I was in the middle of doing hours of readings and I came across something incredibly profound in an article about hyper-gentrification in Central Moscow. One of the reasons I especially love getting urban planning knowledge from Russians is because they have such an interesting perspective, don't "get" some things, and at the same time have a brilliant analysis on other things because they arrived late.
"In the context of the capitalist city, disinvestment in
the built environment is essential for the production
of opportunities for capital accumulation in a later
stage of reinvestment."
So, in the context of this argument (which is definitely not anything I've heard in the zeitgeist of the western planning establishment) it is referring to an area that is now one of Moscow's hottest districts but was historically one of the worst parts of Moscow. But I was thinking about how this argument could apply to western cities.
It does certainly seem like there is a lot more "excitement" over new development in OKC, than say Tulsa or other more mature cities of our size. Central OKC has historically (well, ever since the 50s) been taboo for investment and very under-built. Contrast this with Tulsa which has always had lots of investment in its well-built Midtown, and even today, most of Tulsa's "development rundown" consists of projects in formerly blighted areas like Brady.
In OKC this has been a big advantage all over the city it seems. It's hard to refute the argument that cheap real estate is a huge opportunity, but the other implications of the idea are more interesting. Do we avoid investing in areas that are presently deemed adequate? Does something about capitalism encourage people to constantly look for new opportunities at the expense of what you currently have? To aim this more directly, perhaps this could describe why there is so little happening in Bricktown lately.
People are always surprised when a neighborhood becomes gentrified. Looking back 5 years from now, it would be nearly impossible to find a person who wouldn't be surprised if they saw a prediction that NW 9th would become a hotspot, or 6-7 years if you told someone that 16th Street would be booming today. But when you apply this idea, it seems very logical and predictable almost.
Maybe it is possible to apply this idea and make other future wild predictions as well. At any rate, and I say this as someone fairly opposed to putting all of our eggs in one basket named C2S, it does offer an intriguing outlook that bodes well for C2S. It also explains why we are pursuing C2S while so many other areas of downtown aren't yet "finished" and might not ever be. That is if ultimately, when you take a step back, and see highly inadequate investment levels as a positive and adequate investment levels as a negative. Interesting dichotomy..
This is something I would typically post on my blog, but I thought I'd try this type of post with you guys to see what you guys think.
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