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ARTSY_TOWN

                                             May 24-31, 2013
                                             June    3, 2013
How do you form something like
an arts community that stays one?


Here's a scheme:

Given a substantial (but not overwhelming)
amount of funding (preferably, donations           You might look at this
rather than investments) start an enclave in       as a real estate
an urban area that can not be bought out or        investment scheme:
subverted, a place that develops the               come up with enough
character everyone seems to love about             money to buy into
artistic neighborhoods, without immediately        a depressed neighborhood,
losing it's character to new-comers drawn to       then attract some
the flame and snuffing it out.                     activity guaranteed
                                                   to raise it's value.

Where it gets interesting is                       You create a central core
deciding what process is going                     with the intent of holding
to be used to decide who is                        it, and profit off
allowed in once the community                      gentrification in the
is successful.                                     surrounding region.

    The institution of rent control          One model you might use
    is reasonably effective at               is "art school".
    preserving the character of a            Universities typically
    neighborhood for a time, but             constrain their management
    only for a time.  The bohemian           from bleeding the endowment
    element of San Francisco is              to deal with any immediate
    increasingly gray-haired these           operating costs.
    days, and clearly fading by              A university can't just
    attrition.  To find a younger            sell off a dormitory as
    element you need to look                 an apartment building to
    further out on the edges.                raise funds.

Consider that an ethnic                            They are, however,
enclave like a Chinatown is                        amazingly clever at
using that ethnicity as a                          sleazing around these
gate-keeping filter.  And                          restrictions.  Stanford
one might complain with some                       boots it's undergrads
justice about the poor                             off campus every summer
economic conditions of                             so it can rent itself
someone who lives and works                        out for "summer camp"
in a chinatown, but those                          activity.  It also
poor conditions in                                 *leases* a corner of
themselves act as a filter,                        it's property to a
encouraging settlement by                          shopping mall...
recent immigrants.
                                                   USF recently sold
In comparison, an "artistic                        the license for it's
community" is by definition                        college radio station,
founded on a much more ellusive                    KUSF.  It's not like
quality.  If being an artist is                    it sold a building or
required for admission, becoming                   something, right?
a Jackson Pollack imitator might                   Just a government license
easily become a common strategy.                   intended to allow
                                                   universities access
                                                   to the airwaves.
    Other issues: the scenario
    I've laid out involves
    colonizing an existing
    neighborhood of some sort--
    doing this without causing                                
    pain by displacing the         The 70s and 80s boho crowd had      
    existing residents may         it relatively easy, with nearly     
    be difficult.                  abandoned "industrial"              
                                   districts and such.                 
    The alternate approach                                             
    of starting a "green               The dead shopping malls of      
    field" development of              suburbia might turn out        
    in a more unihabited               to be interesting targets. 
    region has even bigger                                           
    problems.                             ("Higashi no Eden"?)   
                                                                  
                                                              



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