Artists, Arts Districts, and Development

Josh Mukhopadhyay

Background:

Patrick Kennedy lauded the Downtown Berkeley Arts District as a rare example of efficient ‘best and highest use’ development. I wanted to examine the district, located on Addison Street between Milvia Street and Shattuck Avenue, from the perspective of the artists themselves, thinking they would have a somewhat different idea of their place in the community than that espoused by Mr. Kennedy. These notes are from a conference on artists and community development held last week here at UC Berkeley.

Summary:

Developers’ and policy makers’ interest in arts districts implies that artists are positive economic change agents in neighborhoods. Should the artists be used to improve a neighborhood only to be priced out as property values increase? How can the public process be used to help artists who help neighborhoods?

From artists’ perspective, their contributions to an improving measurement can be measured just as well by smiles and public pride than increases in property tax basis. Given this disconnect, artists, developers, and planners are uncomfortable bedfellows. Artists find affordable spaces to support their work and lifestyle and developers eventually commodify that. Planners, in turn, see arts districts as a cash register along the lines of the SoHo model. At their worst developers and planners package and sanitize the radicalism and individualism associated with artists and sell it to the upper middle class. This is especially true in strong markets like the bay area – in weaker markets there is less control from above and artists drive the process more independently. At best developers and planners have motives other than return on investment and fiscalized zoning when working with artists and arts districts.

There are well-established theories of community economic development (CED). Artist-led neighborhood revitalization is similar but different – call it cultural community development (CCD). CED facilitates flows of capital and CCD similarly facilitates flows of cultural information to allow impoverished areas fully participate in intangible aspects of society. Artists help the dispossessed find a voice with which to buy into the more influential external community. This is far more inclusive for the community than having external developers and municipal officials come into a community and tell them how to improve themselves. Artists have an advantage in terms of authenticity (as perceived by the community) because they aren’t consciously building desirable communities – that improvement is simply a happenstance of their craft.

For an example of an artist-friendly developer, look no further than Art Space. They are a nonprofit developer with over thirty mixed-use live/work spaces under management or construction across the US. Close to Berkeley, Art Space is currently working on a project in Santa Cruz; if the class decides to visit for a field trip, we might want to consider touring the project. Art Space uses low income housing tax credits and other federal and state subsidies to build their projects, which are permanently affordable because Art Space never sells and the conditions of the financing dictates below-market rents.

Even closer to home in East Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood, a local artists’ group has built a mixed-use commercial/residential space in conjunction with a different nonprofit developer, Affordable Housing Advocates. The project is called Calles Sin Fronteras. The Northern California Community Loan Fund provided Calles consulting services and financial support.

The Legal Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a national leader in community economic development, has a publication titled ‘Developing Affordable Space for Artists’. I have sent away for the PDF and will post it once available.

Sources:

UC Berkeley Center for Community Innovation, Building Arts, Building Community? Informal Arts Districts and Neighborhood Change in Oakland, California, (2008).

UC Berkeley Center for Community Innovation and Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, Arts, Neighborhoods, and Social Practice: The Arts as Integral to Processes of Urban Community Revitalization and Civic Engagement (January 25, 2008).