Adonis wrote:
It's worth noting as well that the artists need somebody to buy their art. They need people to pay for tickets to their performances. In other words artists willingly attract the people with the disposable income necessary to fund their artistic endeavors. While the artists lament gentrification they are the direct cause of it via their desire to make a buck.

Voyeur wrote:
Quote:

WhoElseCouldIBe wrote:


Artists aren't victims but they are a major catalyst to improving neighborhoods.

An artist rents a house on Ocean Ave and he cleans up the front yard, puts a few flower pots out there, but beyond that, what does an artist offer the neighborhood that any other decent human being with a corporate job does not?

eggzbenedict wrote:
If it was about "LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION", how did this spike in development and increase in population not happen 20 yrs ago? Did JC just recently get closer to NYC?

Voyeur wrote:
I'm just tired of reading opinion pieces about gentrification like the link provided by the OP which says JC is being "devastated by a sweeping gentrification crisis".

Atsushi wrote:

Right, and the cycle starts all over again. I think that's the way it should be. Imagine a neighborhood in which the same people keep living for decades. That's not vibrant.

eggzbenedict wrote:
If it was about "LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION", how did this spike in development and increase in population not happen 20 yrs ago? Did JC just recently get closer to NYC?

1. Artists "discover" the neighborhood.
2. More artists move there for cheap rents, cheap restaurants.
3. This is the Golden Age, when the neighborhood is "urban, gritty, authentic, full of character" and populated by hardworking middle income folks with a real sense of community.
4. Hearing how cool and cheap the neighborhood is, professionals start to move in too. Rents rise, old cheap restaurants close, new expensive restaurants open.
5. The artists can't afford to live there anymore because they don't make any money from their hobby art. Instead of just admitting that, they lament that the neighborhood is no longer cool, its lost its "grittiness, authenticity, character". It's now full of yuppies and people who work in finance.
6. The local people who lived there for decades are forced to move.
7. The artists stand up in defiance to the gentrification juggernaut, speaking for the disenfranchised underclass, railing against the tide of bros and frat boys inundating the neighborhood.
8. Driven from the neighborhood, the artists "discover" a new town. Currently, its a drug-addled hellhole, but it is "gritty and authentic"

WhoElseCouldIBe wrote:


Artists aren't victims but they are a major catalyst to improving neighborhoods.

brewster wrote:
Self aggrandizing delusion in the very 1st line:

"Jersey City?s growth is largely owed to the allure of its artistic community."

Umm, LOCATION,LOCATION,LOCATION! Most of the JC immigrants of the last decade couldn't give a crap about the arts, they're here for a reasonably priced place to live close to Manhattan.

WhoElseCouldIBe wrote:
Artists aren't victims but they are a major catalyst to improving neighborhoods.

brewster wrote:
Self aggrandizing delusion in the very 1st line:

"Jersey City?s growth is largely owed to the allure of its artistic community."

Umm, LOCATION,LOCATION,LOCATION! Most of the JC immigrants of the last decade couldn't give a crap about the arts, they're here for a reasonably priced place to live close to Manhattan.

Voyeur wrote:
Why are the artists always the heroes in these stories? Artists are locusts, the vanguard that heralds the imminent arrival of the pestilential scourge of gentrification. But these stories never admit this fact. Instead, they all trot out the same tired narrative, in which the artists are victims rather than the instigators of the very process they rail against:

1. Artists "discover" the neighborhood.
2. More artists move there for cheap rents, cheap restaurants.
3. This is the Golden Age, when the neighborhood is "urban, gritty, authentic, full of character" and populated by hardworking middle income folks with a real sense of community.
4. Hearing how cool and cheap the neighborhood is, professionals start to move in too. Rents rise, old cheap restaurants close, new expensive restaurants open.
5. The artists can't afford to live there anymore because they don't make any money from their hobby art. Instead of just admitting that, they lament that the neighborhood is no longer cool, its lost its "grittiness, authenticity, character". It's now full of yuppies and people who work in finance.
6. The local people who lived there for decades are forced to move.
7. The artists stand up in defiance to the gentrification juggernaut, speaking for the disenfranchised underclass, railing against the tide of bros and frat boys inundating the neighborhood.
8. Driven from the neighborhood, the artists "discover" a new town. Currently, its a drug-addled hellhole, but it is "gritty and authentic"

Spare us the "artists are victims" crap. These are the sanctimonious douchebags that pretend to be the solution when they are the exact problem that they pretend to be fighting against.

brewster wrote:
Self aggrandizing delusion in the very 1st line:

"Jersey City?s growth is largely owed to the allure of its artistic community."

Umm, LOCATION,LOCATION,LOCATION! Most of the JC immigrants of the last decade couldn't give a crap about the arts, they're here for a reasonably priced place to live close to Manhattan.