Contemporary scholars have focused on creative placemaking and the role of the arts in urban development, but there is less of an academic understanding of how artists contribute to neighborhood revitalization “on the ground.” In New York’s SoHo (South of Houston) neighborhood, artists created new methods of urban development in the 1960s by using their labor and design expertise to invent a new form of housing, the loft apartment, in former industrial space. They worked to legalize this novel form of residence through grassroots advocacy, lobbying, and collaborations with leading artists and politicians in New York. Their political advocacy, and the attractive loft homes they created, increased residential demand. By the 1970s, real estate speculation was rampant in SoHo, leading some artists to work with policymakers to rein in development and others to become investors themselves. SoHo’s history challenges the artist/developer binary usually associated with gentrification.
