Race, music, and technological change: The shifting music retail landscape of Milwaukee county, 1970–2010

Abstract

Urban scholars have consistently demonstrated how cultural consumption and production have long shaped (and have been shaped by) the cityscape. However, less is known about the impacts of digitization and residential segregation on the distribution of cultural spaces over time. Because of this, scholars lack a testable theory of the spatio-cultural impact of digitization. To address this, I examine the distribution of music retailers, one of the first cultural sectors to be threatened by digitization. I ask: what changes in the failure, founding, and persistence of record stores coincide with larger changes in demographics and music formats? The findings suggest that the distribution of cultural spaces of consumption has indeed been shaped by digitization, but through the mechanism of increasing risks associated with opening new stores. But previous technological changes in concert with racial segregation also led to the loss of these cultural spaces in predominantly Black neighborhoods as well.