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The Nation's Pulse
The Egotists
Saving our cities means never having to think about anyone else.
We have “the conversation” every couple of days, the how-to-save-our-city discussion. Standing on the diverse, inner-city street on which my “reluctant socialist” girlfriend lives, we watch as earnest neo-bohemians transform a squalid commercial district into something so hip most people have never even heard of it. The excitement is palpable, but my girlfriend is ambivalent. There is, after all, such a thing as too much kitsch, too many chic coffeehouses featuring exotic shade-grown organic coffees. We haven’t reached that point, she says. There are still plenty of immigrant businesses and boarded up storefronts, but we both know where this is going.
Take a peek behind the boarded up storefronts and the plywood Spanish-language signs and you stumble upon traces of a former grandeur. Few, if any, of the neighbors remember a time when the strip was home to department stores, bakeries, groceries, barber shops, shoe stores, tailors, jewelers, and confectioneries — when a palatial dance hall, a bowling alley and a roller skating rink all stood within strolling distance. The turn-of-the-century tradesmen and merchants who built this neighborhood saw to it that it housed everything a city-dweller could want, all within a two or three block radius.
By the 1960s and '70s, however, the suburbs called, and the merchants closed up shop en masse. In their wake came first-generation immigrants from Latin America and Asia, followed in rapid succession by rent-to-own and check cashing operators who cater to (some might say prey upon) low-income people. And the ornate, Spanish renaissance-style Cinderella Theater, one of many local neighborhood theaters, became home to a dingy Mexican restaurant and an income tax shop.
Nearly all of the neighborhood’s current residents arrived after the late 1970s, when the strip already resembled a war zone with lots of nighttime gunfire, but little worth fighting for. Besides the half dozen Hispanic shopkeepers and restaurateurs, today’s new entrepreneurs are in the main gays, lesbians, neo-bohemians and artists, who together form loose associations helpful in founding quirky businesses and co-ops that cater to people much like themselves: young, hip, educated, and childless.
These are Richard Florida’s children. Florida, author of several hit books about the so-called creative class, is the poster boy for urban regeneration, but regeneration with a difference. After all, one more volume that suggests American cities need to invest in education and training would be about as welcome as another phone book. Florida’s innovation in thought was to identify what he calls the “bohemian effect”: that in order to thrive a city needed a certain percentage of creative people, and that cities that want to be successful will do all they can to attract and retain them. According to Florida, the way ahead is not by mending the unfixable public schools or even by strengthening the family. Rather the city’s salvation requires attracting flamboyant gays, neo-bohemians, and eccentric artists with liberal arts degrees and lots of tattoos. People who would be anathema in the suburbs. It seemed to make sense. Unlike solid upper and middle class businessmen, creative types were willing to go into these often dangerous, but quaint old neighborhoods, and roll up their sleeves and make something fun and interesting come out of it. Sure, immigrants and minorities were willing to work too. They just weren’t very fun or interesting.
Those readers who are also parents may not be surprised by what happened next. Recently some of Florida’s children have begun to rebel. In fact, more and more of Florida’s one-time pupils now regard their former master as the Godfather of Gentrification, an elitist with no use for Ordinary Joes: plumbers, barbers, sandpaper salesmen, folks who maybe didn’t earn a BA in environmental studies from Sweet Briar.
In a recent interview with the Toronto Star Florida fired back, defending his championing of creative work to the exclusion of ordinary jobs: “Those are the equivalent of the point-of-entry jobs my dad had, in a factory. And those jobs pay horribly. They’re horribly insecure.” Any fan of Tom Wolfe knows that elitism knows no political stripe; perhaps what’s surprising is that the Left is finally calling itself on it.
IT’S HARD NOT to be excited about the transformation of the nearby strip. Every month or two finds a new record shop, yoga studio, ethnic restaurant, or coffeehouse so cool you can imagine Jeff Tweedy stopping by for a cup. We walk past a shop called Cranky Yellow. Here is a fine example of the creative class at its most inane: a shop that sells “kitschy crap glued to other crap.” Cool, yes, but one wonders what the neighbors — mostly frazzled single-mothers, some working multiple jobs, some not working at all — think of Cranky Yellow and the printing coop next door, and the numerous art galleries. Likely they wonder when these strange-looking young folks are going to open something useful like a Laundromat, an auto repair shop, a bank or a grocery where everyone can afford to shop. Meanwhile I am left to wonder whether the real focus of this ultra-liberal creative class, with its community gardens and its locally grown produce co-ops and its grandiose idea of itself as urban savior — is really the city and the common good — or just its own artsy enclave.
My girlfriend tells me she is all about balance. She favors a more “holistic” neighborhood, with equal parts poor, working class, immigrant, minority, and bohemian. She worries about gentrification. To me that seems unlikely. There are only so many neo-bohemians and gays, and most have already settled in the already regenerated neighborhoods — those near to parks, and those with the quaintest architecture. Besides the city will soon reach maximum occupancy for florists and other creative types. Perhaps at that point our urban gurus will finally pay attention to the plain people, and not just when they need an oil change or their pipes flushed.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (43) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 7.7.09 @ 6:45AM
I just wonder what these brats will do when they find out that all the people who knew how to do things have retired and moved away, that they are in charge, and that they cannot do anything practical, useful or intelligent.
It all reminds me of the 1970s Back To The Land craze when people were joining barter communes and offering to exchange poems for tractor repairs.
Andrew B| 7.7.09 @ 7:51AM
I just came back from a visit to a funky boho neighborhood in Portland, Maine. Charming, interesting and lots of places to get great food. Still, I kept wondering one thing--if the economy goes completely to hell, as I believe it will, what will happen to this place? How many art galleries, hookah bars, Eritrean restaurants and kitsch emporia can a town support if people are hungry and out of work?
I am a nasty, evil conservative elitist, but I have laid blacktop, done roofing and painted barns to support myself. Will a bisexual vegan with 20 facial piercings, dreadlocks and a degree in Peace Studies do the same? Will they even know which end of a hammer to use?
Grzmlyk| 7.7.09 @ 9:48AM
I've lived in many cities with "thriving" Boho hoods - NYC, Boston, SF, now Burlington Vt.
On lazy Saturdays, sure, I've always enjoyed strolling into these stores to see what funky crap they are hawking. I never buy anything.
After all, how practical is an ash tray made of Ju ju bees? A GI Joe decked out in custom-made S&M regalia? $7.00-a-cup coffee that is guaranteed to have been hand-picked by authentic victims of color of right-wing oppression?
Most of these joints are mostly air; their real product is ambience. They don't have shelves to stock no merchandise to stock them.
And so they are nothing more than monuments to narcissism: Aesthetic exhibitionism posing as commercial ventures.
These folks don't look at a neighborhood and try to identify what needs their establishments might serve; they look at the neighborhood and think what a fabulous accessory their shop will be, how their personal "artistic" statement will give the neighborhood just the right look.
Alas, it is merely the logical mercantile manifestation of a civilization that has become hopelessly lost in itself.
ccc| 7.7.09 @ 10:45AM
Why would anyone open a shop on the strip when all the customers drive over to the local mega-mart or buy online? The only way for a small business to compete against a bulk seller is to focus on nitch markets and premium consumers, groups that are profitable but are not numerous enough to interest a major player.
MetaCon| 7.7.09 @ 10:57AM
This piece articulates very well my reasons for leaving New York City. All of the so called "bohemians" and rebels move to the same neighborhoods, look the same, act the same, generally hold the same world-views and ideas.
In other words, these "bohemians" are far more conformist than the people they sneer at and avoid.
Grzmlyk| 7.7.09 @ 11:32AM
Metacon: True dat, as they say. You said it succinctly, but since I've lived among them, I'll vent.
It kills me how these folks all affect the same look - the same piercings, the same tattoos in the same places, the same funked-out hair, the same faux-leopard clothes, the same edgy shoes, etc. etc.;
the same tastes in the same music, the same art, the same politics and the same dysfunctional relationships that pockmark their same boho lives;
and the same attititudes - the same solipsistic, sullen dreamy, outside-looking-in pose, the same smug knowledge that it is THEIR vision of "social justice" that will repeal the laws of human nature.
These folks actually think they're expressing their individuality!
Funny how, if you line up every one of these generic, fungible ersatz aesthetes in a single place, you wouldn't be able to tell one "individual" from another.
Their original sin is that they fall prey to the very same primitive tribalism, the same us-and-them-ism - that they profess to hate so much in others.
WR Jonas | 7.7.09 @ 2:55PM
Very interesting piece and amazing how many people "see through" this self delusional pose . The urban-hip- disestablishmentarian artist - frauds . Most of their effort is phony and a freak show. Even those who have actually attended a class on art appreciation wouldn't know a good design or composition if it bit them in the butt. Their rebellious attitude extends to the craft they are involved with and ultimately trashes any real resemblance to good art.
Every one thinks they are the next Andy Warhol or Jackson Pollack . It is tiresome and self defeating but they still go on collecting in the abandoned inner cities until the reality of their economic circumstances drives them away.
Pat| 7.7.09 @ 4:26PM
The History Channel recently aired a piece - maybe you saw it - with the premise that all human beings are gone and the world is recovering from human civilization. How quickly would Nature destroy the last visible vestiges of humanity? To illustrate how Nature would perform a "total makeover" on an abandoned city, the show's producers selected Detroit for their stunning visual shots - a very good choice given their premise.
Detroit has been revitalizing itself for decades now, but the underlying reality is much different than the "happy talk" flowing from Michigan's Democrats. Over 40 square miles, that's square MILES by the way, of Detroit is practically deserted - street after street full of empty houses, burnt out houses and houses being used by squatters or as drug dens. Wild animals have returned to forage among the backyards and the pheasant hunting would be excellent if hunting was allowed within city limits.
The police and fire fighters stay out of the deserted areas and the few remaining residents find their calls for help, assuming their phone lines still work, answered reluctantly, if at all. The old Packard Motor Car plant stands abandoned, scavengers searching for copper to sell set the plant on fire occassionally and it will emit plumes of black smoke and burn for days - too structurally unstable for firefighters to venture inside to put the fires out.
Recently, the Detroit Free Press has been pushing the idea of returning major portions of Detroit to farming. And not large dairy or pig farms that might stand a chance of economically surviving but small orchards and farms modeled on the English countryside.
No one officially asks where the money will come from to turn Detroit into English countryside - they're still in the "talking it up" phase of this latest swindle. But we can be assured the money won't come from Detroiters, it will come from the American taxpayers. And Detroiters are turning up their collective noses at large commercial pig farms, the smell, the noise - what urban sophisticate would want that? Rather they prefer their own versions of urban boutiques and trendy little coffee shops - except they envision a series of English villages surronded by vegetable farms and small orchards. And if you're not going to pay for it, why not?
Toronto Conservative| 7.7.09 @ 7:15PM
"one wonders what razzled single-mothers...some not working at all -- think of Cranky Yellow"
Maybe they could get busy glueing kitschy crap to other crap.
JimE| 7.7.09 @ 9:12PM
Grzmlyk,
I believe the word you are looking for is "drone" or to be hip "borg". It's easy to see why they support unlimited government handouts, they're just planning for the future when their useless junk shops go under.
Pingback| 7.8.09 @ 1:29AM
My Yoga Videos » Blog Archive » The Egotists links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Trackback| 12.5.09 @ 3:26AM
san diego yoga, on san diego yoga, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Kim| 3.26.10 @ 10:52AM
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