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SURVIVING SUPERGENTRIFICATION IN INNER CITY SYDNEY: Adaptive Spaces and Makeshift Economies of Cultural Production
Author(s) -
Pollio Andrea,
Magee Liam,
Ang Ien,
Rowe David,
Stevenson Deborah,
Swist Teresa,
Wong Alexandra
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of urban and regional research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.456
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1468-2427
pISSN - 0309-1317
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2427.13015
Subject(s) - gentrification , creative class , creative city , economic geography , diversity (politics) , sociology , the arts , phenomenon , displacement (psychology) , economy , political science , economic growth , geography , economics , anthropology , creativity , law , psychology , physics , quantum mechanics , psychotherapist
Artists and creative workers have long been recognized as playing an important role in gentrification, being often portrayed as forerunners of urban change and displacement in former industrial and working‐class suburbs of ‘post‐Fordist’ cities. However, as is well represented by recent research, the relationship between the arts, gentrification and displacement has been called into question. The purpose of this article, which draws on 30 case studies of creative spaces in Sydney's inner suburbs, is to chart some of the strategies of spatial adaptation and makeshift economies of solidarity that cultural workers adopt in order to keep living and working in areas of ‘supergentrification’. We document how cultural infrastructure is transformed by the gentrification process and argue that these alterations are critical to the survival of arts and culture in the city. Such makeshift economies contribute, in a practical way, to preserving the diversity that gentrification is sometimes deemed to destroy or displace. While the survival of creative spaces is a much less researched phenomenon than other forms of resistance or displacement, we suggest that it has important consequences for both research and policy decisions around gentrification, infrastructural development and urban cultural economies.