Public Art, Gentrification, and the Preservation of Black and Brown Urban Identity: The Case of Little Haiti, Miami – an Interview with Muralist Serge Toussaint

The arts have been a primary motor for reviving urban spaces throughout the Miami area and, on the flip side, the knock-on gentrification. Little Haiti has become the ‘creative alternative’ (Beth Dunlop, ‘Grappling with Gentrification in Miami’s Little Haiti’, Metropolis, 5 Apr 2016), where property ownership is ‘increasingly deemed the only way for art workers to break a vicious cycle of art-powered gentrification’ (Brett Sokol, ‘Miami’s Art World Sets Sights on Little Haiti Neighborhood’, New York Times, 23 Nov 2015). Resulting hyper-gentrification increases rents and thereby pressure on affordable housing, which has led to the forced relocation of the longer-time, low-income and overly Black and Brown residents. The trajectory of gentrification is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Little Haiti not only faces the consequences of arts gentrification but also of a so-called climate gentrification. Toussaint’s muralism visualises the Little Haitian fabric of the last three decades. The interview has revealed some key tensions: Toussaint’s artwork is respected; the popularity of his area-designated public art may have produced a clear visual identity marker. This artscape may have, nevertheless, canonised Little Haiti, potentially contributing to the stabilisation of Miami’s imaginary as a ‘creative city’.