The specter of the “art-less city”: Locating artists in Philadelphia’s creative economy

ABSTRACT

Artists and creativity are on the urban agenda. Scholars and policymakers have embraced the role of artists as key drivers of economic growth and urban vitality. Yet, accounts of artists’ agency often reduce artists to members of a creative class, rendering the arts an instrument for economic growth and erasing important class and racial differences in the field. This paper centers artists’ perspectives through four focus group discussions with artists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Participatory mapping exercises produced narratives about artists’ experiences with two kinds of displacement: physical displacement from neighborhoods and places where artists live and work; and displacement from the creative cities narrative. Displacement raises the specter of what we call the “art-less” city, where a broad swath of art-making is evacuated from the city. We contrast this with the “artful” city, where artists are supported as workers with the means to produce their work and flourish in life.

Acknowledgments

We thank Grace Leonard, Martha Meiers, and Mariah Williams for the invaluable research assistance they provided. Andrew Simonet generously helped guide our research design.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin F. Teresa

Benjamin F. Teresa is an Assistant Professor in the Urban and Regional Studies program at Virginia Commonwealth University. He studies the role of finance and economic change more broadly in cities, focusing on how those most affected by urban political economic transformation develop political capacity and autonomy. He is the co-founder and co-director of the RVA Eviction Lab, which is an initiative that strategically uses data and research to support policy, advocacy, and community-based action to address housing instability.

Andrew Zitcer

Andrew Zitcer is Assistant Professor and Director of the Urban Strategy graduate program at Drexel University. His research focuses on the practice of social and economic cooperation, and the use of the arts as a tool for community development. His work has been published in Journal of Planning Education and Research, Planning Theory & Practice, Urban Affairs Review, and Antipode.