Birmingham enters the 1980s: Gentrification, Hipsters, and the New Middle Class

I recently attended the PostScript blog launch party at 55th Place in Woodlawn.  The event was well attended by Birmingham's cadre of hipsters and showcased musical talent from across the country.

What is so interesting about the event is that while almost all of the attendees were white, 70% of the neighborhood of Woodlawn is black.  This immediately raises interesting questions like why are whites drawn to an event in a black neighborhood?  What are the promoters of such an event trying to accomplish by hosting a trendy event in a black neighborhood? And why did blacks not attend the event?

The crux of the answers to these questions lie in the idea of taste.  Bourdieu argued that taste is socially constructed by struggles among the upper classes over what is legitimate.  In other words, art considered beautiful, food considered delicious, and books considered profound are not so because of their inherent quality but because of the struggles of taste-makers over these works.  Gentrification, or the return of whites to inner city neighborhoods, is a similar field of struggle.  Young, trendy, up-and-coming individuals struggle to produce a neighborhood as a trendy (or tasteful) destination by hosting events like the one I attended Sunday night.  They work to remake the neighborhood in their image, and the desire here is for Woodlawn to become an artists hub.  But this is not the end of the story.

Main Street Birmingham has worked tirelessly to remake Woodlawn in this image.  They have promoted 55 Place Arts which is next door to Main Street Birmingham's main office.  They have promoted local food in stores in the neighborhood, and they have marketed the area as a magnet for arts and entertainment - consumption-side development.  Gentrification requires both the trendy hipsters willing to invest time and money into the neighborhood and government or quasi-government institutions backing neighborhood transformation.

All this seems well and good.  A depressed neighborhood receives investment, whites move into the neighborhood, schools get better, jobs are created, and everybody lives happily ever after.  However, what this story doesn't tell is that the people who pay the costs of this development are blacks, many of whom have lived in the neighborhood for years.  In 2000, Woodlawn was 77 percent black and 17 percent white with populations of 9,657 and 2,086 respectively.  In 2010, Woodlawn was 72 percent black and 23 percent white with populations of 8,284 and 2,656 respectively.  Woodlawn lost almost 1400 black residents during the past ten years, meaning that many blacks were displaced by the white invasion, rising property values, and rising property taxes associated with gentrification.  So while a Sunday night meeting of hipsters in a black neighborhood seems innocent enough, it is part of a larger process with dire consequences for blacks and black communities.