Gieseking - Sustaining Difference during Gentrification: NYC & Berlin Since 2008

transcript

Sustaining Difference during

Gentrification: NYC & Berlin Since 2008

Dr. Jack Gieseking Digital & Computational Studies

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USABUKA 2010-2011, HU im Berlin

jgieseking.org || @jgieseking

• 1979 “ghettos” --> 1983 “neighborhoods”

• “Gays” and artists linked to patterns of gentrification

• Intersection of culture, politics, and economy in a territory

• Lesbians and queer women disappeared as “invisible” • Women drink less, possess less capital and power, and are associated

with a narrative of fear in the cityCastells (1983)

@jgieseking

• 1979 “ghettos” --> 1983 “neighborhoods”

• “Gays” and artists linked to patterns of gentrification

• Intersection of culture, politics, and economy in a territory

Urban Geographies of Sexualities: NYC & Berlin

100000

105000

Couple'Male*Male'

Couple'Female*Male'

Couple'Female*Female'

Lesbian-Queer History by the Numbers

F(3) = 433; p > .001, R2 = .946

US $13,392 +/- per couple type

@jgieseking

US Median Annual Earnings by Type of Couple

US $13,392 +/- per couple type

Source: Hegewisch, et al. (2011), Institute for Research on Women

The Gay City Today

@jgieseking

Jun, 2009 “Join the Rainbow Pilgrimage” NYC.gov

• Financialization: private equity investors increasing owning rental housing portfolios

• 1990s locally owned housing > global portfolios in 2000s

Mother Jones (2014)

@jgieseking

Housing Financialization

Fields & Uffer, Urban Studies (2014):

• Deep parallels in globalization of housing market in NYC and Berlin

• Split between housing ($) and home (experience) in both cities

• Financialization heightened inequality and often worsened housing conditions and well-being of rental populations in both cities

Uberberlin 2011, Vancouver Sun 2011, Shark Properties 2010

@jgieseking

NYC/Berlin Gentrification

How did the creative class thesis make way for financialization?

And what is the future of the creative class under financialization?

@jgieseking

Research Project

Images: © Levine Roberts, Keith Haring, n/a, GO, gonyc.gov

@jgieseking

• 47 NYC & 24 Berlin self-identified lesbians & queer women with mental mapping components

Alison Bechdel 1987

NYC/Berlin Research Project Methods

• Archival research 25 years of publications in both cities, & 381 organizational records in NYC

• Participatory online focus group in NYC, future for both together

Staten Island

Manhattan

The Bronx

Queens

Brooklyn

@jgieseking

Mapping Lesbian-Queer New York

Desi’s Map Sally’s Map

@jgieseking

Color = Participant Year of Coming OutRed = Cassie ’83 (Latina, middle class, from NYC)Blue = Susan ’92 (white, middle class)Green = Sally ’96 (white, upper-middle class)Brown = Shawn ’98 (black, middle class, from NYC)Purple = Holly ’03 (white, working-middle class)Orange = Beth ’06 (white, working-middle class)

MANHATTAN

QUEENS

BROOKLYN

West Village

East Village

Park Slope

Bed-Stuy

Flatbush

Central Park

Williamsburg

Chelsea

Composite Mental Map

@jgieseking

• Fragmented & fleeting spaces

• Gentrify and are gentrified for over 3 decades

• Little ability to retain long-term, mass property ownership (ex. Park Slope)

[aus: NYC GO Magazine, 2009] [aus: http://www.morgenpost.de/, 2009]

Berlin Meets NYC

Berlin

• Fragmented but not fleeting spaces

• Recently taken on large role in gentrifying and being gentrified

• Losing ability to retain long-term, mass property ownership (Kreuzkölln)

Insights to Date

• Creative class gentrification fed today’s financialization

• Financialization is newest moment wave of gentrification

• Creative class becomes redefined through financialization, esp. women

• Disembodiment of home from housing “stock” is site of embodied intervention for LGBTQ activism and research [aus: NYC GO Magazine, 2009]

Financialized Creative Class of NYC/Berlin

Next Project: Queer Public

Gieseking - Sustaining Difference during Gentrification: NYC & Berlin Since 2008

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