Community revitalization initiatives for smaller communities | marginal attraction of people and commerce even in small amounts makes a difference

Sometimes I'm quick to judge revitalization initiatives as not particularly wide ranging.  But the fact of the matter is that many commercial districts can benefit positively from marginal increases in demand, visitorship and spending even from small projects.

For example Fargo North Dakota has doubled its downtown population over the past 25 years ("St. Cloud aims to revitalize downtown by ‘copying what Fargo did’," Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and Winona, Minnesota, by refocusing its use of its riverfront, has created an arts district ("How an industrial city along the Mississippi River transformed itself into an arts town," MST)

1.  "Glenview buying former Signode campus to control redevelopment," Crain's Chicago Business.  I've often made the point that an RFP isn't a plan, that it is a solicitation for proposals from organizations which may or may not have good ideas.  

Starting with a plan is better than an RFP, it shapes the proposals and what is acceptable, based on an already developed community consensus.

Glenview takes this a step further--maybe a plan would have been enough?--and bought a large vacant industrial property, totaling 56-acres, to be able to shape how it is developed.

Similarly, Monroeville, Pennsylvania considered buying the local failed shopping mall.  Instead, Walmart bought it and is likely to build a retail facility there.

en Sjaaheim, Silas Dingman and Brady Skahen, members of the pop-punk band F-18, perform at B-Side Indie Music Cafe in downtown St. Cloud last month. The performance was part of a night of punk music put on through Project 37, an all-ages and sober music program. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

2.  "This central Minnesota city is taking a true punk-rock approach to revive its downtown," Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  It probably won't spur the creation of the next Prince, or the ground up punk rock movement in DC in the 1970s sparked by the teen band, which morphed into Fugazi, but if cities like Austin, Chicago and Seattle have developed programs to support their music industry and the presentation of like music, why not St. Cloud?  From the article:

For years, officials here have been trying to enliven a lackluster downtown beset with empty storefronts, hollowed-out offices and nearly empty sidewalks.

Now some punk rockers are striking a chord. They, along with other musicians and artists, are stepping up in ways beyond what officials have done, adding cultural attractions and events. A new all-ages music venue that opened this past summer — the B-Side Indie Music Cafe — has already established itself as a gathering spot, jumping with punk rock kids one night, with singer-songwriters another.

In the works next door is a community arts space run by the Wirth Center for the Performing Arts. And in the future? Leaders dream of an arts magnet school or art museum.

“I have a three-part plan to revitalize downtown into an arts district,” said James Newman, executive director of the Wirth Center, which has provided music lessons in central Minnesota for more than four decades. “Downtown has so much potential, and I think an arts focus would be a great thing to bring people in.”

... Already sprinkled throughout downtown St. Cloud are several arts spots, including the Paramount Center for the Arts — which hosts musicals, plays and concerts, as well as art classes — and Pioneer Place on Fifth, which offers music and local radio theater. There are also stages at the Red Carpet Nightclub and an intimate venue at Gnarly Bard Theater, which opened last year.

The question is how much of this ends up being focused on people in-market, shifting their interests from something else to music, versus could St. Cloud, 65 miles from Minneapolis, develop as a destination on music?   From the article:

The planned hub is part of a trend playing out across the state as cities work to revamp downtowns with arts and experiences as retail stores struggle to stay open and offices shutter as more employees work from home.

In Winona, leaders have turned the southeastern river city into an arts destination with a concert hall and art gallery expected to open in the next year, as well as prominent festivals celebrating Shakespeare and Beethoven. In Detroit Lakes, an installation of giant wooden trolls brings people to its downtown and then sends them on an adventure to nearby parks and trails. And in Anoka, folks are invited to explore its downtown’s concerts, farmers markets and businesses with a drink in hand as part of the state’s first social district.

It's a reverse of the more typical flow of rural-suburban residents to the city to join a music ecosystem.

-- "Arts as production: The rock music ecosystem in West Seattle," 2022
-- "Ground up (guerrilla) art #2: community halls and music (among other things)," 2011
-- "Under threat: Austin's music industry as an element of the city's cultural ecosystem and economy," 2016 
-- "Leveraging music for cultural and economic development: part one, opera," 2017
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017
-- "NBC4 asks if DC can become a concert capital like Nashville, Austin, and New Orleans?," 2019
-- ""Arts district planning" in Arlington County | Many communities don't know the difference between arts as production and arts as consumption," 2021 
-- "Another example of why local culture plans need to include an element on retail/dealing with for profit elements of the cultural ecosystem: Nashville's Tubb Record Shop," 2022

Baek Jae-ho, head coach of the Sangdong High School baseball team.Photographer: SeongJoon Cho for Bloomberg

3.  "High School Baseball Brought a Dying Korean Town Back to Life," Bloomberg.  The rural declining mining town of Sangdong came up with a program to attract new residents, by creating a first-in-class high school baseball program.  From the article:

That passion for the game inspired Cho Yun-hee and Kim Kyung-soo, 1986 graduates of Sangdong High. As part of a group discussing the future of their alma mater, they spearheaded an effort to attract students, mulling and rejecting proposals such as creating a training program for the energy and mining industries. Then in 2022, they hit upon an ambitious plan. The school would offer free baseball training, plus lodging and food for out-of-area students.

But with an estimated cost of 500 million won ($350,000) a year, the proposal wasn’t an easy sell. Opponents viewed the expense as ludicrous for a decaying community, and even supporters questioned whether a ghost town like Sangdong could lure transplants from dynamic parts of the country.

... Baek had his reputation and a straightforward pitch to prospective students: Get top-level training and a chance at the pro leagues for free. That’s a strong combination in a country where team membership fees and private coaching can cost more than 3 million won a month. The school provides equipment, free lunches and helps pay for other meals. There are now 38 students in the program, two short of a full roster after two players were expelled for smoking (the school has a strict one-strike-and-out policy).

Since the program started, population has inched up over 1,000, new businesses are opening and new housing is being constructed.

The long-vacant Palace Theater in downtown Gary. A blueprint for reversing the city’s fortunes proposes using the restored theater as the heart of a new arts district. Photographer: Zach Mortice/Bloomberg CityLab

4.  Smaller but better?  "Can Anyone Save Gary, Indiana?," Bloomberg.  Gary is about 30 miles from Chicago, and has transit service to and from the South Shore Line, the last US interurban commuter railroad service.

Gary was a steel town.  As US Steel faltered but also reduced employment through capital investment, so did the city--US Steel once had 30,000 employees, now 4,000 (remember too the job multiplier effect which is between 3x and 4x, so that's potentially a loss of 104,000 jobs total.  The city has over 7,000 abandoned buildings.

From the article:

The city’s population also peaked in the ’60s, at about 170,000; today fewer than 70,000 live there. Roughly 80% of Gary residents are Black and a third live below the poverty line — about three times the state average.

Especially downtown, the impact of the exodus is shocking. Most of the land within a several-block radius of City Hall — 5th and Broadway, the center of town — is a bleak patchwork of cleared lots and abandoned commercial buildings. It’s the kind of decay only seen when there was once a rapid and focused public investment in infrastructure, followed by immediate wholesale neglect.

But according to a new study by Notre Dame’s Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative, the failure of mega-scaled landmark buildings like the Genesis Center — a typical gambit for struggling cities — isn’t just an indicator of flailing industrial economies. Instead, the size and form of these developments are themselves the primary culprits.

“When you’re in a state of physical collapse, it doesn’t make any sense to build one big building, because what you need to do is take whatever demand exists and spread it out in smaller buildings, so you can actually find a way to illustrate to people that this change has come,” says Stefanos Polyzoides, dean of Notre Dame’s architecture school, which houses the Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative. “One building accommodating a change is not urbanism. It’s architecture.”

This is an excellent point about many small projects having more impact than a single large project.  So Gary is working to engage multiple small developers, and focusing on rebuilding the public realm in the core of the city, and focusing development on the commercial core, and in neighborhoods that are somewhat stabilized but have vacant lots perfect for infill buildings, zoning changes and some money from the state, which seriously restricted the city's ability to generate property tax revenues through various legislative initiatives.  From the article:

But if the city is going to depend on small business owners for its downtown renaissance, there are resources it needs to offer, he says, like business management training. “A lot of times, mom-and-pop business owners jump in the water and learn how to swim while we’re in the water,” he says. “If we’d had avenues for training, then a lot of businesses that had not made it might be able to make it.”

Jane Jacobs was not in favor of large projects at the expense of smaller, which is discussed in the book Cities: Back from the Edge. 

Elkhart still has a thriving downtown.

5.  Elkhart, Indiana.  The Notre Dame program is also working with Elkhart, and the article contrasts revitalization there versus Gary.  

Elkhart has had more success because of a strong philanthropic community, a lesser problem in terms of abandoned buildings, better capitalized locally-based businesses, and a stronger industrial base, centered on RV manufacturing.  From the article:

Working with other family-owned businesses, as well as the public sector and philanthropic support, Weaver has seen $250 million invested over the last six years in Elkhart’s River District, a mixed-use live-work neighborhood at the confluence of the Elkhart and St. Joseph Rivers. 

So far, the effort has produced hundreds of new residents, a 1.5-mile riverwalk, five parks, and 40 new businesses; a new and lively urban place. “The only way I’ve seen this successfully executed is to slowly build confidence by incremental development,” Weaver says. “I think what Notre Dame has set up is a playbook for communities to think about redevelopment in a way that’s hyperlocal to them.”

Notably, the equity invested is from the community itself, he says. “Nobody is coming to save Elkhart,” says Weaver.

"Hotel Elkhart Named Top Restoration Project in Indiana," HospitalityNet.

Investing in yourself, rather than seeking a savior from outside pushing a large project is key.  From the article:

In some ways, Elkhart is in a different boat than Gary: It has a strong philanthropic community and an intact industrial base.

It’s home to Patrick Industries, which is the leading manufacturer of the ever popular RVs.

Weaver’s ability to finance urban development is closely tied into this dynamic. His firm also develops industrial facilities, and Weaver says the returns for building a “a big dumb box” can be 20%. For his civic work in the River District, it’s paltry 3%.

And he’s not sure building quality urban places outside of major metropolitan areas is going to be an attractive investment for investors any time soon. “I don’t know that we’ll ever be in a situation where the best outcome for the community is the best outcome for the developer in the short term,” he says. “There’s a conflict. I think it’s very difficult to build buildings that enhance civic pride, that put the community first, and provide a short-term superior return.”

While the article discusses structural racism as an issue in Gary, which is majority black at 72% of the population, it doesn't discuss how Elkhart is 62% white.  

This gives the city an easier path forward than Gary ("Elkhart looks to spark downtown revitalization with $40M amphitheater," Inside Indiana Business, "Elkhart officials approve 2 development projects to reimagine city," WNDU TV," "Elkhart," BusinessView). 

Gary's waterfront.  Despite the decline of the steel industry generally, and the reduction in workforce at the US Steelworks in Gary by 70%+, the Gary Steelworks is still the largest steel plant in the world.

Another advantage is that while Gary has the shore of Lake Michigan as an asset, it's occupied in part by US Steel, while Elkhart is able to leverage its riverfront ("Revitalization of the Elkhart River District," Landscape Architecture). 

In a way the comparison between the cities is unfair, in that Elkhart never really crashed the way that Gary did.  According to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, most of Elkhart's downtown is historically intact, and designated.   

Elkhart County is the number-one tourist destination in the state, primarily because of the Heritage Trail, a 90-mile journey through Amish farms, shops, small towns, and urban areas. Free CDs guide visitors past Elkhart’s 1924 Elco Theatre, the Midwest Museum of American Art, and the RV Hall of Fame and Museum.

Elkhart River

 Another attraction in Elkhart is the National New York Central Railroad Museum, which highlights the importance of railroads to the city’s and the country’s development. Elkhart was a vital link between East and West during the country’s growth, and the city is a natural home for this museum, since its rail yard is among America’s largest. The museum includes a replicated stationmaster’s office and a restored 100-year-old freight house complex containing displays and hands-on exhibits.

That makes a difference.  It reminds me of Pontiac Michigan, a majority black city in a county, Oakland that is majority white.  But the County didn't realize it had an obligation to assist the city in substantive revitalization.

-- "Pontiac Michigan: a lagging African American city in one of the nation's wealthiest counties," 2022

Marginal increases in population can have an extranormal impact.  

6.  The above-mentioned downtown residential development program in Fargo, North Dakota (Downtown in Focus Action Plan, Fargo Core Neighborhoods Master Plan).

Block 6 Apartments, Campbell Properties, Fargo, North Dakota.

7.  Tulsa's Remote program to attract "work from home" tech workers by providing small relocation grants ("The economic benefits of paying workers to move," Bloomberg).

8.  Paducah's artist recruitment program, which has helped to revitalize neighborhoods near downtown, attracting artists and businesses, in part because of Paducah's Interstate highway connections to other Midwestern cities with summer art fairs where artists sell their goods ("In Paducah, Artists Create Something From Nothing," NPR). 

The Mississippi Crossings development on the Mississippi River in Champlin. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

9.  Champlin Minnesota's riverfront revitalization ("Twin Cities suburb turns forgotten Mississippi riverfront into a key attraction," MST).  The city has worked to leverage its riverfront since the late 1990s and it has taken 20+ years of steady effort to come to fruition.

(Stillwater, in the far suburbs of Minneapolis worries about overtourism, "Scenic Stillwater draws festive crowds. How much tourism is too much?," "Remade Stillwater riverfront could bring new parks, boat launch, picnic space and fishing piers," MST).

10. "A mountain-bike boom brought growing pains. But these mining towns now embrace their new identity," Crosby and Ironton, on the decline with the close of mines, shift their economies to outdoor recreation and tourism ("Iron Range to spend $5 million on mountain biking trails," MST, 2018).

James Brainard, the mayor of Carmel, Ind., poses before the last of the buildings filling up City Center.Alan Greenblatt/Governing

11.  Creating a center in suburban towns.  Not revitalization per se, but "vitalization" of otherwise residentially focused communities ("Twin Cities suburbs seek destination status with new downtown plans," "St. Louis Park’s West End bucks the trend with one of area’s lowest vacancy rates," MST).

Carmel, Indiana, a traditional suburb of Indianapolis, realized it needed to create a downtown to spur growth ("Meet the Mayor Who Totally Transformed His City," Governing Magazine, "‘How Did I End Up in Indiana?’ Welcome to the Internet’s Favorite Small City," Wall Street Journal).  From the WSJ:

“What I heard when I went door to door in May 1995 for my first election was this yearn for a traditional city,” he said.

At the time, zoning laws prevented the integration of residential and commercial development. Over the next three decades, Brainard said, Carmel has been revitalized in large part through zoning changes and tax increment financing, which allowed the city to build infrastructure with bonds backed by the projected tax revenue of future real estate. 

Carmel has built several multimillion-dollar, mixed-use developments along its central corridor with townhomes, apartments, boutique shops and restaurants. An Arts & Design district with galleries and showrooms now sits in place of the city’s original downtown area. 

It connects to the City Center development, which is home to a 151,000-square-foot concert hall and the Carmel Christkindlmarkt holiday market. These developments are connected by the Monon Greenway, which can be walked or cycled and is part of the 27-mile Monon Trail that runs to downtown Indianapolis, according to Brainard. He has also implemented a network of over 150 roundabouts as an alternative to signal lights, in an attempt to move traffic more efficiently, increase walkability and minimize car accidents.

It's been very successful, so another suburb, Fishers, is doing the same thing ("How Fishers is bringing people out of cul-de-sacs," "New 'urban village' is the latest development in Nickel Plate District south of 116th Street," Indianapolis Star), "Fishers announces plans for $122.5M in new downtown developments," Indianapolis Business Journal).

12. Rural "company" towns invest locally to attract workers.  The Wall Street Journal reports on Pella, Iowa, the home of Pella Windows ("Facing Labor Shortages, Pella Reinvents the Company Town in Rural Iowa").  

Pella Corp. has offices and manufacturing plants in more than 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada. But one of the toughest jobs, say executives at this closely held maker of windows and doors, is convincing workers to locate here in its hometown, a rural city of about 10,000 residents 45 miles southeast of Des Moines.

The company and its controlling shareholders—members of the founding Kuyper family and its descendants—set out to change that. They have spent tens of millions of dollars in the past three years on housing, child-care centers, restaurants and an indoor entertainment center, among other things, to retain and attract new workers. More spending is on the way.

“We just didn’t have the amenities that people we were trying to recruit would expect,” says Chief Executive Tim Yaggi, noting that the manufacturer competes with major cities for talent.

I think that Kohler in Wisconsin is another example.  And ironically, Andersen Windows in Wisconsin.

Somalis in Minneapolis.  

13.  Immigrants moving to languishing communities ("Immigrants as in-migrants and community revitalization") such as 

• the Somalis to Minneapolis-St. Paul ("Somalis finding their place in Minnesota," CNN)
• Latinos to Iowa ("This Iowa meatpacking town didn’t always welcome immigrants. Then the high school started a mariachi band.," Des Moines Register) and many other places ("$11M Plaza de Sol development will bring food hall, small business incubator to St. Paul’s East Side," MST)
• Portuguese and Brazilians to East Coast towns
• Haitians in Ohio don't eat cats and dogs ("An Ohio City Faces a Future Without Haitian Workers," New York Times, "Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up," Guardian)
• Cape Verdeans in Boston, etc.

Threat to immigration as a revitalization augur.  This is under threat though because of the Trump Administration's anti-immigrant agenda ("The Bay Area’s ‘Little Kabul’ once welcomed Afghan refugees. Federal cuts are changing that," San Francisco Chronicle, "'Now, there is fear everywhere’: How Trump’s immigration crackdown has permeated R.I.’s smallest city, home to a big Latino population," Boston Globe, "Chicago ICE Raids Keep Customers at Home in City’s Latino Retail District," Bloomberg, "Minnesota’s Ecuadorian community is flourishing, but its future is uncertain," Sahan Journal).  From Bloomberg:

For Marco Rodriguez of Dulcelandia (Spanish for “candy land”), the raids are a double whammy. Costs for the family business he runs had already gone up by at least 25% due to tariffs, he said, and now the raids are keeping shoppers away during a peak season. Sales across his four shops in Chicago are down more than 50% this year. 

“On the corridor itself, all businesses have been affected, everyone’s feeling it,” Rodriguez said in an interview Wednesday at the chain’s shop in Little Village. “We’ve seen a drop, especially during these times, these last couple weeks, with what’s going on.”

... Fear of raids in Little Village’s two-mile retail corridor led to foot traffic falling by as much as 30% compared with the prior weekend, according to Jennifer Aguilar, who heads the local chamber of commerce. That’s exacerbating financial troubles for the 400 or so businesses in the area, she said.

Great quote that gets at the heart of perceptions of commercial districts

'Time for a refresh': Even Nashville tourists think downtown's vibe is off. 

Photo: Andrew Nelles, Nashville Tennessean.

The Nashville Tennessean has an article, "'Time for a refresh': Even Nashville tourists think downtown's vibe is off," on its premier entertainment district, Lower Broadway, which is a mix of retail, restaurant, and music establishments ("'A money making machine': Is Nashville's iconic Lower Broadway losing its music soul?," NT), and cultural facilities centered around country music.  From the article:

"We visited a couple years ago, and I wasn’t 21, so we just walked up and down. Now that I’m 21, it’s going to be different for sure," Galicki said. "But it does seem a little bit more run-down, and there are more homeless people." 

The post-COVID tourism boom in Nashville has led to congested streets, incessant noise and unruly party-bus crowds, issues that city leaders are striving to manage. Cell phone thefts, assaults, and pickpocketing were common last year. 

Progress is being made, but not before some major downtown businesses are relocating to calmer areas like the Gulch and Midtown. Music City Center CEO Charles Starks told board members recently that convention attendees are hesitant to venture downtown between meetings. "It used to be that the first questions we got were about sustainability, food service and tech," Starks said. "Now, the focus has shifted to public safety."

There have been issues of various types for awhile, see:

-- "Another example of why local culture plans need to include an element on retail/dealing with for profit elements of the cultural ecosystem: Nashville's Tubb Record Shop," 2022
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017

But like with downtowns and entertainment districts and destinations across the country, e.g., the Philadelphia Inquirer reports ("Philly arts groups struggle to bring back audiences after COVID") that many of the theaters and museums and other cultural establishments there have lost at least 30% of their audience compared to pre-covid times, Nashville's Lower Broadway district is going through some hard times as audiences have shrunken.  

To me, it's an illustration that you always have to actively manage such districts, especially because of the possibility of slowdown.  

E.g., in my old haunt of H Street NE in Washington, DC, a number of places are closing according to reports on local social media, and it's likely due to always increasing competition (the Wharf has expanded, there is more going on at Navy Yard and near by, the Union Market district continues to intensify), plus DC's crime issues, and the post-covid drop off in business.  

I also wonder if having lost one of its champions ("Joe Englert, DC nightlife impresario, dies | Lessons about nightlife-based revitalization," 2020) makes a difference too.  He was more than a planner, as he brought money, buildings, concepts, talent, vendor relationships, and the ability to deal with government agencies to the fore, and facilitated the opening of many taverns and nightlife destinations there.

The quote, emphasis added:

David Corman, director of safety services at Nashville Downtown Partnership, suggests that the heightened fear among the public is more about perception than reality, as crime rates have decreased. In the first six months of this year, 64 major, Part 1 offenses downtown were reported to police compared to 70 crimes during the same period last year. 

“We have a saying here that if it doesn’t look clean, then it doesn’t feel clean and, subsequently, safe and that can impact an individual’s perception of crime," Corman said. "When someone is solicited for money or experiencing an unhoused person’s living situation downtown, all of this interacts with an individual’s internal biases and plays into how we experience our own feeling of safety."

Perceptions matter.  And what influences them needs to be managed and addressed.

Years ago, I wrote a piece that I called "The Soft Side of Commercial District Revitalization," which included clean and safe issues.

But it's also about disorder and a more cavalier attitude about it.  Pre-covid there was a lot of willingness to futher "define deviance down" in terms of "petty crimes" like fare evasion and shoplifting, because of the idea that people committed these crimes because they were poor, not because they were inherently criminals.  

But I think it backfired, as did other measures (like letting more alleged criminals out before trial), in that it led to an increase in crime in many ways, making things worse overall.

This has been abetted by the public camping element of homelessness, which diminishes the quality of many public spaces.

Nashville.  The article discusses the area's transformation over the past 20 years, which has been remarkable.  But the impact too from touristification, the challenge of putting resources in other parts of the city and county (which have a merged government), and political interference from the State Legislature, which is Republican while the city is more Democrat.

=====

Cf.  There is a Business Insider article, "Every American city wanted to be cool. Now they're all just boring copies of each other."  While my line is that all places are unique, but few are exceptional, in that they can't be compared, which many people argue, Nashville is a unique place.  

But there is no question that as places are touristified, they can be homogenized.  Definitely this is the case as places become what we might call night life bar districts.

Economic impact of big name concert tours: Taylor Swift in Philadelphia

 

In line before the concert, "Taylor Swift and 69,000 of Her Closest Friends Descend on Philadelphia," Philadelphia Magazine.

According to the urbanism blog Billy Penn ("Taylor Swift’s tour stop was a boom weekend for Philly, with hotel rooms nearly selling out — at $450 a night"), Taylor Swift's concert contributed to a hotel booking rate of over 90% in Philadelphia's Center City, and a significant increase in pricing.  Although other events also contributed to this, including the University of Pennsylvania graduation.

SEPTA ridership was higher, and some food establishments had stronger business.

Again, I'd say a lot of hotel revenue and transportation (airline, rental cars, for out of area visitors) are captured by non local entities.

Still, it's interesting to think about concert attendance in terms of in-area and out of area visitors, and the differentiated economic impact.

========

More entries about music performance as an element of cultural planning

-- "Song remains the same," 2011 
-- "Ground up (guerrilla) art #2: community halls and music (among other things)," 2011
-- "Leveraging music for cultural and economic development: part one, opera," 2017
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017
-- "Culture planning and radio: local music, local content vs. delivery nodes for a national network," 2019
-- "Under threat: Austin's music industry as an element of the city's cultural ecosystem and economy," 2016
-- "Revisiting cultural plans having elements for retail: music instrument stores," 2020
-- "DC's music venues ask for government support," 2020
-- "Thinking anew about supporting community radio," 2019
-- "Revisiting community radio," 2020

Arts as production: The rock music ecosystem in West Seattle

I've written a bunch of articles on music as an element of the local arts ecosystem:

-- "Ground up (guerrilla) art #2: community halls and music (among other things)," 2011
-- "Under threat: Austin's music industry as an element of the city's cultural ecosystem and economy," 2016 
-- "Leveraging music for cultural and economic development: part one, opera," 2017
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017
-- "NBC4 asks if DC can become a concert capital like Nashville, Austin, and New Orleans?," 2019
-- ""Arts district planning" in Arlington County | Many communities don't know the difference between arts as production and arts as consumption," 2021 
-- "Another example of why local culture plans need to include an element on retail/dealing with for profit elements of the cultural ecosystem: Nashville's Tubb Record Shop," 2022

and I think that you could apply the principles listed in John Montgomery's 2003 article, "Cultural Quarters as Mechanisms for Urban Regeneration. Part 1: Conceptualising Cultural Quarters" (Planning, Practice & Research, 18:4)," to music as a performing art in terms of developing "music as production" as opposed to "music as consumption."

Owner Matt Vaughan founded West Seattle’s Easy Street Records during what he terms the “slacker era” of the late ’80s. (Kylie Cooper / The Seattle Times).

This Seattle Times article, "Is West Seattle the rock ’n’ roll capital of Seattle?," illustrates those ideas--record stores, clubs, artists living there, record labels, the KEXP-FM rock radio station, practice spaces, recording studios, music education programs in Seattle Public Schools, etc., alongside affordable housing and commercial space, and adaptable buildings--in how it discusses the primacy of West Seattle as the anchor of the rock music ecosystem in Seattle.

From the article:

On the surface, a budget-proposing government suit doesn’t exactly scream “rock ’n’ roll.” But during his decade-plus as King County executive, lifelong West Seattleite Dow Constantine has been the local music and arts community’s biggest champion in local government. The county authorized what was believed to be among the first local-level COVID-19 relief grants earmarked for arts venues and turned an old Harbor Island flour warehouse into a film studio last year. More recently, King County and Visit Seattle teamed up for what they’re billing as Cloudbreak, “Seattle’s ReviveLive Music Fest.” The program gives guests at roughly 70 Seattle hotels a free pass to 60-plus shows throughout the month of November.  

What has developed in West Seattle for rock music is like the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative in Pittsburgh, in how two adjoining neighborhood organizations recognized that artists were locating to their communities, and they could leverage their presence by repositioning Penn Avenue as an arts-focused commercial district, by developing and recruiting anchors, developing programming and special events, creating public art, etc. ("Artists bring flourish to Penn Avenue," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "A Transformed Penn Avenue," Pittsburgh Magazine, Vacancy to Vitality in Pittsburgh’s East End: Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, case study, Metris Arts Consulting).

We would call these "naturally occurring arts districts" in the vein of "naturally occurring retirement communities" and what I call "naturally occurring innovation districts" ("Naturally occurring innovation districts | Technology districts and the tech sector," 2014).

Although the Penn Avenue district is being further "developed" through the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative while West Seattle's "music ecosystem" is still self-developing.

DC: Home Rule Music Festival at Walter Reed, Saturday

The Washington Post reports ("Home Rule Music Festival keeps the spirit of Black Fire Records alive") on a music festival to be held tomorrow at the Parks at Walter Reed, the redeveloping former site of the big Army hospital, which is on Georgia Avenue, a half mile or so from the Takoma Metrorail Station (also on the 70s Georgia Avenue bus lines).  From the article:

In the 1970s, Washington-based Black Fire Records was simultaneously an incubator and reliquary of D.C.’s African American music and culture and a living symbol of the Black Power and Black Consciousness movements. Charvis Campbell wanted to celebrate it. 

“We had to do something in the spirit of Black Fire,” said Campbell, owner of Petworth’s HR Records and head of its adjacent nonprofit, the Home Rule Music and Film Preservation Foundation. To start, he invited Richmond-based saxophonist James “Plunky” Branch — who co-founded Black Fire with local jazz DJ Jimmy “Black Fire” Gray (who died in 1999) and led a jazz band called the Oneness of Juju for the label — to perform in D.C. in 2021. 

“I was so enamored with this guy,” Campbell recalled. “The stories he told, the music — he just had it all. And on the way out, I talked to Plunky, and I was like, ‘We got to do a documentary. Any way I can help?’ He said, ‘Sure, let’s talk about it.’”

The story is interesting for at least three reasons:

1.  It's about a 1970s era music label, based in DC and focused on recording and distributing area music.  They were focused on Black Power and DC Home Rule issues among others.

2.  They've developed a documentary about the label, and (1) and (2) are interesting from the standpoint of cultural plans including elements on documenting relevant local cultural history, including music.

-- "More on cultural planning and community history documentation elements," 2018
-- "Culture planning and radio: local music, local content vs. delivery nodes for a national network," 2019
-- "NBC4 asks if DC can become a concert capital like Nashville, Austin, and New Orleans?," 2019
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017
-- ""Turn it down" doesn't mean "turn it off": It's not always about race--the issue of (go go) music broadcasted at 7th and U Streets NW," 2019
-- "Local music used to define communities: today with radio chains and national music distribution systems, not so much," 2021

This New York Times article on Black Fire Records, "The Small, Black-Owned Record Label That Made a Big Impact in 1970s D.C.," is a great example of the kind of documentation I'm thinking about.

3.  It's a free concert, on the Walter Reed site, and afterwards they will show the documentary, The Black Fire Documentary.

I'm not particularly interested in that particular type of music, but the history is interesting, and if we still lived in Manor Park, it'd be about 1.5 miles away, and easy to get to.

Another example of why local culture plans need to include an element on retail/dealing with for profit elements of the cultural ecosystem: Nashville's Tubb Record Shop

The Guardian reports, "Legendary Nashville store Ernest Tubb Record Shop to close," that a famous Nashville record store is going to close, because the owners put the building up for sale.  Also see "The best way forward': Lower Broadway's Ernest Tubb Record Shop announces closure this spring," Nashville Tennessean.

It's not that simple though.  The owners own the building and the business.  They want to cash out. From the Tennessean:

In August 2020, Jesse Lee Jones, the owner of Robert's Western World (located directly across the street from Ernest Tubb's), bought the building and the record shop business from his long-time friend David McCormick for $4.75 million. This purchase allowed him to control two significant pieces of real estate that, as he noted in 2020, "protect, promote and preserve [the] great history [of traditional country music]." 

... The recent real estate boom has made significant news and waves in Music City and has been seismic on Broadway. For example, just three blocks away from Ernest Tubb's[,] country star John Rich sold and his investment partners sold the "Cotton Eyed Joe's" property at 200 Broadway to an undisclosed buyer for $24.5 million in 2021 -- a 32% profit after Rich and Atlanta-based The Ardent Cos. bought the building in 2019 for $18.5 million.

... "Preserving the history and tradition of country music remains at the forefront of everything we do," continues the Facebook statement by Honky Tonk Circus, ETRS, and David McCormick Company. "We remain committed to preservation work and look forward to new projects that will allow us to continue to protect and nurture the invaluable history and tradition of country music."

It could be that people will join together, buy the building, and enable the business to stay in operation.

Photos: Mark Vergari, Journal News.

That's what happened with the Drama Book Shop in New York City.  

Focusing on the theater field, a large part of the store's revenue came from the sales of playscripts, and it was a significant resource for writers.  

After the announcement of its closure, a number of playwrights came together including Lin-Manuel Miranda, to buy the store to keep it in operation ("Drama Book Shop Sets a Fresh Start in a New Locale," New York Times).

Two changes though.  They moved to a new location, and added a new revenue stream with the addition of a cafe.

We don't think about it so much, especially planners, but record stores, music instrument stores, practice facilities, bookstores, music score stores (there used to be one in Silver Spring, Maryland), art supply stores, and of course for profit concert facilities, ranging in size from bars to much larger facilities, etc. are part of the cultural-arts ecosystem, but because they are for profit, their place in the arts ecosystem is usually ignored in culture master planning.

And just as I argue that there needs to be facilities planning by discipline, and scenario planning and a response system developed for when arts institutions are threatened with closure, the same goes for arts-related retail.

This is just another example.  Probably, to come up with the amount of money the owners want, philanthropy would have to step in, because the business case for the record store doesn't justify the asking price for the building.

-- "Cultural plans should have an element on culture-related retail," 2018
-- "Newsstands closing in San Diego and Seattle: revisiting cultural retail planning for books and periodicals," 2019

Although Nashville is full of people in the profession who have the means and connections to save the Tubb Record Shop. 

But it would be a lot easier if cultural master planning prepared communities for such action.  Paris' SEMAEST community development corporation's retail preservation initiative is the world's best practice example of how to do this in terms of both buildings and businesses:

-- "The SEMAEST Vital Quartier program remains the best model for helping independent retail," 2018

Note that Nashville already has the music cultural heritage preservation issue wrt music studios:

-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017

Local music used to define communities: today with radio chains and national music distribution systems, not so much

I've written about "local music" production as an element of community culture and culture planning.

-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017
-- "Culture planning and radio: local music, local content vs. delivery nodes for a national network," 2019
-- "Under threat: Austin's music industry as an element of the city's cultural ecosystem and economy," 2016
-- "Revisiting cultural plans having elements for retail: music instrument stores," 2020
-- "DC's music venues ask for government support," 2020
-- "Thinking anew about supporting community radio," 2019
-- "Revisiting community radio," 2020

The original home of Motown, "Hitsville USA."

A few weeks ago, reading an obituary ("Mary Wilson Dead: Supremes Co-Founder Was 76," Variety) of Mary Wilson, who sang for the Supremes, a Motown label band from Detroit, when the label was based in Detroit, I was reminded of my childhood and how Motown R&B music was part and parcel of the radio broadcasted in Detroit.

Although ironically probably it was broadcast the most by Canadian station CKLW of Windsor, which used its location across the US border to broadcast its high-powered signal into the US Midwest, with advertising focused on the more lucrative US market ("1970s: How CKLW Radio Dominated American Music – From Canada," Journal of Radio and Audio Media, "Sounds of Motown," The Walrus).

That was back when radio stations had "flexible" playlists, radio stations were involved in promoting concerts (they still are), especially of bands from the local community.

For a long time I've argued that Motown hurt itself by moving to Los Angeles, and losing its "terroir."

Photo: "'Forever Your Town': Billboards around Northeast Ohio pay tribute to late iconic rocker and radio personality Michael Stanley," WKYC-TV. 

And then Cleveland-based musician Michael Stanley died ("Michael Stanley, 1949-2021: An Appreciation of Rock’s Ultimate Local Hero," Variety).  I'd never heard of him, but apparently he was the pre-eminent locally-loved rock musician in Cleveland and other parts of the Midwest, with a following that was practically immeasurable.  

Do a search, there are a lot of great articles about his genuineness and place in the Cleveland music scene.  He sold out various Cleveland venues at a rate higher than more popular national acts.

Which reminded me of Bob Seger, a "Detroit-based" musician with a following like Michael Stanley's in the Detroit area, but who also had more of a national presence.

And then in my feed was a blog entry from the website Louder, about Detroit's best 10 rock bands ever, with a bunch of bands I'd not heard of, and of course, some that I know and love.  There is a great soundtrack and some videos included in the article.

-- "Detroit Rock City: the 10 best bands from America's rock'n'roll capital"

The rumor was kids from my high school, a bit older than me, are holding the banner featured on the back cover of the Kiss live album (which turns out not to be true), Glenn Frey's brother went to my high school (although I didn't really know him), and one of my friends used to babysit for Bob Seger's manager.  Certainly we liked the songs "Detroit Rock City" by Kiss and "Panic in Detroit" by Bowie.

But now that I think about it, I can't say that Iggy and the Stooges were played much on the radio.  

Motown definitely.  Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, yes.  I think MC5.  I didn't learn about Iggy until college.

With the way that today's music scene is controlled by national radio broadcast, concert presentation, and facilities management firms, I think it's difficult for "local" music to develop in the same way as it could in the 1960s and 1970s.

Revisiting stories: rooftop recreation and sports facilities in cities

Obviously, for a long time there have been rooftop pools at hotels and apartment and condominium buildings.

Many years ago, I mentioned a rooftop football field for a space constrained high school in New Jersey.

And I have written about how parks and recreation planning often under-considers very dense areas and fails to plan for recreation space, which can be part of mixed use multi-story projects.

These points likely influenced my writing about this in the context of Silver Spring, Maryland, the conurbation located on the northern border of DC, where the high cost of land makes providing "a recreation center" difficult.

The County was aiming for an arena.  And Montgomery College separately has a recreation center.

Tennis courts on top of a building in San Francisco


Athletic field on top of a high school in Union City, New Jersey


Rooftop basketball court, Flamingo South Beach Tower, Miami


And I argued not only should they be combined, and could be built on top of a parking garage like the County's RFP suggested, but that athletic fields could be built on top of other parking structures, since there are so many.

-- "Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center

Photo by Dan Swartz for Washingtonian. 

The smallish Washington Kastles tennis stadium on top of DC's Union Market is the first example in the area of how it can be done ("Here’s What It’s Like to Watch Tennis on Union Market’s Roof," Washingtonian Magazine).

The team had a facility on The Wharf and was supposed to go to a new facility there, but I guess the very short season for professional team tennis didn't make it work out. 

After their previous facility was closed, they shifted to indoors.  With the rooftop tennis court in Northeast DC, now they go back to the outdoors.  And the facility could be used for multiple purposes in the other almost 11 months that the Washington Kastles don't play.

I can't claim they got the developer, Edens, got the idea from my 2017 article, but it's nice that a firm committed to best practice does best practice, instead of me just writing articles imploring people to think bigger.

Thinking anew about supporting community radio

Although this has been a problem in the US for a couple decades, in March I wrote about this spurred by how local radio programming is being decimated in the UK because the national regulatory body has agreed to eliminate this requirement, at the behest of "chain radio station operators."

-- "Culture planning and radio: local music, local content vs. delivery nodes for a national network"
-- "Local communities are being silenced. We're in the age of the 'unplace'," Guardian

The radio tower and studio for the KHIL radio station. Photograph: Cassidy Araiza/The Guardian


The Guardian just published an article ("America's rural radio stations are vanishing – and taking the country's soul with them") about the decline of locally-focused radio stations in the rural section of the US, which increasingly face financial failure. From the article:

The radio station, whose call letters are KHIL, has long been the daily soundtrack for this frontier town (population 3,500) that prides itself on its cowboy culture and quiet pace of life. But six decades after the founding of the station, the property is in foreclosure, with utility disconnect notices coming nearly every month.

Small-town radio is fizzling nationwide, as stations struggle to attract advertisement dollars. And as station owners are forced to sell, media conglomerates snap up rural frequencies for rock-bottom prices, for the sole purpose of relocating them to urban areas. In a more affluent market, they can be flipped for a higher price. With limited frequencies available, larger broadcasters purchase as many as possible – especially those higher on the dial – in a race not dissimilar to a real estate grab.

KHIL is particularly interesting, because country music star Tanya Tucker grew up in Wilcox, Arizona, home to the station, listened to it, hung out at the station while she was developing her sound, etc.

Public radio groups are pretty common at the state level.  I run across such organizations as we travel if we are driving (because I tend to only listen to radio in a car).  I've come across great public radio station networks in Pennsylvania (WXPN, the alternative radio station affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania), rural Virginia (Virginia's Public Radio, Radio IQ), and Washington State, and have learned about others.

(Of course, most of these stations are reachable via the Internet, if you aren't in their broadcast area.)

In the DC area, the NPR affiliates, WAMU-FM in DC and WETA-FM in Northern Virginia have repeater stations in Maryland.

But these groups specifically operate their station as NPR affiliates, and broadcast (or repeat) national NPR programming as well as programs from Public Radio International and sometimes other groups, as well as programs they self-produce, such as the "Arizona Currents" program of Arizona Public Media.

Could public radio groups open up their "community radio networks" to include stations like KHIL in Wilcox, Arizona, without such stations having to become formal NPR affiliates, but still able to do their own thing, but with support of regional or statewide cultural funding and technical support.

Recording Engineer Jim Blackwood in Radio Production Room at KUAZ-FM, Tucson.

In the case of KHIL, perhaps that could be Arizona Public Media, which is based at the University of Arizona in Tucson.  Apparently, public radio groups in Arizona operate more at a regional basis, rather than statewide.

-- Station Resource Group, technical assistance group for public radio stations

Culture planning and radio: local music, local content vs. delivery nodes for a national network

Britain has just introduced regulations negating requirements for "local" radio stations to provide local programming ("Scores of UK radio stations to lose local programmes" and "Distinct radio voices: why we need local heroes," Guardian), which reminds me of how much U.S. radio stations have changed over the past 50 years.

Back in my high school days, local radio stations had shift-based DJs who programmed their shows, granted with requirements to play certain kinds of songs. The DJs had local followings, the stations promoted concerts, etc.

But local shows hosted by local DJs are but one element of "local radio."

Though even then it was not typical for the stations to play "local music," that is music created by local bands that hadn't already become successful.

A second and vital element should be the broadcasting of music by local bands.  This is another element of the argument of "arts as production" versus "arts as presentation" ("Reprinting with a slight update, "Arts, culture districts and revitalization" from 2009").

Detroit.  I am from Detroit/the Detroit area so in the 1970s our radio waves were dominated by Motown--by then the company decamped to Los Angeles but still many of the artists had homes in the area, and Bob Seger, a "local" artist, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, frequent mentions that Ted Nugent had been in Detroit.

I seem to recall one of the stations had a program on Sundays where they would play an hour of music by up and coming local bands, and sometimes stations would produce record compilations of local music. That's how I first heard songs like "Jesus Chrysler" by Luke Warm and "Go Baby" by R.U.R., songs that I still remember 40 years later. (... although probably I remember "Jesus Chrysler" too because my adoptive father worked for the company.) Another song from that same album, "I'm a college grad" I can't find.

The (Detroit) Romantics came on the scene more when I was in college. And that's when I learned about Iggy Pop, MC5, Destroy All Monsters ("Bored"). I never learned about Death or the "girl" garage band "Pleasure Seekers" until recently.

DC. But even when I moved to DC, which at the time had a locally programmed station, WHFS-FM, which had local DJs, and for a long time these DJs were allowed to freely program their shows, rather than hew tightly to a pre-selected program of popular music, that station never played music by local hardcore bands that went on to fame like Bad Brains or Minor Threat/Fugazi.

Manchester.  In terms of radio stations in Manchester, did they play songs by local bands like Joy Division/New Order and The Smiths?  (For a number of years the New Order band owned a club in Manchester, called The Haçienda.)  Probably they did, just like Detroit's WRIF-FM played Bob Seger incessantly, because the bands became nationally and internationally significant especially in terms of sales.

But bands equally significant but that "hadn't made it" at the same scale probably weren't played on stations in Manchester, just as I never heard songs by DC hardcore bands on WHFS.

So for a long time I've been thinking, there needs to be some kind of way maybe even involving "local content broadcast requirements" to promote and broadcast local music locally.

Thinking bigger in culture planning.  In the context of cultural planning, I've written about this some in terms of codifying and presenting a community's music history ("The song remains the same: DC's continued failures in cultural planning as evidenced by failures with Bohemian Caverns, Howard Theatre, Union Arts, Takoma Theatre...") but haven't fully codified this in terms of a music element as part of a broader approach to cultural planning in line with some of my other writings ("Should community culture master plans include elements on higher education arts programs?," "Culture planning at the metropolitan scale should include funding for "local" documentary film making" and "Cultural plans should have an element on culture-related retail").

Lyman Potts and the Canadian Talent Library of music for radio stations.  I was surprised to come across an obituary ("Obituary: Lyman Potts helped develop the Canadian music industry," Hamilton Spectator; "Lyman Potts was a founding father of Canada’s music industry," Toronto Globe & Mail) on Lyman Potts, a signature personage in the development of the Canadian radio industry.

One of his innovations was the creation of a "Canadian Talent Library" of recordings codifying music by Canadians, so that radio stations would be able to more easily feature national artists versus being dominated by songs from the US.  This extended to paying for recording sessions for up and coming artists like Gordon Lightfoot.

Potts did this before the Canadian broadcasting regulatory authority instituted local content requirements for radio stations.  (Which for us in Michigan meant that CKLW-AM of Windsor had to stop acting like a Detroit-based station, playing a heavy rotation of Motown and other Top 40 hits.)

The creation of the Canadian Talent Library of "local music" is a model for what could be done on a regional scale for radio stations in the US and the UK.

Seattle Public Library Playback Program. While not for broadcast, SPL has a program, called Playback, to collect and offer to library patrons access to locally produced music ("Seattle musicians- submit your music to Seattle Public Library's collection," My Wallingford).

WCPO-TV digital website as another model.  While it doesn't feature local bands, but acts playing at local establishments, the "Lounge Acts" program by WCPO-TV's digital site is another example of how to create more focused music programming that has a local focus.  That program features touring acts.  But it would be easy for WCPO (and by extension, others) to create a complementary program featuring local bands.

=====
Music and culture and economic revitalization planning:

-- "Leveraging music for cultural and economic development: part one, opera
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music"
-- "Under threat: Austin's music industry as an element of the city's cultural ecosystem and economy"

NBC4 asks if DC can become a concert capital like Nashville, Austin, and New Orleans?

Photo: Destination DC.

-- "Concert Capital: Can DC Become America's Next Big Music Town?"

From the article:

It may be years before D.C. has the reputation of a music city like Austin, Texas, Chicago, Nashville, Tennessee, New Orleans, New York or Los Angeles. Yet the foundation has been laid with a rich history, from the jazz of Duke Ellington to the go-go of Chuck Brown, the R&B of Screamin' Joe Neal to the telecasters of Link Wray, and the punk scene of Dischord Records.

Today, the D.C. music landscape is as vibrant as it has ever been. From big stadium shows to a variety of intimate venues popping up all over town, this buffet of options paints a stark artistic contrast to tired Beltway stereotypes of stuffy lobbyists and pretentious politicians.

"The DMV is exploding with music," Wolf Trap President Arvind Manocha told WTOP.

The creative economy means booming business. Marketing company Destination D.C. said the city saw a record 22.8 million visitors in 2017, spending $7.5 billion and supporting 75,000 jobs. Of the "eclectic cultural travelers" surveyed, 86 percent were interested in "music in nationally known venues," while 68 percent noted "headliner entertainment" as important.

Probably not.

Although technically, I'm arguing a different point, about a being a center for music creation (arts as production) versus being a center for music presentation (arts as consumption).

But it's a fact that Austin, Nashville, and New Orleans, among others are "music cities" because they are a home to performing artists, and there is a creative ecosystem that supports music development and production, as well as venues of all types and sizes to see music performed.

(The same issue of arts as production vs. arts as production is key to understanding DC in terms of the visual arts ecosystem and as a home to working artists.)

Not to mention Austin has its own problems in maintaining its positioning as "live music capital of the US" because (1) there are lots of places that offer music and the audience isn't necessarily growing; (2) the rise in the cost of commercial space means that venues are closing; (3) the reduction in the sales of music through CDs etc. reduces artist income; and (4) the increase in rents and cost to buy a house make it harder for cultural professionals not making a lot of money to afford to live in Austin.

-- "Under threat: Austin's music industry as an element of the city's cultural ecosystem and economy"

And Nashville has its problems, losing many of the original music studios to new development, although housing is still comparatively cheap.

-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music"

-- "Leveraging music for cultural and economic development: part one, opera"

And there have been many issues in New Orleans post-Katrina  

-- "Veteran musicians note changes in New Orleans music scene since Hurricane Katrina," New Orleans Advocate

DC has these same issues.  While it doesn't have tons of venues, it has some, and new ones are being added, which is what has triggered the NBC piece.  The audience isn't necessarily growing and the rising cost of commercial space makes it harder for venues to open and remain open.  Not to mention that the limited amount of Class B and Class C commercial space means that cheap rehearsal and studio space is hard to come by ("Ground up (guerrilla) art #2: community halls and music (among other things)").  And the cost of housing makes it hard for young musicians to come and live in the city and stay here while they develop their chops.

Some other recent articles that are related:

-- "Hip-Hop Museum Preserves Rap Music History in D.C.," Washington Afro-American
-- "The In Series’ Latest Musical Traces A History Of Black Music And Migration On U Street," DCist

and this from a past blog entry, "The song remains the same: DC's continued failures in cultural planning as evidenced by failures with Bohemian Caverns, Howard Theatre, Union Arts, Takoma Theatre..." among others

=======

There is an interesting exhibit, "Twisted Teenage Plot," at American University's Katzen Arts Center on the artist-driven art rock movement in the city in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and how it was facilitated by the availability of cheap studio space in post-riot Washington and supported by various arts institutions (the Phillips, the Corcoran, galleries, arts organizations) that at the time were open and available to new ideas, programs, and ways of doing things, and a tight spatial footprint centered around 7th Street NW, Downtown.

Actually, the exhibit on the art produced by the artist-musicians isn't that exciting, but the collection catalog is excellent, featuring the artists, their stories, and their stories of the scene at the time.

This period is an element of the city's recent music history that has been overshadowed by the city's punk movement, which developed a little later in the mid-1980s.  Had bands like the Urban Verbs made it (albeit in my opinion the music isn't quite at the level of Television, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, etc.), the story would be more prominently remembered.