An Open Letter on Gentrification…

In Richard Lloyd’s book, “Neo-Bohemia, Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City”, Lloyd talks about gentrification in Wicker Park, a town in Chicago that was taken over by an artsy group of people. He talked about what drew these people to the town, and how they changed it to make it “their own”. After reading […]

The Bohemian, The Brooklynite, and the Blogger

While New York City is officially split into five boroughs, any good New Yorker knows the divide goes farther than the split between Queens and Brooklyn. Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Staten Island all make up a collective of over two-hundred different neighborhoods ranging from the financially sufficient neighborhoods like Sutton Place or Astoria […]

Neo Bohemia: Aggregation of Exploitation

This is going to be a rather serious post as I found most of what Richard Lloyd had to say to be rather indicative of a deadly neo-liberal attitude that I find puts too much value on the movements of big business capital while also seeming to promote individual creative freedom, but only insofar as […]

What is Cool? Gentrification in the Hudson Valley

What does it mean to be “cool”? Cool can be best understood as a symbol or marker sought by participants in a competition for status. Those who enjoy the success in this competition, this struggle to be recognized as cool, know that they must distance themselves from what is considered “mainstream society.” It seems as […]

Bohemia and Creative Industry: From Paris to Broadway

First of all, because of the title of this book, Neo-Bohemia, this song (turn it up!) was stuck in my head the whole time I was reading. It’s a different version than what you might expect… Last week in class, we talked about cities much in need of a makeover, which were then transformed by arts […]

The Wonderful World of Kpop

When I first started to follow Kpop in 2008, the international fandom was burgeoning, and it was the second wave of the genre.  Kpop, or also known as Korean pop music has evolved so much since its conception.  Like Wicker Park, it has seen a boom and in the second wave of capitalism, there had […]

False Authenticity in the 21st Century

As we discussed in our last class, the trend of cities appealing to an emerging creative class has negative impacts on the urban landscape, in that these constructed bohemian atmospheres focus on the appearance of authenticity more than cultivating authenticity itself. As Richard Lloyd quotes from art historian Thomas Crowe in his book, Neo-Bohemia: Art […]

Bohemia and Banana Shirts: The Image of Squalor in Bohemia.

So, before I really get into this post, I wanted you all to check out a song. Music and Bohemia kind of go hand in hand and Chicago, in general, has always had a great music scene (if you have time check all the songs mentioned in the reading), but I’m actually posting the song, […]

Non-Conformity: The Punk Rock Tradition turned into Conformist Bohemia

As I was reading Sociologist Richard Lloyd’s Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Post Industrial City I found myself connecting the reading to my senior capstone project on the punk rock movement. I was thinking about the creative class and its connection to gentrification. I was also thinking about the components of punk rock and […]

The Bartender: Living a Double Life

Recently, a friend and I decided to have a change in pace for the weekend. We headed up to Boston to check out this bar she had been raving about for months now. It was a cold Saturday night, we considered ourselves lucky that the line of around ten people fit indoors. We were greeted […]