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I just submitted a letter to the Editor to Pioneer Magazine. There was an article in the May edition decrying the focus on arts & culture in economic development, and below is my response. I’d link to the piece, but it’s not online.

More Art = More $? Here’s the Problem by Brian Snell

A spectre is haunting the Valley – the spectre of vibrancy. We want vibrant communities and vibrant downtowns. We want a vibrant arts scene and a vibrant bar culture. If we are vibrant then perhaps we shall also be attractive, vital, captivating, even fun. Every major town planning document in this valley is riddled with mention of the term, and it remains on the lips of Americans participating in a national conversation about what our workers will do with themselves in the post-industrial, post-dotcom era economy. Admittedly, the inclusion of ‘vibrancy’ in this conversation is a welcome, positively-inflected change from previous refrains like “they stole our jobs.”

But does anyone know what this word means?

When the Northampton Planning Board and the City Council convened a meeting to develop a new comprehensive plan for the city in 2007, the resulting strategy, dubbed “Sustainable Northampton,” listed a commitment to “vibrancy” (along with leadership and inclusiveness) as one of the “overarching themes influencing all aspects of Northampton’s future.”

When the city outlines its plan to “promote arts and culture,” a quantified logic of the vibrancy project is made explicit: “Metric: Number of performance and rehearsal spaces and galleries in the City. Target: Maintain or increase the number of venues.” Essentially, if art leads to revenue, more art equals more revenue, as if art were a natural resource or a manufactured good to be exploited.

The Northampton Chamber of Commerce outlines its tourism agenda on its website, noting that it “worked with a regional committee to create a strategy for cultural tourism that will attract more visitors to the county’s cultural, educational, and agricultural attractions,” and also that it “created a new marketing strategy focusing on lifestyle market niches rather than geographic markets.” Tourism is here being deterritorialized from geography into the space of identity; where a tourist goes is becoming incidental to the “kind of place” they go to. Reshape your city into a heterotopia for a given ethos and set of lifestyle-signifying activities, and an influx of tourism revenue will soon follow.

Easthampton City Arts+, similarly, lists first its goals, “to create a nurturing environment in which all cultural activities may flourish, thus strengthening the image of the City as a community with a rich and diverse cultural life.” The key is the image of the city, the perception that Easthampton is a destination for “Arts and Culture,” (these organizations never seem particularly discerning about the quality or content of the art produced, simply that it exist en masse) in order to “expand opportunities of local artists to market their work and to provide the public the opportunity to discover emerging and established artists by increasing the numbers of visitors, both tourists and local residents, to cultural programs, individual artists studios, galleries, special events and other retail businesses and restaurants.”

Thomas Frank’s article in The Baffler makes a good case for why this trend toward “Art and Culture” districting is not a long-term sustainable economic plan, mostly because it does nothing to solve the underlying causes of economic trouble in regions struggling to make the transition to a service economy. I’d like to further argue that it is not especially good for art, either. On the surface it might seem like a win-win scenario; cities and towns get increased tourism and artists get increased opportunities to make their work visible to visitors. But the increased visibility threatens to result in an embarrassment of riches that is intended only for the audience already interested in it. Art simply becomes the stuff that “artsy people” go to “artsy places” to see. Saying that you are interested in theater or painting becomes the equivalent to wearing a Batman t-shirt – not an engagement with broader sociopolitical or humanistic ideas, but an outward signifier of identity. In short, one becomes unable to see the trees through the forest; the idea of art, as a lifestyle choice, comes to replace art itself.

In a sense, this problem speaks to a crisis of identity for museums and galleries. In a time when the MoMa and the Met have their collections catalogued online (not to mention sites like Google Art Project, which already contains images of the collections of over 150 museums), it gets harder to make a case why art should continue to take up space. Works of art spanning genre and period have become overwhelmingly accessible to someone who never sets foot in a museum. One possible trajectory for museums, then, is to become a pilgrimage site for art devotees, a kind of postmodern Graceland for “art people.” Taking trips to museums becomes a way of signaling legitimacy within art-oriented social groups (“Oh, you went to the Guggenheim? We’ve been three times, and we just love it!”). Does the vibrancy agenda risk turning our town centers into Instagram-ready, sterile museums?

Undoubtedly, few acts are more human or humanizing than making and engaging with art. Great communities demand it. But when we talk about art in the context of vibrancy metrics, we need to realize that our artists might as well be producing the bolts of silk our working class forbears wove in the factory spaces we now repurpose. There’s art which reveals the human soul, and then there is art which increases the tax base. It’s time we recognize the distinction between the two.

Here’s my response:

I care a lot about the Valley, and I want it to be full of places people enjoy being. To me, that’s what “vibrancy” means, and what the “cultural economy” is about: bringing the sort of arts & culture people enjoy to the places we care about. I’m not sure what’s so complicated about that. In the last issue, it seemed that Brian Snell was grumping all over this notion of creating environments where there’s stuff for people to do. I guess when profit is involved, fun things become bad? Being able to pay the bills because of greater institutional investment is “bad for art”? Or maybe “deterritorialized” “heterotopias” are at fault? In my work, we’re clear that we don’t want downtown Amherst to be “Disneyland” but we do want it to be clean, and we do want it to have things for people to do. People and places don’t have to “engage with broader sociopolitical or humanistic ideas” to be worthwhile.

I’m uninterested in over-intellectualizing this. Let’s make places that people enjoy, where there are things going on that people enjoy doing. History shows that the resulting pride of place is the root of sustainable placemaking.

Alex Krogh-Grabbe
Amherst Business Improvement District

This weekend, I will be spending a lot of time at the Taste of Amherst, staffing the BID’s tent. We’re giving away a bike from Laughing Dog Bicycles to someone drawn from those who Like our Facebook page or sign up for our email list. It could be you. Also, this is a perfect opportunity to come hang out, eat good food, listen to good music, and generally appreciate the awesome place I’ve been working for the past year. Hope to see you there!

At the end of this month, I will be leaving my job at the Amherst Business Improvement District, where I have worked for the past year. Even though it has been demanding and stressful, I have greatly enjoyed this work, and leave on good terms. In the broad sense, I intend to continue doing “this work”: placemaking, community-building, working to make Amherst a better place. Just how I do that is still up in the air.

I’m looking forward to exploring different areas of my interest: web design, music, data analysis, computer mapping, event publicity, entrepreneurship, and politics. I am excited to discover where these interests lead me!

I write this from an Amtrak train, on my smartphone. I haven’t been on Amtrak since my cross-country train adventure almost two years ago. When I walked into the train a few moments ago, it evoked memories of all the amazing experiences I had then. But this time, I’m not getting off in Sandpoint, ID or Pittsburgh, PA, but in Dover, NH, where I’m going to my childhood friend’s bachelor party. This isn’t your stereotypical bachelor party; it consists of disc golf, dinner at a nice restaurant, and then a rousing game of dungeons and dragons. Tomorrow, it’s off to western Mass. I’ll be there most of the time at least through the month of May, because I’ve now finished grad school and have been elected to town meeting in Amherst. I’m also applying to jobs that would allow me to stay there. While my girlfriend Nicole is still finishing up classes for her art education masters and consequently I’ll be visiting her in Boston throughout the summer, Amherst is where I want to be.

It’s strange going through these transition periods! Just one week ago, I was finishing up both my classes and my two internships, at the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations and the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District. Those experiences were great, but they both felt like I was working on someone else’s projects. Working at a real job in Amherst will give me more of a feeling of ownership of my work.

Transition times are usually bumpy, but I feel like the hardest part is behind me now. The next stage will surely be challenging in its own way, but that’s a good thing. Keeps you on your toes, keeps you sharp, reminds you to enjoy the parts that are relaxing. Just like this train, life just keeps on moving forward, and the best we can do is make the most of the ride and enjoy it.

I’m running for Town Meeting in Amherst this year, and I’m pumped about it. Once every ten years, after redistricting, all 240 seats in Town Meeting are up for reelection, and 2012 is that year. There are 24 seats in each of the ten precincts. The candidates receiving the eight highest vote totals get 3-year seats, the next eight get 2-year seats, and the third eight get 1-year seats. Half the precincts have fewer candidates than seats, but mine (Precinct 9) has the most, with 41 candidates for 24 seats. Twenty-two of those candidates are incumbents (“Candidates for re-election”). For those candidates, we have the fantastic TallyVotes to guide us in our voting. TallyVotes doesn’t record every vote (most of which are voice votes) but it does record most of the important ones. If you’re an Amherst voter, check it out. It really informs the democratic process. You can even note your preferred vote and weight which votes are most important to you, thus producing a score for each candidate. I figured out 10 of my 24 votes through this method.

But what about the new folks, like myself? Some people I know, and some people I generally know the perspective of from quotes in the Bulletin. But what about for the rest of the people? Here’s what the internet says about the other non-incumbents in my precinct:

• Ray La Raja: Political Science professor at UMass. Student love him, and he’s been officially recognized as one of the best teachers at UMass. He went to Harvard undergrad, Harvard Kennedy School for a masters, and got his PhD from UC Berkeley. He’s been teaching at UMass since 2002. He’s an “expert in campaign financing and reform measures” and serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Campaign Finance Institute. Looks like he got tenure in 2008 (that’s what “Associate Professor” means, right?) He was a policy analyst at the DLC in the early 90s. Sounds pretty cool.
• Sara Ross: I’ve met her, I think! She and her husband Gareth renovated a house on Cottage Street, which now looks very modern and sleek, which is very cool but also out of place among the more normal-looking houses around it. The roof is literally covered with solar panels (which is pretty expensive to do). They have a couple kids. The Gazette article about their house says they’re in their mid-30s, and they moved to Amherst in 2008. Sara grew up in Amherst! Sara has a solar start-up called Sungage, and spoke at Ignite Amherst 2012. Gareth works at Mass Mutual in Springfield.
• Judy & Kerry Strayer: Judy works at Amherst College in facilities, where she is the Furnishings & Equipment Coordinator. There’s not much more on the internet about her. They were both quoted in a Gazette article about Hawthorne Farm by the Preschool, saying that there hasn’t been enough public input. Kerry was cited in another article from 2009 as pressuring the Select Board to enforce the (now ruled unconstitutional) zoning bylaw limiting unrelated persons living together. Coincidentally, Mr. La Raja was also mentioned in that article as renting to a higher-than-allowed number of students while he was on sabbatical. Kerry also went to a 2010 Public Works Committee meeting to ask for a sidewalk at Chestnut & East Pleasant, where he asserted Wildwood students cross the street. Personally, if I were going to Wildwood from, say, University Lodge, I would cross at Strong Street. Kerry runs in marathons and road races, acted in Hampshire Shakespeare’s 2007 production of King Lear, and the 2005 production of Midsummer Night’s Dream.
• Aaron Kropf was my 12th grade Physics teacher. I liked him a lot, and he told stories of his previous career in the music production industry.
• Simon Leutz is my next-door neighbor, and was my 9th grade World Civ teacher. He’s awesome, and has two young sons.
• Max Page is a Professor of Architecture & History at UMass. He teaches and writes about the design, development and politics of cities and architecture. He used to be President of the Massachusetts Society of Professors. He’s also a photographer, and grew up in Amherst. He’s been involved in homelessness issues, and other social justice issues. He’s really into public higher education. Adrienne Terrizzi conducted this mildly awkward (entirely because of her) interview with him on Amherst Media. Tells you everything you might want to know.
• Nancy Higginswas worried in 2010 about apartments proposed next to her property on Main Street at High Street. She attended an ARA meeting in early 2011 about Gateway, but did not speak. She is a member of the town’s Public Shade Tree Commission. Until recently, she was a circulation assistant at Frost Library at Amherst College. She is also a reverend at the Spiritual Healing Temple in South Deerfield.
• Charles Hopkins was chair of the Amherst Cultural Council in 2002. He is the director of Academic Support at PVPA. He is also one of the founders of Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School in Holyoke, which just approved by the MA Board of Education. The school’s link has all the professional information about him you could want.
• Ric McGinn works as a handyman and contractor. He now lives on Cottage St, but previously has run for town meeting from Canton Ave and also lived on McClellan St. Here he is loading Haiti relief items in his truck. He apparently has a daughter named Wyoming. I get a positive impression.
• Jerry Guidera is associated with Hills House LLC, an organization working to renovate a number of historic houses at the bottom of Gray Street. He’s also an Amherst native, according to this Boston Globe article (though he was born in Seville, Spain). He is also in charge of the Amherst office of family business the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies. He was a newspaper reporter for eight years. He, too, was interviewed on Amherst Media’s Neighbor to Neighbor, by Chamber of Commerce Director Tony Maroulis. Seems quite respectable. In the interview, he mentions he ran last year at the urging of Stephanie O’Keeffe after interacting with the planning staff & board in the rezoning process for Hills House.
• Rob Crowner has been involved in town government for years, most recently on the Planning Board. Previously he had also been on the Public Works Committee. Sounds like he’s leaving the Planning Board, and running for Town Meeting?
• Mathew Lebowitz is the founder & owner of MLCreative, a new media & design company. He’s from Connecticut. He likes Amherst Future on Facebook, and looks like he has a daughter in the Amherst Ultimate program.
• Michael Chesworth lives on Morrow Lane behind my house. I used to deliver the paper to his family when they lived in the Chestnut St house across from the Middle School. He’s an illustrator, mostly of children’s books.
• Sarah LaCour is a planner who works for Cinda Jones. She was a big advocate of the form-based zoning proposal in North Amherst. She’s married to Niels LaCour, former town planner, current UMass campus planner, incumbent Town Meeting member. I was a counselor at the Hitchcock center for their two kids back in 2007. They were sweet kids.
• Shavahn Best wrote a letter to the editor of the Gazette in 2007, upset with their coverage about two black men in the Amherst schools, Mark Prince & Talib Sadiq. She now seems to be involved with Occupy Amherst.
• Beverly Swihart seems to be a lawyer. Not much other information is available.

Those are all of the new candidates for Town Meeting from Precinct 9. Hope this was helpful! And again, those descriptions are just what I could glean from Google searches, so I am doubtless making mistakes and leaving things out. If you want to help out readers of this post with more information, please post a comment!

As the second snowfall of the winter melts to slush here in Somerville, my final semester of graduate school is barreling toward its finish. In the final semester of UEP, it is normal for students to take only one or two courses, and to spend the rest of their time working on their thesis. My two courses are Land Use Planning and Real Estate Development & Finance, both of which are filled with very useful information.

My thesis is progressing quite well. My topic is mixed-use developments in college towns, and how the public process that goes into their planning can be managed well. The topic was inspired by the Gateway District in Amherst, where initial mismanagement of the public process may have contributed to the pushback from neighbors. In addition to Amherst, I am also using Storrs, CT as a case study. I am nearly finished with the first draft of the thesis, and I hope to defend during the last week of March. My courses go until the end of April, and then I will be done with graduate school!

In addition to my courses and thesis, I am working this semester at the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC). My internship there is focusing on three projects. First, I am collecting data on the utilization of minority contractors in Boston real estate developments, to help benchmark how CDCs are doing in this regard. As minority employment relates to the mission of these organizations, they want to do as well as the can, and this study is helping them create meaningful goals. The second project I’m working on is researching business improvement districts (BIDs) to see if there is any way that successful model can be connected to the community development organizations that we work with. Finally, I am improving MACDC’s social media presence by managing the Twitter and Facebook accounts.

You wouldn’t believe it, but there are even more things going on besides these big ones. I am working out a one-day-a-week internship at the Downtown Boston BID, the only one in the state’s capitol. I’m also dancing a fair amount, and continuing to participate in the organizing of NEFFA, BIDA, and Swing into Summer. Nicole & I celebrated the second anniversary of our meeting a few weeks ago at the Dance Flurry festival in Saratoga Springs, NY. I also have been paying close attention to the MBTA budget cut proposals, as well as national political issues such as the Republican primary and the various regressive pieces of legislation flying through the political air.

I’ll stop there, because too much more detail would I’m sure be taxing to your patience. But thanks for reading, and I hope you have a fantastic March!

I just read this article detailing the advise given to the Republican Governors Association by GOP strategist Frank Luntz. See the article for his full advise, but here are his basic points:

1. Don’t say ‘capitalism.’
2. Don’t say that the government ‘taxes the rich.’ Instead, tell them that the government ‘takes from the rich.’
3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the ‘middle class.’ Call them ‘hardworking taxpayers.’
4. Don’t talk about ‘jobs.’ Talk about ‘careers.’
5. Don’t say ‘government spending.’ Call it ‘waste.’
6. Don’t ever say you’re willing to ‘compromise.’
7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: ‘I get it.’
8. Out: ‘Entrepreneur.’ In: ‘Job creator.’
9. Don’t ever ask anyone to ‘sacrifice.’
10. Always blame Washington.
11. Don’t say ‘bonus.’ Say ‘pay for performance.’

I’m surprised (because Frank Luntz is deviously clever) how easy these talking points are to respond to. Here are my responses:

1. Republicans’ “economic freedom” means the freedom of wealthy corporations to behave as immorally as they wish. What they’re really talking about is a continuation of the sort of unfettered capitalism that’s gotten us into the mess we’re in. That doesn’t make sense.
2. It’s the responsibility of all Americans to contribute what they are able for the good of the nation. It is unjust for anyone to have to choose between paying for medical bills and paying for food. It is also unjust for some people to spend ungodly amounts of money on luxuries when that money could go to pay our teachers better. That just wouldn’t make sense.
3. There are lots of people who work hard in this country. But unfortunately, how hard you work has become divorced from how much money you make. The lower on the economic totem pole you go, the harder people are working for every dollar. Let’s not pretend that the wealthiest Americans have it as hard as the working poor or the shrinking middle class. This is unfair.

   

4. Everyone wants job security. Everyone wants ownership of what they do day in and day out. The spending cuts pushed by Republicans would force hardworking Americans to scramble for degrading minimum wage jobs while wealthy CEOs who capsize the US economy get paid millions on the way out the door. That is unfair.
5. It is a waste for financial firms exploding with revenue to be bailed out with the taxes of hardworking Americans. It is a waste for defense spending to dwarf education spending. It is not a waste to spend taxpayer money on ensuring an equal opportunity for all. It is not a waste for all of us to pay our fair share to secure America’s future. We need that honest investment in the future.
6. Compromise and cooperation are important, because there will always be disagreements, and to govern, choices have to be made. But the principles of equality and fairness cannot be bargained away. It’s okay to admit a mistake if your entrenched position is unjust. Everyone makes mistakes, but real responsibility comes from being able to admit them. We need responsible leadership to fix our broken system.
7. It’s wonderful that Republicans are starting to realize that their way of doing things is making people angry. But offering the same old solutions is not the way to make things better. As long as industry-backed politicians are still pushing for less regulation, lower taxes, and less investment in the future, you have to wonder whether they really “get it”. We need our leaders to actually do something good.
8. Good jobs are created by innovation and a level playing field. When the unregulated financial speculation brings the economy down around our ears, good jobs are lost. Further, it’s hard for young entrepreneurs to create the next big employer when they’re burdened with impossible mountains of education debt. We need a stable economy, and we need to invest in creativity.
9. Most Americans have sacrificed a great deal because of the irresponsibility of corporate practices. Unfortunately, those responsible have not sacrificed at all. Until wealthy Americans are paying their fair share, it makes no sense for hardworking citizens to sacrifice even more by giving up services we need. It makes no sense to continue with the same broken system we have now.
10. Wealthy politicians are as much to blame for the mess we’re in as wealthy executives. But getting money out of politics is the only way to solve the structural problem that allowed them to destroy our economy. As long as fundraising is a primary ingredient of campaigning, neither Washington nor Wall Street will be responsible. Until that changes, I will protest.
11. The performance of countless hardworking Americans goes unrewarded all the time. As long as big-money corporations are able to pay big-money employees big-money bonuses while many Americans are going hungry, there’s a big problem in this country. Until that changes, I will protest.

A dear friend of mine, Mary Wesley, has recently started working as the new CDSS Youth Intern. She is a truly wonderful human being. I learned this song from her, which has been called her theme song. And it turns out there’s also a singing square version of the song! How wonderful is the message of this song?

Make Friends – Moon Mullican (lyrics)

Make friends with the rich, make friends with the poor
Make friends with the high, make friends with the low
Even the little child, you oughta greet him with a smile
While traveling through this world, try to make friends

Make friends, make friends, make friends, try to make friends
While traveling through this world, try to make friends
Wear a smile, not a frown, don’t you put your neighbor down
While traveling through this world, try to make friends

Sometimes you may be weak, sometimes you may be strong
Sometimes talked about, and sometimes treated wrong
But you just can’t miss, if you just remember this
While traveling through this world, try to make friends

Make friends, make friends, make friends, try to make friends
While traveling through this world, try to make friends
Wear a smile, not a frown, don’t you put your neighbor down
While traveling through this world, try to make friends

[edit 02/23/2015: I wrote a third verse to this, which people say they like, so here it is]
Some say you gotta work, some say you gotta pray
Some say you gotta save, and wait for that rainy day
But you’ll always come up dry just as long as you don’t try
And while traveling through this world, try to make friends

Protest chants are really fascinating to me. They are at the intersection of targeted marketing and crowd dynamics, in that they can only become popular if they’re catchy and succinct, but they need to communicate a clear message. Some of the standards of the Occupy Wall Street movement seem to be growing stale, though. We’ve got:

• “We…are…the nine-ty-nine per-cent!”
• “The whole world is watch-ing!”

I’ve noticed that one of the most pervasive computer habits that many people have with computer use is an over-use of the double-click. For your convenience, here is a small and non-comprehensive list of the basic tasks to use each kind of click for:

Double-clicking

• Opening a program on your desktop
• Opening a file in most places
• Selecting the entire word when you’re editing text

Single-clicking

• Selecting/highlighting an icon
• Pressing a button
• Clicking a link
• Most other things you want to do

Interestingly, I’ve noticed that this problem isn’t just one exhibited by older computer users, but also apparent in low-confidence computer users my age and younger (yes, they do exist, in force). Also interesting, is this assertion on Wikipedia that “Macintosh Operating Systems only require one mouse click for most executions.” It seems like Apple tends to be at the forefront of desktop culture, so it’s not surprising that we use single clicks for more and more. Of course, what with the rise of tablets and touchscreens, soon we may not be using mice at all!