Are Cities Becoming Less Authentic?

In the never ending quest to find out what millennials want (bike sharing, walkability, brewpubs, strong coffee, place-making) another attribute is frequently mentioned: Authenticity, both as a desired quality millennials seek, or as a threatened quality that their influx destroys.

 

City slogans come and go

These notions lead immediately to the question: what makes places or cities authentic? Is it their most famous landmark (the Eiffel Tower, the Pantheon, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building), an iconic skyline (New York, Dubai), a memorable slogan (the “City That Never Sleeps”), gritty art (Berlin's Kreuzberg before unification) or tough scars that come from the heavy blows of history (Detroit)?  This last example brings to mind a related word that people may seek alongside authenticity: Character. If hardship builds character and authenticity, Detroit and all the other industrial legacy cities must be full of it. Are the smokestack cities of the past, the ones that suffered the near fatal blows of de-industrialization, urban flight, depopulation, poverty, racial segregation and violence, the only possible winners in authenticity and character? Are the smooth places in the “sunbelt,” that coasted without too much history or effort into their current state of bliss by accident of geography, necessarily the losers?

Or are global forces of homogenization at work, that level the spikes of authenticity worldwide, smoothing the roughness of local history with the glossy lacquer of consumption where whole cities become nothing more than branded products?

The more alike our cities and neighborhoods become, the harder we try to stand out. Richard Greenwald, The Atlantic Cities January 31, 2013

While we are at it, why not throw some additional words into the mix that seem to swirl around in discussions about authenticity, for example gentrification and culture. Is gentrification an antipode to authenticity, character and culture? Or to race and class? Are affluence and gentrification the enemies of culture, character, grit and authenticity? Is  everything new, every change a threat to authenticity?

Millenials enjoying food truck in front of the MICA
Art Institute in Baltimore
(photo: Philipsen)

Many of these questions are discussed in the abstract, or what  Karl Marx would have called the Ueberbau ("superstructure"),without grounding them in the material issues of production and physical existence. Doing so means relying entirely on perceptions and individual values. This makes discussing them hard and any debate about them volatile and even dangerous. Which in turn endears them to academics and the chattering class alike, making the topic subject of all kinds of treatises and articles on the topic. (A selection is noted below). In the process the words gentrification and culture have become missiles, effectively the nuclear option when used in debates about the future of cities and the merits or perils of development.

Local writer and adjunct Coppin State professor D. Watkins, with his authentic history as a kid of Baltimore's mean streets has stepped into the fray with a piece in Salon.com titled  "Black history bulldozed for another Starbucks: Against the new Baltimore"

My city is gone, my history depleted, ruined and undocumented. I don’t know this new Baltimore, it’s alien to me. Baltimore is Brooklyn and D.C. now. No, Baltimore is Chicago or New Orleans or any place where yuppie interests make black neighborhoods shrink like washed sweaters. A place where black history is bulldozed and replaced with Starbucks, Chipotles and Dog Parks.

Before I delve into this toxic brew in which Baltimore is Brooklyn, DC and New Orleans all at the same time, places that until now had been flagships of authenticity and character, I will get back to the definition of authenticity to see what it yields for a discussion about cities, development, architecture and urban design.

Greek authentikós original, primary, at first hand, equivalent to authént(ēs) one who does things himself (Dictionary).

This definition of the term authentic as a duality meaning "original/genuine" on the one hand and "self-doing" on the other, illustrates two important characteristics we would care about in the urban context. First: is it real or an imitation or "Ersatz," and second: is there any "self doing," which I interpret rather freely as people having some self determination rather than being subjected to abstract forces.

Even if one doesn't put much stock into Marxism, it isn't advisable to discuss the matter without consideration of the major factors that shape cities. Even without Watkin's admonition:

Implosion of public housing in Baltimore 

 "I understand that those now-demolished neighborhoods came with murder, pain, heartbreak, high teen pregnancy rates, illiteracy, gang violence and a host of other reasons that led to their implosions. I also understand that all of these issues stem from lack of opportunity. However, I don’t understand why every black resident must be displaced as soon as opportunity rides the gentrification train into town[,]"

it stands to reason that authenticity has a lot to do with class, race, economic, technological and social forces. We mentioned already the hardships and the life that came with industrialization and its associated alienation, segregation, exploitation and environmental degradation. And now in the de-industrialized city, depopulated and marred by abandonment, we see the bifurcation into places of glitz and others of abject poverty. The authenticity/gentrification/character discussion seems to arise and thrive from this contrast and how it remains or changes over time. Certainly for those on the short end of industrial production or postindustrial gentrification, authenticity in the sense of "self determination" seems to be elusive whereas the authenticity of the hard life as "genuine" is beyond doubt. Whether in the faces of those on the stoops of Sandtown or those crowding in at a corner

Baltimore "Arabber" food cart in a food desert 

taverna in Highlandtown, whether in the derelict boarded buildings of Middle East (Baltimore) or the abandoned factories of Brooklyn (Baltimore). As Sharon Zukin, author of the 2010 book "Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban"  points out in the words of book reviewer Andrea Mubi Brighenti in an article titled "the Paradoxes of Urban Authenticity":

"the book’s central argument suggests that authenticity – whatever this word is taken to mean – cannot be an attribute of a physical space alone, but is necessarily tied to the interaction between social groups that inhabit an urban locale. In other words, authenticity presupposes the coexistence of social diversity in public places. (The Paradoxes of Urban Authenticity, by Andrea Mubi Brighenti)

It is Baltimore's comparably long and rich history with its waves of immigrants, changing ethnicity and ascending and descending role in the nation along with its specific geography at the mouth of the Patapsco River where it reaches the Chesapeake Bay that makes it a one of a kind place, genuine and authentic by definition.

Many ethnic groups left their mark in Baltimore's
Highlandtown, Patterson Park neighborhoods
(photo: Philipsen)

The "self doing" in the sense of the Greek origin may or may not apply for those who landed on the shores of the Patapsco but it certainly applies for the Milennials flocking to town right now. And that is where the rub is. 

Younger sunbelt cities whose true ascent began with the hypermobility of the modern educated citoyen seeking the benefits of "location, location, location" as a lifetsyle choice (sunshine, mountains, ocean etc.) don't face a serious authenticity debate, presumably because they never were authentic to begin with or maybe because the haven't gone through so many cycles of hardship and thus have less grit. Authenticity was not the major concern of Austin, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, or Denver. We can conclude, that at the center of the authenticity debate are neither the cities with little history nor the ones in steady decline. Instead, older cities that had once severely declined and now have a come-back are ground zero for the authenticity, character, culture and gentrification debate. And in the sense of decline and re-birth, New Orleans with Katrina as the Big Easy's watershed event. Why should the authenticity debate rage particularly in come-back cities?

A severely de-populated city leaves those too poor to move, the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised, alienated and ultimately not able to act on the choices they would like to make sitting in the middle of dysfunctional but cheap real estate. As  markets would have it, such price advantages will not go

Abandonment in East Baltimore (Greenmount)
(photo: Philipsen)

unnoticed forever and so even Detroit is starting to attract those who are not easily intimidated, artists, innovators, educators, entrepreneurs and immigrants. This new influx meeting up with the survivors holding on to the fragments of their once flourishing city creates a different kind of problem than the initial waves of newcomers coming to seek work in industrial cities during their heydays.   

The various "back to the city" waves in Baltimore were tepid and stuttered through the recent decades as urban renewal, as homesteading, as dollar houses in the shape of artists or urban pioneers without making a big dent. It seems only now that the influx matured into a full blown re-discovery of the city as the true home of the "creative class" (Richard Florida) and new playground for the upper middle class that engulfs now not only the lifestyle cities in the sunshine belt but also the old urban centers of the rust belt. 

The real estate industry, shaken from the collapse of its long profitable run of creating dreams from whole cloth in cornfields by the great recession, has vigorously taken legacy cities as the new terrain where to seed the plentiful loose cash from as far as China and (until recently) Russia. It should be no surprise that this type investment will not necessarily be greeted with open arms by those who have survived in cities under a lot of duress and have no progress for themselves in decades. Fear, envy, and even hate of those who can afford where to live mixes with disdain for the locals who become

Newcomers are easily recognized by their extensive
row-house roof deck structures. Traditionally Baltimoreans
never went on their roofs other than to repair leaks
(photo: Philipsen)

agents for this type of change, the condo developers, the Downtown Partnership with their Baltimore boosterism and all those hipsters that thrive on finding the cheap crevices of the city like vultures a piece of flesh on a carcass.  At least this is the narrative of those who see urban development strictly through the lense of capitalism, class warfare and the civil rights struggle.

This, of course brings us back to D. Watkins quote and his dislike for the "New Baltimore". One can quibble with his inaccurate assertions of African Americans displaced by Starbucks (no such case is known to me in Baltimore) or that the implosion of the infamous housing projects "displaced every black resident" but one can also take it as literary tools for sounding an alarm. However, his defensive position also sounds a lot like one of an old man yearning for the “good old days,” who thinks everything was better in his youth and that all change is evil. 

One has to ask, is the post-industrial society still best described in terms of class and race, of capital and exploitation, even though the industrial production which gave rise to those terms is rapidly vanishing? Even the post industrial criticism of consumerism and the commoditization of life seems dated with a generation emphasizing innovation, sharing and less consumption combined with a

Harbor East, a new section of town created from whole cloth,
derided by many as not authentic
(photo: Philipsen)

clearly practical and less ideological outlook that embraces diversity and acceptance of what is new and different like no generation before. Possibly the the currency of the word hope has sunk to junk status, but is it entirely unreasonable to hope that the young people coming to Baltimore, Detroit and Cleveland are not all out there to deprive existing residents of their spots to live? Aren't the rust belt cities badly depopulated, in need of economic growth and an influx of new residents, most of whom are whom are poor Latino immigrants and not hipsters anyway?  

Just consider this: Fear notwithstanding, citizens in deprived areas are mostly like everybody else: They do wish to see vacant houses filled with new neighbors, see grocery stores instead of liquor stores, trees rather than barren streets, better schools and, most of all, less crime, in short, the same "quality of life" accessories that anybody would look for as attributes of an attractive neighborhood as the longtime residents don't get displaced. Nostalgia isn't prevalent in the poor neighborhoods, too big are the injustices of the past, a robust distrust of planners and investors however, is.

Though Watkins narrative is correct, it misses one important point: those deprived neighborhoods that have been on the short end of the stick, time and again, whether during urban renewal, the construction of urban freeways or the redlining of neighborhoods and the subsequent flight of their own middle class are still without any of the investments that create rapid change elsewhere. The

EBDI: Neglect, displacement and promises
(photo: Philipsen)

development he describes as the “new Baltimore,” has so far happened in a very limited area, nicknamed the “white L,” by some, after the letter shape made by the more prosperous areas along Charles Street and the waterfront. The disadvantaged areas still find themselves bypassed by all the new urban hype (Sandtown Winchester in Baltimore). The exception are two larger government inspired urban renewal-style community clearing efforts around the two biotech parks on the west (Poppleton) and the East (EBDI/Middle East). These, it is true, have displaced residents and subsequently failed to materialize as the promised balanced approach of new community building with 1/3 affordable rental, 1/3 market rate rental and 1/3 home-ownership housing. The first African American community in Baltimore which  actually is under pressure from big real estate is Sharp-Leadenhall where national developer Caves valley has begun to assert themselves with investments in adjacent Federal Hill and the new Baltimore Casino. Now they are readying themselves for the central strike, a 400 unit

The Royal, a African American cultural hub,
now demolished

development right inside the historic African American community. But even then, no African Americans are displaced with the development almost being entirely restricted to industrial lands. Community leaders are split in their assessment of risks and benefits that the new development may bring.

Where does this leave our question about authenticity? Baltimore is awash in a wide range of ethnic enclaves, some ransacked and a mere shadow of their past, some thriving and morphing from one phase to another without much friction.

The social clubs and music venues of the once thriving African American cultural ground zero on
Pennsylvania Avenue are mostly gone along with the Easter parade and much of the black middle class that used to live in the grand rowhouses of Druid Heights.  It is hard to say if this is the result of the end of forced segregation and civil rights or more generally a loss of African American culture and identity, a question especially worth pondering on Baltimore native Billy Holiday's 100th birthday, but one I am in no position to answer.

The state of the Jewish communities, with their vibrant pasts shaping the City physically and culturally is equally difficult to determine. Jewish communities have have moved out first from Ashburton and then Park Heights with only the orthodox segment still remaining.  A quintessential and authentic Baltimore address is Atman’s delicatessen on Lombard Street, a Jewish New York style deli which mostly serves an African American community today.

Naturally, with World War II German culture in Baltimore went into hiding, from it’s formerly prominent position of influence on city life. A German church survived, and a Hansa Haus in downtown as well, and a surviving culinary landmark, Haussners, hung on until the late eighties. German Street was renamed as Redwood Street.

Little Italy. Restaurants, bocce and
Baltimore formstone (photo: Philipsen)

The Italian communities of Little Italy and Highlandtown, by contrast, weathered urban renewal, interstates and anything else and presents itself today almost like in a time warp. Only very recently has the community come under siege from large investments surrounding Little Italy and the unfortunate age pyramid of the ethnic population. In Highlandtown, older Italians and new Latino immigrants sit shoulder to shoulder in the Lady of Pompeii church and DiPasquale’s Delicatessen.

The list could go and on with Greektown, and the Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Indian and lately Asian communities who all contribute to Baltimore's authenticity and culture. If anything, diversity has increased and not decreased in recent decades, and each group has at least a tiny and authentic enclave (there is even a bit of Chinatown on Park Avenue).

But all that is old paradigm. There are plenty of occasions where events and places draw across ethnic groups and races, like the six Baltimore public markets, the annual Flower Mart, Artscape and, of course, the Orioles and the Ravens. The growing bar and

Lexington Market, authentic, historic and with the potential
of drawing a wide audience across classes and races
(photo: Philipsen)

music scene in the city increasingly segregates more around age and taste than ethnicity.

In areas of investment Baltimore does indeed, transform. There are whole sections of town, especially Harbor East but also in Butchers Hill and Canton that a native who had been away for a dozen years or so would hardly recognize. It is hard to decry this as bad, too long was this city mired in a spiral of decline to not appreciate the influx of interest, money and new residents. Poor African Americans

Party scene in front of the re-purposed American Can
company buildings

who live in the Perkins Homes public housing adjacent to Harbor East also appreciate Whole Foods as a shopping choice. But voices warning of homogeneity, predictability and generic fauxness emanating from national or even global forces begin to sound, and D. Watkins is not the only one.

This puts Baltimore in good company with cities such as Berlin, Germany. There the investment, influx of money and new residents that came in the wake of unification and becoming Germany's capital once again was also not welcome to old time Berliners, as this rather humorous 2014 article points out.  Maybe, following one of the author's arguments, Baltimore is especially prone to griping about success because it is essentially, like Berlin, a provincial backwater that has become comfortable with the status quo, having been too long pushed from the limelight.

But I don't want to be glib about this. Baltimore's success (if one wants to call it that) is too lopsided, too limited to certain areas of the city and even there too fragile to be celebrated without legitimately questioning inequality, motives and the forces that stand behind development. Instead of breathing new life into class or cultural stereotypes, the city should focus on retooling from its beggar's mentality (any development is welcome) to one with higher expectations, demands, and exactions.

City Arts, an affordable housing project for
artists in Greenmount West
(photo: Philipsen)

Instead of traffic impact studies developers should be demanded to provide social benefits, such as investments in parks, tree plantings, investments in trails, the public waterfront promenade, and an apportionment of affordable housing. Baltimore has inclusionary zoning on the books but has failed, so far, to actually enforce it.

Counter to Watkins' assertion, Starbucks has not only not bulldozed black culture, but instead has popularized the concept of the coffee shop so that across the country tens of thousands of locally owned "authentic" neighborhood coffee shops have sprung up, often providing important resources like free WIFI, a place to sit and read for hours without being harassed, all important elements of social capital. Baltimore has a fair shake of independent coffee houses that offer performances and lectures like the workers owned Red Emma's coffee shop in Baltimore's Station North arts district.

Even the much maligned developers have provided a slew of very interesting, very local and often authentic developments, many of those located in neighborhoods that hadn't seen development in a long time but were also not entirely disinvested (Woodberry, Hampden, Locust Point, Remington). I have described creative factory repurposing, adaptive re-use and affordable housing many times in these columns (see here and here). Seawall Development is local and its owner has demonstrated real commitment to the city and its people with investments in, among other things, a local school, low-income teacher housing, a coffee shop and a restaurant-theater-butcher store, all in neighborhoods with lower income residents who so far have welcomed the projects with open arms due to careful community involvement and participation.

Rather than taking authenticity from Baltimore, these developments have created new authentic

places that cater to the needs and tastes of a new generation that can pick almost any city in America as their residence and care little about ethnic enclaves, living in the same neighborhood as those of a different race or nationality, or the consumption mentality of their baby boomer parent generation. With that we are finally back to the Millennials and their preferences for cities. To consider them sui generis as new money, morally compromised, uninformed hipsters without commitment to the city, intent on undermining authenticity and destroying local culture by replacing it with something superficial, insincere and not genuine, that thinking is wrong and provincial. Newcomers need time and experience to become authentically Baltimore. So did all the generations before them.

Repurposed garment factory, now a public school,
Baltimore Design School. (photo: Philipsen)

Instead of hating the trends this generation sets off or describing this change solely with in the terms of the last century, we should take advantage of a new focus on quality over quantity that has led to the renaissance of cities in the first place.

Having booming cities is far better than sprawling suburbs depleting the culture of the rural space. Having multi-ethnic diversity is far better than the income stratified, racially exclusive subdivisions of past decades. Riding bike and drinking strong coffee is much easier on the environment than drive-ins and suburban diners, even if in the end big capital will follow and urban lofts with exposed brick and air ducts may eventually become tiresome. Even the most authentic cities became so through change. All the layers of change, in fact, are their authenticity and there is no good reason why change should stop just now.

Bike event bringing people together
(photo: Philipsen)

Shouldn't we learn from the new people who come to live here especially when they are different than we are? See our city with their, maybe broader perspective? We should never stop working for a brighter future.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

edited by Ben Groff who provided many helpful thoughts, comments and corrections.

External Links:

Why is Authenticity so Central to Urban Culture? (CityLab)
The Paradoxes of Urban Authenticity (Metroplitiques)
Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places.

Who Produces Urban Space?: Gentrification andContestations Over Urban 'Authenticity'
Baltimore Chop: Thoughts about Baltimore's so-called authenticity
Baltimore Chop: Gentrification

Related Articles on this Blog:

Artists: The Pawns in Gentrification?
Why A Manual is Needed for Visiting poor Neighborhoods (re-printed in the NOMA Magazine)