Richard Lloyd’s book, Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Post-Industrial City looks at the development of the indie music scene in Chicago’s Wicker Park Neighborhood in the early 90s. The book investigates how bohemians have gone from outsiders on the fringe of bourgeoisie society in the modernist metropolis, to the center in the redevelopment of the post-industrial city in their modern incarnation (hence “Neo” in Neo-Bohemia).
While we have seen the role of artist or bohemian in serving as a primer for gentrification of neighborhoods in the past (in parts of the city Neil Smith calls the “Frontier”), Lloyd expands this analysis by showing how artists or bohemians factor as central figures in the “service” sector, “flexible” or “gig” economy. Shown in this light, Lloyd describes how the bohemian serves not only “as useful labor” but as a primary resource in a seemingly new class of what he calls the “Cultural Proletariat”, in a city and economy centered on cultural production and consumption.
“Making the Scene,” from Richard Lloyd’s “Neo Bohemia focuses on the neo-bohemians in the service industry. The thesis of this piece can be summarized in the line “… aesthetic self-work on the part of young service workers “makes the scene” in Wicker Park and may be highly valued by discerning consumers. Entrepreneurs strategize to take advantage of these attributes, going out of their way to hire individuals whose exotic and funky personae elevate them to hire the status of attractions, or “bar star” (3).
Many young artists in urban settings are employed at places that required less cognitive skill and more physical labor. Bars seem to be the most common place of employment. These neo-bohemians take service-level jobs because they support their real passions and allow them creative freedoms at work. A large portion of their income comes from tips. The strategy to obtain the tips is compared to playing a game because the harder the employee works to obtain tips, the more benefits the employer reaps.
Lloyd also touches upon the cyclical pattern of working in the service industry. The artists behind the bars get caught up in the night-lifestyle and tend to go hang out at bars themselves. The artists’ pay-checks go to another artist working at a different bar. Lloyd describes this as, “… no money is made, just changing hands” (17). The profits circulate between different bars, maintaining a constant flow of income. The neo-bohemians’ participation helps keep the service industries, particularly the bar-scene, alive.
Richard Lloyd’s “Neo-Bohemia: Art and Neighborhood Redevelopment in Chicago” discusses various topics in regards to how Neo-Bohemia has shaped new ways of innovation in the “post-Fordist city” of Chicago. Post-Fordism capitalizes on life after the industrial revolution and booming industrial cities. New-Bohemia introduced people back into cities by showing them how it wasn’t just for factory work and manufacturing. It changed the industrial structure of the city and focused on other significant aspects such as education and culture.
Culture transformed into a commodity, as shown through the “Disneyfication”, “theme park urbanism” and “aesthetic production” of neighborhoods in the city, such as Wicker Park. This emphasis on culture was made in hopes of bringing citizens out of the suburbs and into the city. As stated by Lloyd in the text: “Cities concentrate diversity, and create unique opportunities for cultural production. Neo-bohemia illustrates the importance of neighborhood culture to urban renewal, especially when compared to the perceived cultural homogeneity of the suburban eu-topia (no-place), to borrow Davis’s (1990) term describing LA’s suburban extensions” (p.523, 2002).
The trends discussed by Richard Lloyd in his work “Neo-Bohemia: Art and Neighborhood Redevelopment in Chicago” highlights a lot of what Richard Florida describes as the impact of the creative class. It is true that neo-bohemia is a “spatial phenomenon” however, I would argue that the cultural phenomenon is just as important (Lloyd 2). This creative class moving into cities is what David Brooks had shown as a cultural shift in the 1960’s-70’s in which he called “bobos” (a class of the blend of bourgeois and bohemia). This group of young adults embraced both a meritocratic and a rebellious means of living. With that said, when Lloyd argues that trends of a “displacement of older manufacturing” and “the importance of educated, culturally competent worker” are occurring in urban economics, it is precisely due to the cultural shift this creative class of “bobos” brought with them in their occupation of cities everywhere (Lloyd 2).