Abstract
By analysing the case of the Reuter Quarter in the inner-city Neukölln borough of Berlin, this paper addresses how urban artistic and cultural uses, e.g., retail stores and new types of services, could be a cause for the process of gentrification. The Reuter Quarter has been identified as an area in decline by the municipality, home to a high percentage of immigrants. However, since the mid-2000s, promoted by the publically financed Quartiersmanagement (neighbourhood management) and the Zwischennutzungsagentur (Temporary Use Agency), artists and eventually other creatives started to settle here, creating a positive image for the area and turning the district into a ‘cool place’ or a ‘place to be’. The area’s new attractiveness has led to the upgrading of buildings and the boosting of rent prices in and around the area. In the early stages, it resembled a positive revitalisation, but later the area became a ‘scene district’, well valued in the housing market, and facing rapid urban transformations: gentrification and touristification as a destination for nightlife tourists. This paper examines the significant role of artists within the gentrification process, especially in attracting new retail capital, new types of services, cafés, bars and restaurants, all of which stimulate touristification.
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Notes
- 1.
These geographical settings should be defined as tentative settlements in order to analyse the perspective through regional research. Urban transformation, however, has no geographical limits. Therefore, field surveys and observation in other boroughs as well as in RQ are need for a good grasp of the urban dynamics.
- 2.
I defined the state of the renovation of each building in the RQ through my own observations of the outer appearance. Observations were conducted repeatedly over a long period of time (two years) to record recent changes. In unclear cases, I compared my own observations to photographs from 2008 available from Google street view.
- 3.
Because of its proximity to and the cultural vibrancy of Kreuzberg, the northern part of Neukölln is sometimes referred to as ‘Kreuzkölln’. This common moniker is used not only in the media but also by real estate companies for advertising their apartments in an area with a ‘trendy image’.
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Ikeda, M. (2017). Artists as Initiators of Urban Transformation: Are Gentrification and Touristification Inevitable? A Case Study of the Reuter Quarter in Neukölln, Berlin. In: Murzyn-Kupisz, M., Działek, J. (eds) The Impact of Artists on Contemporary Urban Development in Europe. GeoJournal Library, vol 123. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53217-2_3
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