Cultural and Social Mecca: Entrepreneurial Action and Venue Agglomeration in Detroit's Paradise Valley and Black Bottom Neighborhoods

Abstract

Detroit's Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were African-American neighborhoods that housed a vibrant and active popular music scene between World War I and the 1960s. They were home to a dense network of music venues, many of which were owned or managed by African-Americans. Urban renewal projects during the late-1950s destroyed much of the heart of these places. Unfortunately, discussion of this activity is largely missing from the academic literature on placemaking, cultural entrepreneurship, and music scenes in Detroit. To address this gap, I propose a solution that marries discussion of these neighborhoods with a method to measure and compare entrepreneurial activity in a music scene using venue density as a construct.This article examines the nature of entrepreneurial action in the collection of music venues that supported jazz musicians in Detroit's Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods during the period of strong African-American business ownership between World War I and the 1960s. Aspects of entrepreneurial agglomeration and placemaking as they relate to musicianship are discussed. This discussion leads toward a methodology of measuring the vibrancy of a scene. Specific attention is paid to the creation of musical venues in the Paradise Valley and Black Bottom neighborhoods in Detroit before destructive urban-renewal projects took place in the early 1960s. These two neighborhoods are viewed using the lens of a modern-day music scene, oft described as vibrant and active. The relative density of music venues as a proxy for their activity is used as a method to compare the historical vibrancy of Paradise Valley and Black Bottom with a well-known contemporary American popular music scene in Austin, Texas.

Black Bottom Street View: Mobilizing a City Archive

“…Detroit's vibrant arts and music culture finds its origins in Black Bottom; influential artists and musicians from Black Bottom have transformed American music. 5…”