Listen to a a JJJ audio story of our last Speed Renting event. All is going well with these cosy little events, helping save renters hours upon hours of traversing across the city, battling gridlock to make inspection & interview times.

Reclaim your Saturdays!

One day this will be seen as the common sense way to find a house/ housemate – by enjoying a bevvy whilst frothing over the opportunities such an event provides. Imagine visiting 5 share households in an hour!

Are you outraged that housing prices increased just 6.4% in the last month alone?!! Find out why by attending the free Prof Michael Hudson events he is providing next week in Melbourne & other cities soon. He was onto the IMF/ World Bank back in 1968, has written about the real reason the Middle East increased oil prices in 1973 and predicted the GFC way before it happened. More young people need to understand this stuff before we get totally ripped off via inter-generational theft.

Listen to the Gentrification special on the Renegade Economists – sure to give any film maker an advantage. Check the show notes to see links to the issues discussed.

Plenty of tips are given via the Renegade Economists podcast on how we can reduce gentrification pressures. We can’t solve it, but we can certainly slow it down and ensure that artists get the cred for the value they provide to the community.

Remember filmmakers, if you have any questions about this important issue, mail us with a cheery hi!

Jade Barnaby

- volunteer extraordinaire

The SMS woke me up early Sunday morning, “…just saw the last 5 alarm funk show at Richards…” Half awake, my initial reaction was sadness over the news that my favourite 12-piece Afro-Funk band had performed its last show and was breaking-up! But reading it again I realized my mis-interpration of the text. The inevitable had finally happened. Richard’s on Richards, one of Vancouver’s few and beloved live music venues, was finally fully given over to Condo developers.

I’ve had my share of fun-filled debaucherous nights hearing great shows at Dick’s. With a capacity of 375, and hosting wicked local acts like 5 Alarm Funk as well as numerous international talents including Franz Ferdinand, Kid Koala and the infamous Black Eye Peas 2004 show Dick’s will be sorely missed and probably never replaced.

The gentrification or rather decimation of communities doesn’t only involve the loss of affordable housing for artists but also the loss of creative spaces . Anyone familiar with Vancouver knows that live music venues seem to be an endangered species as the city continues to pave the way for high-end residential development. The Sugar Refinery, the Starfish Room, the Town Pump, the Marine Club, the Luv-a-Fair, Graceland, the Smilin’ Buddha, the Savoy, the Cave, the Spinning Wheel, and now Richard’s on Richard’s are just a few of the live music venues to shut-down in the last decade within Vancouver.

It was long-known that Dick’s was next on the chopping block. City developers claim a replacement venue will be opening on Seymour Street, however, the plans including four lounges and bars in bathrooms sounds more like a nightclub than a music venue. Sure, I know that Vancouver’s population is expanding and people need a place to live, but the luxury of one bedroom apartments that cost between $325,000 and 700,000 is hardly a reality for… well anyone I know.

Maybe Richard’s was at times dirty and debaucherous, but at least it was an open creative venue for the masses.

Tell your story of gentrification and the economic forces that undermine community via our film competition. Read this

The war on creativity asks young artists to respond to the effects of gentrification in their cities and neighbourhoods. Gentrification is a demographic shift in an urban area which sees affluent middle class people move into an area creating higher demand for housing and leading to an increase in property prices.

This has the adverse effect of pricing out current and long term residents who generally don’t have the capital to adapt to higher rents. Melbourne has seen many of its inner suburbs like North Fitzroy, Collingwood, Carlton and Northcote rise in popularity and price; making it difficult for students and artists to afford housing.

The irony of gentrification is that it cuts out the people who contributed to the rise in popularity of a suburb. It is widely acknowledged that artists, bohemians, or ‘hipsters’  have attributed to the allure of traditionally down market inner urban areas, transforming former slums into sub-cultural paradises of hip cafes, artist run spaces, music venues and retro shops.

Yet instead of getting credit for creating dynamic artistic communities; livelihoods are threatened as artists scramble to find extra cash for higher rents, forcing many to move out.  This is a global phenomenon which affects creative communities everywhere, so if you’re in a place like Hackney (London), Wicker Park (Chicago) or Zizkov (Prague) then we want to hear your stories.

It’s time artists take back what they created. Make a 3 minute film addressing these issues and providing a solution so that in time artists get credit for the community they created instead of getting priced out!!

Read our guidelines for more background and a focus on what the judges are looking for
See wiki for further details and examples on gentrification
Download the e-flyer

18 days to go until our first Speed Rental event!

Got a spare room but can’t find the time to advertise it?
On the verge of psychosis as you scream from one open inspection to the other praying to find a room?

Why don’t both sides meet and chat in Melbourne’s favourite digital arts bar: Horse Bazaar

More details

South Australians need a thievingly large $106,000 salary just to meet mortgage repayments on an average house.

The average monthly home loan repayment – for SA’s median house price of $399,200, with a $320,000 mortgage – has risen 11.5 per cent to $2658 a month.

This in one of the most affordable States in Australia!

To understand why land price has diverged so significantly from the earnings one can realistically make whilst living and paying off such a mortgage, check this article on why miners earning $150,000 in a remote Australian mining town like Port Headland still struggle to pay their rent!

Film makers should find it useful to read the Additional Resources.

Someone called the Broderick Tower Home...

In Detroit’s Grand Circus Park sits, decaying and disused, the David Broderick Tower.

Erected in 1928 and 37 storeys high, the Broderick Tower once stood as the second tallest building in Michigan; since the 80’s it has stood empty and derelict, awaiting venturous folk like Radiospike to capture and share it’s dark, dormant depths and remnants of a once thriving, well-used building.

The pictures are a wonderful documentation of how as a society, we allow for the misuse of our spaces and resources. For the past two decades The Broderick has been home to the occasional squatter rather than made useful as housing or as a commercial building. Now I’m not saying that squatters don’t have the right to use spaces that are left derelict – someone might as well be using the space! Heck, the Baseball Stadium made the most of it by using the derelict site, visible from the stadium, for advertising! But while The Broderick, with the capacity to house over a hundred people, sat empty there were people in Detroit seeking affordable housing, students and young families competing in a low supply housing market.

Motown Construction Inc. bought the building and now The Broderick is being rebirthed into residential and commercial space. Whilst this is great news to have The Broderick restored and the ‘heart of the city’ revived, I somehow feel the space won’t be accessible or inclusive of the whole community.

I also wonder how much profit was made on this building, as it sat empty, silently accruing economic rent whilst housing in the surrounding areas was short in supply but high in demand.

I’m interested to see how in demand the new Broderick will be, seeing how close it’s to the sporting stadium and walking distance from entertainment and work. The prices will be high I’m sure; perhaps taking some photos inside the new Broderick and juxtaposing them next to  Radiospike’s images will show us the two sides of a system gone wrong. How can we ensure that spaces like the Broderick are well used but in a way that the entire community benefits?

I am NOT encouraging you to break into abandoned areas or houses, but it would be interesting to see just how many little Brodericks are lying around in your town in your part of the world, despite the housing affordability ‘crisis’ we keep hearing about.

World leading public art exponents, the Barsky Bros, are well worth a read, look.

The city is a nice place you always think about escaping…

High in a rocky tree-covered area between two busy highways, a minature Swedish summer cottage painted traditional red with white trim suddenly appeared. Of course, it didn’t actually appear, klisterpete and akay carried it up there. They built the red picket fence to surround the tiny grassy area. They hung the clothes line across the yard. They brought the promise of the swedish countryside everyone wants to escape to, right into the middle of the city. They took an unused, unappreciated space and made it a charming and peaceful place of wonder despite the traffic below, the train passing on its tracks behind, buildings stretching out farther behind those…

What if more people made the places they ARE the places they WANT TO BE? It’s not so hard.

You can also see another, perhaps better, perspective of this thought provoking art here on Stating the Obvious. Check the back, right? What do you see??? Mmm, plenty of places to live….if only we had a certain carrot helping rather than hindering us. What carrot may that be?