"Creative Destruction"

In another class I’m taking, we have been discussing the idea of "creative destruction", which was put forth by Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore in the introduction to a volume they edited, titled Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe. In the book’s introduction, "Cities and the Geographies of Actually Existing Neoliberalism”, Brenner and Theodore discuss the economic and political policies of the 90s, which essentially dismantled the Keynesian structures of government that had been in place since the Depression. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the results: corporate taxes were cut, public welfare and aid programs were curtailed, capital was withdrawn from “blighted areas”, and spaces opened up that allowed private interests and groups to fill the gaps the government had vacated. What Brenner and Theodore mean by “creative destruction” is the process by which existing structures or institutions are selectively favored and upheld or, alternately, destroyed. In the latter case, there is still room for a creative impulse, but resources may be diverted away from one space in favor of another. Of course, this brief overview doesn’t fully explain the extent of the changes wrought in this period, but it is worth considering the links between the last process I noted, in which spaces were either invested in or dis-invested from, in relation to our project.

What happened on 63rd street, as outlined by Will in his presentation, is a particularly potent example of the concept of “creative destruction”. The choice to take down the El involved a calculated decision; judgment was passed on the area. It drew attention but, ultimately, it was deemed not worthy of money or interest. Yet there was also a creative process that accompanied this destruction. The energy and resources that might have been invested in the area took a different trajectory and were invested elsewhere in the city. Many of Chicago’s current divisions seem to stem from this differentiated application of value across urban space.

Of course, what we’re now seeing in Woodlawn is yet another form of “creative destruction”. Depending on your viewpoint, I suppose you could see the new investment, building, and other activity as either creative or destructive. I would suggest that the neighborhood simultaneously belongs to several different real and imagined realms, straddling them all at once. It is an imagined, barren nothingness, yet its empty lots embody a real sense of vacancy. It is an area with an almost mythical past of commercial activity and intense social agitation, but it is also a grouping of actual spaces of habitation, work, worship, and community. It seems apparent that our project will be addressing these issues of the imagined versus the real Woodlawn, but it is also worth considering how these notions are produced, why we have them, and how spatial bias and appropriation operates, both in the past and the present.

If you read all the way through this…well, I didn’t expect you to, but thank you. If you have comments, etc., please let everyone know.