 8-track recorder with your neighbor, won’t you?\u00a0 Without bands to maintain or careers to promote, time is freed up to collaborate with fellow musicians.\u00a0 From this can come a constellation of overlapping ensembles and episodic projects \u2013 a marketer’s headache, but a musician’s delight.\u00a0 The collective goal should be to sustain musical innovation, but we might anticipate that innovation, now freed from the careerism of recording and promoting new product for “the band,” will take surprising form.\u00a0 For instance, playing other people’s songs, traditionally what a cover band does, might become a new platform for theatrical narration or curatorial expression.\u00a0 In any case, creative advances and musical idioms will develop naturally, unmotivated by the need to distinguish music product through superficial place-based association.\u00a0 The localness of the scene is no longer the sum of live there or, even worse, the musicians who\u00a0once<\/em>\u00a0lived there (which is much of what music-based urban branding peddles today).\u00a0 Intead it derives from the locally emergent, collective tradition of artistic practice.<\/p>\n

Fifth, perform live as much as possible.<\/strong>\u00a0 This is an obvious corollary of the prior point, but it’s in the public settings for live performance that an alternate basis for ABUR starts to emerge. It’s fine if there are local bars or concert halls to play at, but without big-name careers or mass-market recordings to sell, the audience for any one event will be small. Better then to play in untraditional venues: house parties, block parties, community centers, public commons, subway stations, libraries, etc.\u00a0 (Portable electricity generators will soon rank among the most important pieces of infrastructure in many scenes.)\u00a0 Out-of-town musicians and touring artists should be invited to headline local performances.\u00a0 Feed them a home-cooked dinner and given a bed to sleep in, they’ll see for themselves (and report to others elsewhere) how excited and exciting the local operation is.<\/p>\n

By this point, the local music scene will approach, at least in kernel, what any good college scene has to offer: a creative milieu and collective infrastructure for small-scale performance that can sustain itself as students come and go.\u00a0 Or, if you prefer a less youth-centric model, the local scene will resemble what we associate with musical New Orleans: a community where art is fully integrated into life, offering musicians performing opportunities and local traditions in which they can exercise their creativity, even as they go about making a living by other means.\u00a0 Significantly, this has been achieved without substantial financial investment.\u00a0 The DIY nature of the scene has been the very medium for creative innovation, and the source of buy-in by its participants.<\/p>\n

With a foundation of place-based musical distinction established, now ABUR can begin in earnest. \u00a0If places can offer a regular schedule and homegrown milieu for musical performance in a distinctly local style \u2014 something only a few of the biggest cities can claim \u2014 people from elsewhere will be drawn to see for themselves what’s going on. \u00a0Create local music festivals or hitch on to existing events; set up an internet presence to share your music (for free!) with the rest of the world.\u00a0 As talent develops and new sounds emerge, some musicians will invariably want to seek their fortune elsewhere.\u00a0 Let them move away with enthusiasm and no resentment, because they can spread the word about the specialness of your city and town.\u00a0 But as years go by, it’s important to think in advance about sustaining this local music scene:<\/p>\n

Fifth, use ABUR resources to support music education.<\/strong>\u00a0 Not that ABUR generally entails much financial support, but when the money is there, too often it’s dedicated toward ambiguous “beautification” projects or other efforts that serve to promote property values or real estate development.\u00a0 Forget about those; they do little to support the local arts (and, in the form of gentrification, often do much to impede the local arts). \u00a0Want to channel your ABUR investments into something of direct benefit?\u00a0 Teach the kids how to play music and othewise participate in the arts.\u00a0 We know that formal music education is regularly put to the chopping block at public schools, a short-term saving that in the long term undermines whatever creative advantage places might have.\u00a0 In this context, investing in the youth is not charity; it’s an important final step toward preserving and furthering the collective effort that has been put forth at musicians’ considerable personal expense.\u00a0 Most likely this ABUR “investment” will take the form of voluntary or discount services, not money: e.g., providing lessons and teaching classes \u2014 traditional vocations for working musicians anyway.\u00a0 Don’t worry if your musical graduates move somewhere else after graduation to make music.\u00a0 Like a public university system, the returns on this educational investment aren’t measured only in terms of workforce contributions, but also in other externalities that attract more talent and enhance local reputations.<\/p>\n

Some of the scenarios I’ve proposed are already in place.\u00a0 In Woodstock, NY, former Band drummer Levon Helms opens up his monthly Midnight Ramble to audiences out of his recording studio; the event attracts guest musicians like Emmylou Harris, Phil Lesh, Elvis Costello and Donald Fagen, all the while furthering Woodstock’s reputation as a capital for rootsy, 60s-era jam music (admittedly, not my cup of tea). \u00a0Canada’s urban music scenes are famously fluid and place-based, the best known being the Toronto bands and musicians who revolve around the Arts & Craft label (Broken Social Scene, Feist, Metric, Stars, etc.).\u00a0 The Canadian government’s FACTOR program (the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent On Recordings) plays a big role in subsidizing the costs of the musical endeavors in these scenes, albeit toward the goal of boosting export-oriented revenues from the sale of recordings \u2014 an economy without much of a future, I suspect.<\/p>\n

No doubt readers of this blog can think of additional comparisons.\u00a0 Perhaps this proposal doesn’t involve reinventing the wheel, but instead linking existing institutions into a more coherent, sustainable system.\u00a0 The point is to question the careerist, peripatetic orientation toward the artistic life that is only viable for a small number, mostly those willing to defer a life for their work and its sacrifices (no health insurance, sleeping on floors, etc.).\u00a0 Not only does that prop up an increasingly unsustainable economy \u2014 post-Fordism exacting its final costs on an atomized, “flexible” cadre of creative producers \u2014 but it doesn’t bode well for art either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are some thoughts about a different way to think about arts-based urban revitalization, written in the form of a suspiciously confident manifesto.\u00a0 These ideas are completely pie-in-the-sky and fly in the face of the prevailing wisdom in this field, but I’m fine with that if it reveals some fallacies and unspoken assumptions of most strategies for arts-based urban revitalization (ABUR) today.\u00a0 I draw on my observations as an urban sociologist who studies the new urban economy, a phenomenon that’s increasingly understood and promoted through the “creative city” paradigm popularized by Richard Florida and others.\u00a0 I’m also interested in the role of place in the new urban economy, which I worry has been reduced to a postcard experienced to be consumed by the creative class, tourists, and second-home owners.\u00a0 Finally, I’m responding to the changes ushered in by music technology and the music industry, which seem to have exhausted the opportunities for most musicians to make a living by recording and touring. My vision of ABUR revolves around music, more specifically popular music, and in particular those genres of rock, R&B and country that assign some value to innovation and artistic development.\u00a0 Possibly this proposal could extend to other creative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43643,43651,43658,43661,43656],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arts-based-urban-revitalization","tag-creative-city","tag-hipster-studies","tag-touring","tag-urban-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}