Published October 28, 2016 in the Nonprofit Quarterly. To read the full article by Eileen Cunniffe, please click here.

“NPQ’s nonprofit newswire has previously reported on the challenges of affordable housing for artists, and the well-documented cycle of artist-driven urban renewal, which typically leads to artists being priced out of the neighborhoods they have helped to revive. This is sometimes referred to as “the SoHo effect.” One positive trend has been toward developing permanent affordable housing for artists; Minneapolis-based Artspace has been at the forefront of that movement, beginning in the late 1980s in Minnesota, but now gaining traction in other cities and states, too…”

“What is especially interesting about the conversation in Miami is that it also explored the flip side of the SoHo effect—namely, the complicity of artists in the gentrification process, and the impact this has not only on the artists themselves, but on other residents of neighborhoods that are being gentrified. The Miami Herald article referenced a discussion at the Common Field Convening on “artwashing”—a term for “adding a cultural sheen to a developing neighborhood.” The article also noted, “Artists find themselves in the uncomfortable and confusing position of feeling as if they have become inadvertently complicit in driving gentrification, even as they are also being victimized by the trend.””