A growing trend in city planning and development has been a focus on "vibrancy." In today's longread, Thomas Frank looks at the obsession with vibrancy and tries to identify the underlying dynamics that have fueled it. He concludes that vibrancy is a vague term that has been seized upon as a way of avoiding more fundamental initiatives to make places desirable. For example, fostering an artistic and creative "scene" becomes a higher priority than generating well-paying and durable jobs. While vibrancy is promoted as a means to economic development, it is unclear how or if that happens.
It seems that a big part of the critique here is the attempt by bureaucratic city planning institutions to try to create vibrancy. Seattle feels like a vibrant city to me (by whatever definition), but that seems to me to be something that is the result of the characteristics of the city and population (diversity, generally well-educated, beautiful natural environment, long-standing music and arts appreciation, etc.) rather than something foisted upon the city by government planners. In this context, vibrancy is good because it is a natural outgrowth of a generally healthy city rather than a cookie-cutter attempt to make a city desirable.
Then again, I love Seattle, so I'm probably just a little bit biased...
"Dead End on Shakin' Street" by Thomas Frank
Published in the Baffler, July 26, 2012
http://www.thebaffler.com/past/dead_end_on_shakin_street/print
Eric
Great article. It gives me a lot to think about.
ReplyDeleteI was in Tacoma when it went through this in the last 5-10 years and is now realizing the Ponzi scheme that happened. They tried to 'revitalize' downtown by creating "art lofts" for the upper class, making a modern art museum in the windows of the closed-down Woolworths building, re-doing the opera house, and even opening a High School of the Arts downtown.
Hipsters ensued with fancy coffee shops and too-cool-for-school gallery openings (with pretty shitty art I personally think since it seemed to be created very quickly with shock value/hipster appeal/zero craftsmanship)...the type of art that fits in nicely with the definition of 'vibrancy' from the article.
Well, this vibrancy hasn't worked for Tacoma. The art galleries and coffee shops are closed. No one seems to really care about the Woolworth's windows. The fruit in the downtown Safeway (which caters to the lower classes-the actual people who live around the main street of downtown) is still not fresh or plentiful.
Maybe if Tacoma had put money towards food or healthcare reform that is desperately needed in downtown Tacoma, instead of focusing on vibrancy (the small slice of the hip, upper class), then there would be more meaningful and lasting effects.
Artists also need a different type of reform which was touched on in the article. Instead of kickstarting a gentrified economy that ends up forcing the artists out of an area, artists need zoned areas for cheaper rent and art spaces to display the work through city-wide programs (similar to 4Culture in Seattle). And then not cave to the pressures of gentrification.