Boulevard Transition, Hipster Aesthetics, and Anti-Gentrification Struggles in Los Angeles

Abstract

I examine street-level dynamics of gentrification in Northeast Los Angeles, where artists and residential pioneers who contributed to neighbourhood revitalization have subsequently been threatened with displacement by speculator-investors and corporate developers. In the “neo-bohemia” of Northeast L.A., the aesthetics of countercultural and ethnic subcultural expression have been appropriated by hipster entrepreneurs and gentrifiers. Neoliberal urban policies like public incentives for market rate housing and transit oriented development have sparked accelerated gentrification, countered by anti-gentrification movements from Latinx protestors who view art galleries and hipster aesthetics as harbingers of gentrification. The aesthetics of art and theatre are also part of the toolkit of anti-gentrification activists as they take to the streets to claim their right to the city.