Hacking the City: A new model for urban renewal | Hacker News Reader

Hacking the City: A new model for urban renewal

newrepublic.com

19 pointschrismealy5 comments

This isn't exactly anything new and leaves off what happens once the artists/artisans finish making the neighborhood attractive to more development.

Actually, it's exactly what happened to Dumbo in Brooklyn through the late 80s and 90s. Two Trees bought up most of the neighborhood for $12 million, gave free space to artists and performance venues like St. Ann's Warehouse for 9 years, and shortened leasing arrangements to 2-4 years in order to attract startups and small shops that couldn't sign 10 year leases.

Once they moved in enough people to make the neighborhood desirable they started developing luxury units. David Walentas went from hearing about Dumbo from an artist at a party to becoming a billionaire with Two Trees.

What I'd really like to hear is how this revitalization can include the artists that kicked it off. I have friends that grew up in Dumbo throughout this process, kids of artists that moved in in the 80s, and they've long since been evicted from their homes to make way for condos costing $1000/sq ft.

I appreciate the ingenuity in getting the landlords to open the spaces up for free to the program.

And I'd offer that they do deal with what happens if gentrification appears. It would seem to me that the effect requires a critical mass of speculative property and people with money waiting to spend it. Brooklyn had both, and as a borough of one of the biggest cities in the world there are other reasons it's inflated so drastically. That'll be different from the sort of 50-200k person cities I think they're talking bout here.

I wonder if gentrification in a lot of the cities in the US will last the way it's currently rearing itself (with the exception of maybe NY, SF, Washington DC, where geography is a complication for city expansion).

Anyways, I've lived in a few of these sorts of ideal Midwestern cities and would love to see some experiments in this direction.

In what way do they deal with gentrification? It seems like your argument is that it just doesn't happen to such an extreme in places that aren't major cities? I don't think that's true -- take a trip up to Beacon, NY.

Regardless, my interest is in how we can compensate artists that kick this process off rather than just using them to make a landowner's property more valuable. Can they be compensated in some sort of equity like early stage startup employees are, so that after 10 years of producing work and making somewhere hip they aren't just thrown out to make room for some luxury project? Can there be tools made to make it easier to purchase these distressed properties as co-ops that they can collectively own and produce out of?

No one wants the blight of old, abandoned buildings that could otherwise be productive. However, this plan they've proposed just sounds like a way to get artists to make landlords and real estate agents money in the long run.

My comment was that, yes, though I'd really want to see counter-examples that aren't New York City's suburbs I guess. It's kinda a world unto itself.

The idea here seems to be reducing starting capital needed for brick-and-mortar start-ups. How do we compensate the artists? I think they're already being compensated with nearly free workshops/office space, which sounds like the tipping point between starting the business in the first place for a lot of these folks.

The article talks about how it was a non-starter to purchase the buildings from the property owners because of a host of reasons I'll not reprint...

It's about craftspeople and small businesses, and helping little people in these communities to experiment with new business ideas, not about making landlords rich. Both both sides have to see a benefit for it to work, and just trying to legislate turnover of old buildings to non-profits to build co-ops isn't going to get much love from the property owners (who probably have more political power)

"A false wall rested on dusty display cases and was supported by sandbags. “This is not architecture,” he said, because the building’s historic status prevented any changes to the interior. And besides, according to the rules of the arrangement, Newcastle’s artisans could use vacant properties like this for free as long as they promised not to alter their interiors (and thus their tax statuses)."

The cities create burdensome regulations, in the form of historic building status or adhere to ADA compliance, driving up the cost of any remodel and thus driving away any business opportunities at these locations, then turn around after realizing the loss in taxes, allow for utilization of a building with a look-the-other-way mentality fraught with legal craziness.

If one of those buildings catch fire, will the insurer pay out for a non-stated use of the building. If the insurer does pay-out, it is a one-off option as they will most definitely increase premiums to handle the new risk of these "artisans."

It is a great concept, however, it just points to how regulatory burden price out competitive up-starts and defends entrenched players.

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