Nightlife brings on gentrification

From RA:

"The gentrification of the East Village explicitly hinged on the aesthetics and ambience that the neighborhood's counter-cultural and bohemian artists had created [during] the 1960s and 1970s," she wrote. "The media's attention to this [movement] gradually changed the popular picture of the neighborhood from low and marginal to central and interesting."

Clubs often perform the same function, she said: "Thriving nightlife has ushered in and even constituted an essential part of the revitalization of neighborhoods." Her research showed that nightlife can "revalorize depressed property and trigger gentrification, enabling landlords and real-estate investors to reap 'monopoly rent.'"

Developers often benefit from the buzz that hip nightclubs generate for down-and-out neighborhoods. But Hae argues that when new, upmarket tenants move in and start complaining, they side against nightlife. This tends to be their outlook on the arts as well. "Municipalities [sponsored] workshops and housing subsidies as an anchor for future real estate capital investment in dilapidated neighborhoods," she explained. "Later [they] removed the subsidies to relocate artists elsewhere once gentrification kicks in."

It's tough to draw a causal relationship between vibrant nightlife and displaced communities. But plenty of real estate players in the last 40 years have tried to harness music scenes as part of their development plans. And plenty of cultural creators are concerned with the role they play in helping gentrification along.