DC hardcore, gentrification and punk urbanism

Abstract

This article examines the narratives that enabled and legitimized the gentrification of several neighbourhoods of Washington DC during the 1980s. What links each of the neighbourhoods (Georgetown, Mt. Pleasant, Adams Morgan, sections of the U Street/Shaw neighbourhood and parts of Penn Quarter) is that all experienced gentrification after the arrival of punk communities to their spaces in the early 1980s. I argue that DC punk urbanism is tied to a process through which middle- and upper-class suburban youth valorize neighbourhoods marked by urban decay and disinvestment, occupy those spaces without putting themselves into relation with already existing subaltern urbanisms and subsequently replace the neighbourhood fabrics of the residents who formerly lived there with their own.

Conceptualizing Anti-Racist Pedagogies Within Experimental Music's Community of Practice

“…According to Claire, “it falls more into geography than anything else because the city is so completely segregated. So you deal with a lot of issues of commuting and transit based on race and inequity.” The aim of the venue therefore once again expands beyond providing a space to make music as board members consider ways of attending to issues of transit that prevent the distribution of their resources, a consideration that directly aligns with the emphasis on the geospatial nature of racialization that shapes both adult education Bohonos and Duff's (2020) and music scene formation (M. Woods, 2022) found in previous literature.…”

Radical Solidarities in Punk and Queer Refusals of Safety and Inclusion Narratives in Planning

“…Punk presence on site relation to its urban grit could be framed within the gentrification narrative (Woods, 2022). However, renewed public characterisations of punk as deviant, unsafe, and out of step with the desired municipal branding and economic development interests frame punk presence not as part of the revitalization but as part of why revitalization is needed.…”