The idea that cities must be “clean” in order to be attractive and progressive is clearly coded. What makes a city “clean”? What makes a city “dirty”? And who decides what that looks like?
Los Angeles has always been a city full of vast cultural traditions, many intersecting unintentionally, many forming over generations. Gentrification unties the bonds made between cultures and people in Los Angeles through forcible displacement, Nitro-coffee shops and art galleries with cold stone floors are the markers of this cultural hollowing. Prime real estate sites are accurately referred to as “vanilla boxes” – blank, soulless canvases that wipe away the traces of previous residents and replace them with something newer, whiter, and worth more money.
Gentrification wears many faces but it always brings with it a promise to cleanse. This process is accelerated by mega-events like the Olympics, which allow politicians and business interests to suspend regular customs to remake the city in a specific image, one that is “clean” and therefore appealing to global investors and corporate sponsors. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) demands a “clean city” for the Games and most hosts keep that promise by incarcerating residents who are disabled or unhoused; by violently displacing poor people of color; and by ruthlessly cracking down on political dissent.
Regardless of these threats, we refuse to be a “clean city.” We will continue subverting the Olympics and their promises to accelerate gentrification, displacement, and police militarization. We will make a mark on Los Angeles, one that will be messy and visible and impossible to ignore.