Does café culture drive artistic enclaves?

ABSTRACT

Café culture is emerging as a global phenomenon. While the café has been a social venue for artists throughout history, research has not paid much attention to the relation between cafés and artists in cultural settings. In this paper, we conceptualize and quantify three types of café and art scenes: bohemian, corporate, and communal. Using the Yellow Pages and US Census data, our statistical analyses assess the role of cafés in the clustering of artists in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The results show that the presence of cafés is significantly associated with clusters of artists, all else being equal. In the entire metropolitan statistical areas, cafés in bohemian or communal settings attract artists, although they are highly present in corporate culture as well. Case studies also suggest that pedestrian streetscape, interactive store design, building conversion programs, and access to transit draw artists to cafés.

KEYWORDS:

• Café
• artists
• bohemia
• cultural placemaking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hyesun Jeong

Hyesun Jeong, PhD, Associate AIA Dr. Jeong is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). Her interdisciplinary research is committed to sustainable urbanism and cultural development. Dr. Jeong’s projects have focused on the relationship between built environment and cultural behavior of cities. Of particular interest are the analysis of street commerce in main streets, the architecture and urban design of amenities, and arts and cultural placemaking in various scales. At UTA, she is leading a research-based design studio that experiments a new typology of sustainable infrastructures and buildings in Dallas-Fort Worth area. She recently received a grant from the university in which she investigates main streets that serve as pedestrian destinations in the context of sprawl and Sunbelt cities. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Cities, Urban Affairs Review, Journal of Urban Design, and Journal of Urban Affairs.