Bubble people in end-of-history districts
Apr. 17th, 2005 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
Of course, just because you've moved to a new apartment in a new district where the sun shines on the balcony, the rent is low, the people passing by are a young, beautiful, cosmopolitan "creative class", there are pleasing little designy shops, open-air markets, cool galleries, comfortable bars and vegan cafes, and you're listening to Caetano Veloso's Domingo while your little black rabbit plays around with the pink curtains... well, that doesn't mean it's "the end of history". I mean, not unless "the end of history" is, like Kafka's Day of Judgement, a "court of eternal session" in which you always win your case (plus substantial damages) and can retire and live forever in fulfillment and happiness. No, your personal history will continue, just as history itself continues. You will suffer setbacks, you will eventually die, just as historical events -- stuff like the current tension between Japan and China -- will continue to surprise you with its unexpected awfulness. But while you're in this "end of history" mood (and while you're preparing an "end of history" sort of album, an album where, delightfully, nothing ever happens) it seems like a little piece of a fabulous forever, a place out of time, a place without drama. Like a Caetano Veloso record, time passes with a gentle ticking of claves and brushes, an ever-changing yet static progression of sophisticated jazz chords. No tension, no build, no conflict, no surprises. The end of history.
An e mail came in this morning from a girl in Athens, Georgia. She's called Kim. She's throwing a party to sell her drawings and sculptures. "Show some love for me," says Kim to me and 32 other addressees, "buy this art for cheap so I won't have anything else to take to Berlin." Kim will almost certainly end up in one of Berlin's "end of history districts" for creatives: Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain or Kreuzberg. Most probably Friedrichshain, though, where she'll perhaps find an apartment as pleasant as the one I'm in now: €360 a month, bills included, shared between two of us. That's £125 a month, Londoners. Bills included. No wonder nobody seems to work here: people sit at the sidewalk cafes all day, smoking and eating and talking about their "projects", showing off their cute small dogs. This area isn't quite as yuppie-ish as Prenzlauer Berg, but it's on the way. The people here are younger and more "creative", so within five years this will perhaps be on a par with Prenzlauer Berg. But for now it still retains some of its working class East German feel, particularly as you move away from Boxhagener Platz, its spiritual centre. And when Friedrichshain becomes the new Prenzlauer Berg, what will become the new Friedrichshain? That's already been decided. According to a recent edition of Tip magazine, the next hot area is Wedding, a working class wilderness north of Mitte where history has not yet been ended by design boutiques selling retro-modernist pipe-cleaner chairs.
It's easy to scoff at end of history districts, places where people think like you, where people, having climbed to the very top of Abraham Maslow's "ladder of needs", self-actualize and create rather than working to pay the rent. I don't scoff, though. To me it's such a fragile achievement that it needs to be supported. It's like a balancing act. Humans so rarely get to the top of Maslow's pyramid, and so much of their lives is spent toiling at the lower levels for a few hours of leisure, a couple of weeks of holiday, a fulfilling hobby... For me, an "end of history district" like the one I can now survey from my balcony is a thing to be cherished, a ludic and leisurely bubble that might, in some utopian future, encompass the whole world, but probably won't because there are too many assholes who want to spread war and hate and tension and drama and conflict. Or perhaps because there are just too many of us around, and we're sure to run out of resources and clash and battle with each other for what's left. Of course, it would be easy to portray the bubble people in their end of history districts as part of the problem, not the solution. They're breeding too: many of the young on Friedrichshain streets are pushing prams and showing off cute little designer kids alongside their cute little designer dogs. But I prefer to see the bubble places as part of the revolution that began in the 1960s and continues in the boom of what Richard Florida has called the "creative class". It's the acceptable face of consumer capitalism, a place where people buy organic vegetables and think about sustainability and work on trying to be nice and peaceful and playful and creative and liberal and tolerant.
Jean Snow draws my attention to the new edition of Art It magazine, which concentrates on 180 Tokyo bubble people living and creating in Tokyo's end of history districts. (Ozaki Tetsuya, editor of the RealTokyo listings website and Art It's publisher, explains the issue here.) It would be so easy to be grudgeful about the privilege of these 180 "creatives", or of the 180,000 aspiring to be like them. But I think the best attitude is just to exclaim loudly that wonderful Japanese expression for non-malicious envy: ii naaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You're sooooooooo lucky!
A note on Florida: I've used Richard Florida's creative class idea in this entry, but if you read Florida it's all pretty much about how "more and more businesses are recognising the importance of employing members of the creative class to maximise profits". The problem with this is that it's a capitalist argument for something that goes beyond capitalism. The most "creative" city in Florida's index is San Francisco, and we saw in the 1990s how a hook-up between capitalism and creativity there ended up chasing many of the creatives out of the city by making the cost of living less and less affordable. Berlin (and to some extent "slow life" Japan) is in a very different cycle. The "creative classes" here are made possible by under-performing, slowing economies. The appalling state of the local Berlin economy is the reason the rents are so low here, and will remain low for the forseeable future. And the lack of jobs is why the "creative class" here have time to work on projects which are all about the inherent participatory value rather than any prospect of making money.
In Europe and Japan I think there's a post-capitalist creative class emerging, a class of slow life furitas like the leisurely Friedrichshainers who are my new neighbours. By staying somewhat at arm's length from capitalist dabblings, these people keep the vicious circles seen in 1990s San Francisco from happening (artists add value, added value increases rent, high rent expels artists). Partly because the local economy just won't let it happen, these people's bubble districts won't be overheating any time soon. In the comments section of yesterday's entry someone called Juan drew my attention to one European proponent of this emerging tendency, architect Herman Verkerk, whose website you can see here.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 10:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 10:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 11:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 11:24 am (UTC)But having loitered long enough at the bottom of Maslow's ladder, I think it's about time I try for the top. Hong Kong is endearing at times, but it sucks the life out of you - not in a good way either.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 11:52 am (UTC)Now if only I could speak German. How do you feel about communicating in Berlin without German?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 01:04 pm (UTC)I'm just back from the Sunday market at Boxhagener Platz, which is just the most gorgeous pile of funky junk. You know the bit in "Living With Michael Jackson" where Michael goes to a sort of Egyptian emporium in Las Vegas and spends half a million dollars on tat? Well, he could have had the same pleasure at the Boxhagener Platz market and for less than ???20 come home with two wooden East German school chairs for the balcony and a red sweater.
I have no plans to move away from Berlin for the forseeable future. Or, really, to put any serious effort into learning German.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 01:28 pm (UTC)Bits of America seem to be trying the slow life, but you sure as heck can't do that in London. The treadmill spins too fast.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 02:06 pm (UTC)"Florida—creator of the Gay Index, showing that cities most tolerant of homosexuality have the most high-tech industries—has created a "Global Creative-Class Index" to measure creative capital. The US doesn't even rank in the top 10 for the percentage of workers in creative jobs. At number 11, it is now, says Florida, on the verge of losing the competitive edge of creativity.
"The cause? According to Florida, it's largely tighter borders restricting the entry of students and scientists and the subjection of federal research funding to ideological and religious tests. Meanwhile, countries such as Canada, Ireland and Australia are investing in research and development and higher education to attract the most creative minds.
"Florida shows that there have been large drops in foreign-student applications to US universities and visas issued to knowledge workers, along with increased immigration to other countries. Tellingly, in three years, admission of foreign students to US universities has dropped 32% while international student enrollment elsewhere is increasing—it was up 15% in Canada from 2002 to 2003. Since, according to Florida's theory, economic growth follows creativity, all this doesn't bode well for America's future."
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 02:29 pm (UTC)"perhaps the swelling of the creative class is linked to the emergence of a new global elite who transcend locality, geography and community (the “succession of the successful’ as Zygmunt Bauman terms it). Valerie Walkerdine, Helen Lucey and June Melody in their recent book Growing Up Girl (2001) discuss this in relation to gender, and argue that women have been allowed to enter the professions just as they are being devalued and the men that once occupied them are joining the global elite. That is, the creative class swells as its traditional powerbrokers leave. Or, creative work simply has a broader catchment in a late modern economy.
"Florida went on to very briefly outline the concern of his new book The Flight of the Creative Class, that the creative class appears to be a highly mobile population, and creative cities are dependent on migration, tolerance and diversity. It was suggested that the US is losing much of its creative appeal, partly as a result of more stringent entry and visa requirements (the war on terror was never explicitly mentioned), and thus the US is losing the economic potential associated with creativity to countries such as Canada and Australia.
"During question time, Florida warned of the growing divided between rich and poor, and spoke of the need to reach out to others who have not had the opportunity to participate in the creative economy. How this is to be achieved remained unspecified, apart from the vague suggestion of creative community partnership activities. The gesture toward equity, however, reinforced my concern about the masking effect of creativity: in essence the creative economy is still a capitalist one and therefore requires that creativity maintain its value through structures of inequality."
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 04:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 04:43 pm (UTC)Implementation of the Bologna Process and its effects on end of history districts....
Date: 2005-04-17 04:59 pm (UTC)I just want to say that I would be leery of the statistics being thrown out in the article by Mr. Smith. While I agree with the sentiments expressed in his article, the statistics for the US do not mesh with those published elsewhere:
http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=49929
The Institute of International Education puts out a yearly report known as the Open Doors report. This statistical study is limited to student mobility in and out of the US, but it does an excellent job of illuminating the patterns in student enrollment as well as indicating the level of study of students coming to the US as well as their chosen fields of study and place of origen. I greatly prefer this report as it offers a more significant breakdown of information instead of a single percentage rate.
Ultimately, you will find the report supports the ideas you presented about Florida and the "Flight of the Creative Class". Students are coming to America for business and engineering. Fine and applied arts make up only 5.6% of the total fields of enrollment.
I am very curious to see what, if any, impact the implementation of the Bologna Declaration will have on these end of history districts. I am very hopeful that its goals of increasing student mobility within Europe and establishing standard recognition of qualifications will allow for an ease in the movement students and information and, as a result, a greater fluidity of that knowledge specific to the creative class.
My main fear is that I am unsure as to what effect capitalism will have on this process. I was reading an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement a few months back about an undercover study done on admission practices at British Universities. They posed as British students with strong A-level results and foreign students with weaker secondary school leaving results and applied for enrollment. Time and again, the "foreign student" applications were getting accepted while the "British student" applications were being rejected. The reason, the article suggested, was the fact that foreign students could be charged tuition and were thus a more profitable investment.
I fear this may become the ugly underbelly of the Bologna Declaration as it is a means for struggling economies with traditionally prestigious educational systems to earn some capital. You point out that the struggling economy of Berlin allows you to live in an end of history district, which due to its affordability, allows for the time and freedom for significant creative output (By the way, your new neighborhood sounds wonderful and your description immediately made me get the Stop Making Sense version of "Heaven" in my head).
Since the creative class is of student age, will the result of greater transnational access to higher education in Europe simultaneously bring in greater potential for creativity while developing stronger national economies that ultimately drive these creative minds out? i realize that creativity need not be tied to Universitiy, but there is a significant enough crossover that this seems, at least to me, a valid concern.
Have you read the full text of Florida's new work? Does it address this at all? I certainly don't have the answers, and not living in Europe, can only speculate to a rather poor degree.
I feel like I am not articulating this very well, so I apologize if this is a jumble. I'm working on less than four hour's sleep as I was in Chicago late last night to see Andrew Bird.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 05:00 pm (UTC)it's been a pretty regular occurance in the past decade for young women from the east to sterilize themselves, then put that on their job apps. that's because employers don't want to hire women, assuming they will have to pay for their pregnancies, maternity leave, child care, etc. so what do you do if you're a 22 year old gal who hasn't found a job since leaving school? brag that you'll never be a breeder.
there's some scary shit going down behind the wende.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 06:21 pm (UTC)I'm actually contemplating, very seriously, a move to Africa, partly because it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that there really isn't a niche for me on any of the higher rungs in f**king Britain. Not that I expect much of a niche in Africa. I'm sure this is really of interest to no one but myself. ...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 06:26 pm (UTC)I wonder, is it like that in Germany? Are many of the Americans, Canadians, and other English speakers Letches there as well? I cannot help but wonder if this is a common expatriate bane or if it is solely a Taiwanese problem.
If you doubt my, go to Foumosa.com and read some of the posts made by the Taiwan expatriates. Disgusting people. I am the only caucasian in my neighborhood, but I am not the only foreigner. We have a couple Malaysian families and quite a few Japanese families who all seem to be very content to create and contribute as equals and not try so hard to be "better than" as so many of the caucasians and english speakers do.
Rambling. I am often so curious as to what it is like in other expat communities.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 07:31 pm (UTC)Nobody comes to Berlin to letch the women here, I can tell you that! People come here for the combination of affordability, cultural sophistication and political liberalism. I think Westerners in Japan are generally a pretty hideous lot, though. Especially the old lags who've been there forever and have got jaded about the place. They seem to be insufferably racist, though they usually pass it off as "just helping you to see the error of your ways, and dating your women while I'm at it". You just have to look at the comments on Japan Today (http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox) to see how ghastly this tribe is.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 07:34 pm (UTC)My next F-Hain will be Žižkov, Prague. And as far as Berlin is concerned, I see potential in Schöneberg, a bourgeois area on the decline.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 08:37 pm (UTC)"Don't expect Hunt to be any more gracious towards his homeland, at which he takes aim on Escape From Rubbish Island. Says the angry Birmingham native who apparently hasn't mellowed much since he arrived on the scene back in the '80s, "The new album is pretty much a London-eye view of England. I hate the place and always have. I find that London's energy is one of hate and fear. Nobody likes each other. Nobody talks to each other. Everyone's scared of each other... [But] is not frustration the drive of creativity, be it great art, film or music?"
They're playing Seattle in a week or so actually, I might go just because "Escape From Rubbish Island" is such a great album title :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-17 10:13 pm (UTC)Nobody comes to Berlin to letch the women here, I can tell you that!
might there be a reason that noone comes to Berlin to letch women?
Kunstfabrik?
Date: 2005-04-17 10:57 pm (UTC)Going to Berlin soon. Is Kunstfabrik good for visit? (Friend say yes.)
Avi
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-18 12:40 am (UTC)I love how the Western men here date Taiwanese women but then act shocked and disgusted when they find out I am a dating a Taiwanese man.
I am very relieved to find out it isn't as bad in Germany. I always have this horrible mental image of Americans and Canadians running around the globe making everyone want to bomb us.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-18 12:54 am (UTC)Sadly, though, the women here are just as bad in the other direction. They believe all the stereotypes that the icky white guys here feed them and pretty much would sooner become a nun than touch a Taiwanese man. They talk about how oppressive they are and how badly they treat women, but have never dated one and only hang out with caucasions so I am unsure as to how they know.
I am strongly under the impression that if you cannot speak the language of an area, you cannot understand the culture. This goes for men and women.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-18 02:27 am (UTC)Emanuel Almborg, one of the editors comments on why they started it:
"One thing I always relate to is contradictions. In Sakerna sometimes you don't know if you like what you see or if it is just pathetic. What seems to be a perfect state of happiness could also be an expression of too much comfort, a lack of challenge. It all started from a sense of fatigue. We were confused about our work perspectives and our whole life situations; photography, graphic design, girlfriends, parties - everything. We didn't really know in which direction to go, or why we should do anything at all. There was also this perception that everything has already been done. It was a general feeling of disillusionment; a feeling, we realized, that we shared with almost all our friends as well. Why not do something that took that feeling as a starting point? Be creative and talk about something that really mattered to us? Doing the magazine was a way to discuss and comment on a problem without actually solving it."
Re: Kunstfabrik?
Date: 2005-04-18 05:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-18 05:20 am (UTC)Adam
Re: Women
Date: 2005-04-18 07:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-18 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-18 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-18 05:53 pm (UTC)Well, it's the first I've heard of it. It sounds fantastically ugly, like some sort of Brazillian story about policemen hunting children or Indians selling their body parts , or something.
HOT DAMN ADAM!
Date: 2005-04-18 08:13 pm (UTC)Julian is a nice boy but he definatley deserves every picking on I can give him. He once tackled me at an Athica art show in 2001 because he thought I was John Cameron Mitchell with my sweet sweet threads and perfect fashion hawk. Athens rocked but it is the end of the end of history here.
Hey just to let you guys know I sold every piece at the show and will be expecting handjobs and 10 dollar bills from everyone who came.
Kim
Kreuzberg, Manteuffelstraße
Date: 2005-04-18 08:20 pm (UTC)Kim
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-21 01:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-21 10:02 pm (UTC)"I've lived all over the world.
I've left every place."
Not that I have. I've only lived in Britain, Taiwan and Japan so far, but I've certainly left every place. I'm sure this indicates that I'm failing to face up to something... or something.
You know, I'm not as inane in real life as I must appear in the comments sections of these various Internet forums. I think - I hope - people wouldn't recognise me in real life. I mean, in real life, I actually think before I speak.
Re: Kreuzberg, Manteuffelstraße
Date: 2005-04-22 09:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-22 04:37 pm (UTC)It's been my intention to leave the midwest since I was in grammar school.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-09 09:40 am (UTC)Berlin - it's a dying myth. It's a shadow of what it used to be. It's
almost as boring as London. You are wasting your time and money if you
go to Berlin to experience something splendid. The spirit is gone.