Posted by Alejandro Casillas, ATLANTA, GA -- The following pictures are a collection of murals on a small stretch of Edgewood Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward District of Atlanta. Edgewood parallels Auburn Avenue in downtown Atlanta. This area was once one of the most affluent black neighborhoods in the United States. But it fell into decline beginning in the 1960s as urban renewal, disinvestment, and suburbanization eviscerated central urban districts around the country. I have driven through Edgewood for the past six years now, watching the gradual change of this once declining neighborhood. Some of the buildings have been repainted with fresh vibrant colors. New businesses, such as a "fixie" bicycle shop, a pizza place, and several taverns serving IPA brews are trying to appeal to a younger hipster crowd. A new gas station sprung up after they razed the old abandoned one about a year ago. And then came the murals.
This new
push for murals by Living Walls has certainly created an arty feel.
But was the graffiti there previously not art? Most of the mural artists are
not from the neighborhood. So is this art for the people already living and
working in the community, or art to attract outsiders? Perhaps these murals are
a way for the new businesses to attract new outside revenue.
Don't get me
wrong, the murals are beautiful. However, they are also clearly an attempt to
decrease perceptions of disorder, and therefore tie into the assumptions
“broken windows” theory.
The theory in simple terms says that broken windows (and other signs of
dereliction) create a perception of lawlessness, disorder, and disrepair, which
in turn leads to increasing crime, more disorder, and more disrepair. The vicious cycle
continues until, as Sociologist Robert Sampson says in his new book Great American City,
that perception becomes durable even when the neighborhood changes. These murals
aim to preempt this trajectory. And they certainly do grab one’s attention and
perhaps attract hipster businesses.
Yet, for every one of these of trendy
businesses that goes up, a black-owned business has been shut down. If these
murals do attract more beautification projects and businesses they probably
won't benefit members of the community. The jobs may not be for them, and they
may not have the money to shop at the trendy bicycle stores or frufru pizza places.
So while the murals may be a well-intentioned program to beautify Edgewood, we have to be aware of the potential pitfalls. Sampson provided the
evidence that the historically black neighborhoods of Chicago were more likely
to become all-white neighborhoods rather than all white neighborhoods becoming
integrated both racially and economically. Hopefully Edgewood will defy this trend.
Alejandro Casillas is a Georgia State University student and
amateur photographer. He is working towards his Masters in Arts of Teaching
major in Social Studies Education. He can be reached at
acasillas1@student.gsu.edu.
“Yet, for every one of these of trendy businesses that goes up, a black-owned business has been shut down. If these murals do attract more beautification projects and businesses they probably won't benefit members of the community. The jobs may not be for them, and they may not have the money to shop at the trendy bicycle stores or frufru pizza places. So while the murals may be a well-intentioned program to beautify Edgewood, we have to be aware of the potential pitfalls.”
ReplyDeleteI moved to the Old Fourth Ward in February of 2004. At the time, I was a graduate student at Gerogia State University, and the appeal of a two-bedroom apartment, one mile from campus, for $325 a month could not be denied. Not having owned a car since 1992, I walked Edgewood. I've been walking it ever since, and I have seen the changes first hand, and been part of many of them.
In my time here, I have volunteered and worked at Cafe 458 – now part of the Center for Self Sufficiently – assisting in their mission to help the homeless find permanent employment and shelter. I co-founded Friends of Butler Park and worked closely to revitalize and redesign the park. I helped integrate Miss Mary's and Bobby's illegal bathtub gin joints, which once would not serve white people for fear we were all police officers (no, I won't tell you where they are). For the last two years, I have served as the president of the Fourth Ward Neighbors association.
I have mixed feelings about the Living Walls project in the community. I would prefer Living Buildings. But I do not have mixed feelings about the claim that “or every one of these of trendy businesses that goes up, a black-owned business has been shut down”, because it is simply not true.
Since I moved here eight years ago, exactly three businesses that were here at the time have gone out of business: The Keen-Edge blade sharpening company (unfortunately because that skill and the idea of maintaining blades has fallen in our “just buy a new one” culture); Rolling Bones Bar-B-Q (due to a fire); and Edgewood Animal Clinic (due to retirement).
I have seen black-owned busineses come and go: Over Da Edge and Java-ology. I have seen white businesses become black-owned, like Liro's to Edgewood Pizza. And I have seen black businesses survive (Stoney's Barbershop, Jamaican Patty Stop, U-Space Gallery, ABC Variety, inter alia) and new one's spring up and thrive (Cafe Circa, The Purple Door, Harold's Chicken Shack and Ice Bar, etc.).
I have seen Asian businesses (Miso) and, yes, white businesses (Sound Table, Corner Tavern, Noni's, etc.) spring to life, while old white businesses also survived (The Atlanta Model Train Company, Stamp and Stencil, Atlanta Belting Company) or white businesses failed (Danneman's, Javito, etc.).
Not once have I seen a black-owned business on Edgewood in the last eight years “shut-down” because of “one of these new trendy businesses that goes up.” The reality is that the corridor was abandoned long ago, because of Black Flight and the Interstate, but not because Noni's displaced a historically African-American Businesss.
And the community is markedly better off because of Edgewood's revival. I see people of all races walking down once abandoned streets, using once abandonded parks. I see the Sound Table working with Kwanza Hall's office to ensure that local kids are hired and have gainful employment. I see the sense of pride happening in a neighborhood that feels its time is coming again.
The reality is, there is a lot of work to be done in this community to ensure that the area can be all it can be, thriving and living, yet respecting its history, mixed racially and economically. Every one of the community members is "aware of the potential pitfalls". But that work does not include confusing the revitalization of empty buildings with the displacement of black-owned businesses, as your blog does.