Abstract
A while ago myself and some friends were exploring the Amsterdam nightlife. In a cosy bar, where everyone was drinking and talking, one of us started dancing in a very enthusiastic and excited way. At first, the rest of the crowd treated my friend rather suspiciously, yet after a while some people joined him dancing. The party was soon in full swing and it became a long and unforgettable night. A similar anecdote is the subject of the introduction to the book Gentrification of Nightlife and the Right to the City, although one differing on a crucial aspect: when a group of friends starts dancing, a bouncer urges them to stop, pointing at a ‘No Dancing’ sign hanging on the wall. Protesting to no avail, the group ends the evening outside, no party going on. The story takes place in New York City, where dancing is only allowed in venues holding a cabaret license. Laam Hae, the author of the book, shows how the regulation of social dancing, and nightlife in general, leads to disciplining urban space. Not surprisingly, the cabaret license can only be obtained in certain zones, and the ‘Multi-Agency Response to Community Hotspots’ a.k.a. Dance Police can fine or padlock all venues allowing social dancing without the necessary permit (pp. 1 and 140.)
Although it seems tempting to label the disciplining of dancing as a new Footloose case, these laws indicate a transformation of the economic and social geography of the city. According to Richard Florida’s (2002) theory, cities have developed strategies to draw in the creative class in order to increase tax revenues and attract private capital into the cities. The story of gentrification has been well researched and documented. Hae shows the utmost importance that the arrival of new nightlife venues holds for those neighbourhoods in decline. Often the development is actively promoted by the city officials in an attempt to make the neighbourhood more vivid, vibrant and dynamic. Yet, when the gentrification process continues, these same nightlife venues become the number-one enemy of the gentrifiers, as they also bring noise, drunk people, crowding, vandalism, etc. (p. 5) which do not fit the newly created residential character of the neighbourhood. Ironically yet not surprisingly, the cry for the regulation of nightlife sounds loudest in these formerly derelict neighbourhoods, where the subcultural richness or downtown coolness (p. 4) was once actively promoted.
The Cabaret License is therefore one disciplinary tool of the city to regulate the zoning of nightlife. In doing so, not only is nightlife and urban space in general being shaped, but also strictly regulated and disciplined. Consciously or not, as a side effect, nightlife itself becomes gentrified with alternative and underground subcultures becoming marginalised and excluded, while profit-driven, upscale and trendy forms of nightlife prevail (p. 6).
The structure of the book reflects the story in so far as the chronological order is combined with the different social dimensions involved. A literature review of existing theories on changing urban conditions is followed by a deconstruction of the racist origin of the Cabaret Law (which was developed against live jazz music) in Chapter 2. The roots of disco in the 1970s as a counter-reaction of mainly Afro-Americans and gays are elaborated on in Chapter 3. From Chapter 4 onwards, gentrification plays a central role, starting with the ambiguous position of nightlife in the gentrification process. The chapter is thus accurately titled ‘Gentrification with and against nightlife’, to show how nightlife is first used and promoted to enforce gentrification, leading to the disciplining of those same venues later on. In Chapter 5, we learn that from the 1980s onwards not only has live jazz music been targeted but social dancing as a whole was under scrutiny, leading to a zoning out of different kinds of dancing venues. The anti-nightlife discourse used for disciplining nightlife in the 1990s is the focus of Chapter 6. The process continues into the beginning of the 21st century and Chapter 7, before voices for change are heard. Pro-nightlife discourses of two different organisations show the difficulties of finding a legal framework to challenge the hegemonic anti-nightlife mindset. Therefore, the author introduces the concept of ‘Right to the City’ as an organising principle that can help theorise and politicise social dancing – it becomes a right, because as a form of ‘expression’ it deserves constitutional protection.
Laam Hae used an impressive amount of sources and methods to tell the story. Her ethnographic research is based on policy documents, transcripts of public hearings, historical zoning maps and reports, local newspaper reports, internet list-serves. Also involved are interviews with officials and civil servants, members of activist groups or pro-nightlife organisations or club owners. Further, a participant observation of public hearings forms the body of the story. This all contributed to the almost unbelievably detailed overview of the history of New York City’s nightlife. Although one might be overwhelmed by this amount of detail, it is most probably the case that the deconstruction of the racist origin of live jazz music, the racialisation and feminisation of poverty or the zoning out of social dancing will leave the reader with a mixture of feelings. Outrage and rush of energy to start dancing with the drive to change the world will intermingle. To change city policies.
Yet, the strongest point of this book is not the detailed historical overview. Rather it will be the comparison with fundamental rights, especially the right to the city (last two chapters), which makes this book invaluable. Hae argues that the disciplining of nightlife undermines the normative ideals of the urban life, such as ‘democratic access to multiple urban spaces (including spaces of play and for use value), democratic participation by diverse individuals and groups in the production of urban space and enjoyment of a diverse social/cultural life and the kinds of socialization that are unique to cities’ (Young, 1990: 6). Nevertheless, nightlife and social dancing are too often perceived as basic, mundane activities rather than as an ‘expression’ or as ‘speech’, and are therefore not captured as a constitutionally protected right. Hence, the theoretical framework of ‘Right to the City’ could provide ‘a useful platform of popular challenges to uneven development and decline of democracy that have emerged under neoliberalization, post-industrialization and gentrification processes’ (p. 40). Indeed, the licensing and zoning out of social dancing is related to the broader militarisation of urban space, therefore exceeding the mere nightlife context. Social dancing not only enables alternative forms of socialisation and identity formation (p. 185), but the sovereignty of the human body is also at stake.
The book is innovative in a number of ways. First, it describes and explains in detail a complex phenomenon on a meso-scale (the scale of the city), yet always referring to the macro-scale and framing the story in a larger institutionalised context. Second, urban spatial research has often neglected the importance of the night and nightlife (Steger and Brunt, 2003), as if they were two mutually exclusive fields. Hae shows how important it is to combine these two traditions of research and how intertwined they are. She thus indirectly reveals the importance of temporalities in (urban) spatial research, absent from spatial studies up to now (Halberstam, 2005).
One not very convincing argument Hae puts forward is that of the transferability of her results and conclusions to other Western spaces. The specificity of the city might have been underestimated, which nowadays seems an issue in academic discourses and is too often forgotten. Nonetheless, the book is thought-provoking in such a way that it seems only a matter of time before other researchers will take up the responsibility to enlarge the geographical scope of the research.