The signs of gentrification often take familiar forms, and while places like coffee shops, yoga studios, and line-inducing brunch spots take most of the flack, a recent story at Racked says that boutique vintage stores are just as indicative of a change in neighborhood demographics.
Citing a range of studies and a host of first-hand accounts, the story doesn’t blame vintage outlets for the actual gentrification, but does posit that a gentrifying neighborhood is essentially a room-temperature petri dish when it comes to their proliferation.
“All over LA’s Eastside, which has seen several areas gentrify this century, vintage stores have sprung up, with more than a half dozen in hip neighborhoods like Highland Park and Echo Park,” the story says, while also noting that the phenomenon is not “unique to Los Angeles or even to the United States.”
The commonality between most of these neighborhoods, King’s College professor Phillip Hubbard told Racked, is, to put it plainly, the presence of oft-mocked hipsters. “Hubbard says that because hipsterism is a global trend, so are clusters of vintage shops in gentrified areas. He’s seen the shops in parts of London, Stockholm, Berlin, and Sydney.”
And while hipsterism, boutique vintage stores, and gentrification all go hand-in-hand, the story notes that the first two are not immune to the latter. “The paradox is that even [vintage stores] sometimes fall victim to gentrification themselves.”
To be clear, no one is arguing that small business owners shouldn’t maximize profit by seeking out affordable rents or that they’re inherently toxic to a neighborhood. In fact, the story does say that “there is some evidence that they [fulfill] a range of useful functions,” beyond just making suede fringe as available as coffee.
But these stores certainly don’t offer the same community-building that places like Goodwill or Out of the Closet do, nor do they offer the same price accessibility, making them yet another business that few original residents of the neighborhood can afford to patronize.
You can read more about it at Racked.
