Arts, Gentrification, and Planning for Creativity

Recent decades have seen an almost obsessive focus on creativity in an urban development context. Yet creativity has come to be prized not so much for the intrinsic values of imagination, innovation, and experimentation as for the possibility to exploit these qualities as a means of urban revitalization and wealth generation. This emphasis on policy has contributed to the misplaced assumption that artistic activity causes gentrification and displacement. At the same time, it often sets in motion programs that are detrimental to the creative environments such policies claim to support. It is time to end the current approach to creative city planning: the arts as amenities catalyze land development and lure upscale consumption.