Can Oakland’s underground spaces survive a rising real-estate tide?
Mic, Sep. 16, 2016
"Compared to previous generations, particularly in New York City, that mobilized rent strikes and artists' unions to advocate for their collective interests, DIY-show organizers express little motivation to join groups like the Oakland Creative Neighborhoods Coalition, formed last June to protect art and cultural spaces against the same threat of displacement facing low-income residents generally. Rather, they seem resigned to the inevitability of commercial real estate inflation.
"Arguably, for the last couple of decades, the robust underground arts-and-music scene located in commercial spaces thrived on civic disrepair," Lefebvre says. "As more money comes into historically neglected areas, it's just kind of bad news for the scene."
But whether it's in Oakland or other cities where rapidly climbing rents challenge cultural producers to find ad hoc solutions, underground venues continue to take root and create musical happenings in unlikely places. That's what gives them a special allure: None of them were supposed to exist in the first place."
