As Denver Grows and Changes, Does it Truly Reflect Our Values?

Denver is changing. Mayor Hancock told radio host Ryan Warner that, “[t]he vibrancy of this city is to have a diversity of residents. We don’t want to ever be known as a city of just those who have.” Jonathan Thompson, High Country News, Nov. 24, 2014. I grew up in Denver in the 1980s and 90s. I then lived on the coasts for much of the 2000s before returning to my hometown a few years ago. I’m both a native and a transplant: I appreciate the city’s history, and I am not opposed to its changes. But we need to reflect on not just what we see changing across Denver, but how those changes are occurring and what the pace and character of those changes says about us as a community.

One of the conclusions of Tilt West’s August 2017 roundtable discussion of “Development, Displacement, and the Arts,” was that Denverites claim to support the arts and artists, but the incentives in our local economic and political systems instead encourage rapid growth over thoughtful and inclusive change. I believe that we need to transform cultural capital into political capital in order for Denver to change in a way that incorporates art and diversity. Before sharing a few ideas on how to do that, I’d like to explore the difference between gentrification and artistic revitalization, and the different types of capital.

I have always struggled with the term “gentrification” because it tends to elicit a visceral revulsion. It is clearly more than just “look, another coffee shop has moved in on the corner” and “look, more condos!” It includes the idea that a formerly eclectic neighborhood is now more homogenous, a formerly low to mixed-income neighborhood is now expensive and out of reach for “regular folks” and, most pointedly, a formerly ethnic neighborhood is now full of white people who might never have set foot in the area when it hosted 50+ year old family businesses, but are everywhere now that the boutiques and craft breweries have arrived.

One of the roundtable participants challenged us to distinguish between gentrification and artistic revitalization, which is what we saw initially in an area like RiNo where older, neglected industrial warehouse spaces were reclaimed by artists for workspaces and galleries. His point was that gentrification displaces while revitalization enhances; gentrification replaces while revitalization reinvents; and gentrification forgets while revitalization remembers and incorporates the past and the existing neighborhood character. That very revitalization, however, often creates what some reluctantly admit is “cultural capital,” which in turn raises property values and ultimately invites investment of monetary capital to a neighborhood.

So, let’s talk about capital. A lot of the Tilt West discussion revolved around the tension between the inherent value of art, which breeds cultural cache in a given geographic area and raises property values, and the money that is ultimately drawn into that area from the outside by those who want to trade their dollars for cultural capital. The prompter of the roundtable, Yong Cho, noted that “one of the great values of artists is they challenge the status quo, they make you think, they push you forward.” I agree and consider this to be an intrinsic value of artists and the art that they produce. Once that intrinsic value converts into cultural capital, however, money, an item of extrinsic value, often follows. So, where once we saw low-priced collaborative live-work spaces used by artists, we now see high-priced townhomes; where once there was an informal gallery, now there is a craft brewery; and so on.

I would argue that we need to monetize the cultural capital that artists build, because that cultural capital is the reason that developers are attracted to the area in the first place. Both as compensation and to retain the cultural cache of a neighborhood, new development needs to provide affordable living and working spaces for artists, and to integrate art in projects in more than a “token” way.

These sorts of changes require different incentives in our local economic and political systems. Unfortunately, items of intrinsic value like art are rarely fully valued until they are threatened or gone. The extrinsic value of outside money is winning. The only way to change things is for artists to organize and raise their voices: make demands of elected officials; change the incentive structures; tap into the idea that we don’t just want a bland city of those who have; make the point that eventually people won’t flock to the city or its developments if it’s all shopping malls. Citizen engagement is an important part of the process. If we want to foster and maintain inclusive neighborhoods, newcomers — both artists and developers — must engage with the community that is already in place.

We aren’t going to stop new development. Nor do I think we should. Artists can, however, demand a seat at the table when affordable workspaces and housing are threatened. Everyone is busy but being heard requires getting out in front of new site plans, development proposals, and urban planning initiatives. It’s much harder to be effective once decisions have already been made. My hope is that the same artists who challenge the status quo, make the rest of us think, and push us forward with their work will put some of that energy and creativity toward engaging with our local elected and business leaders regarding the value that art and artists bring to the broader community, beyond making a neighborhood “hip” and “up and coming” for the next project that displaces them.