Pioneer artists and middle class settlers: Lifestyle variables and neighborhood succession

The theme of the displacement of early pioneers by later settlers in certain American cinema westerns offers an analogy to describe certain aspects of contemporary urban social change. The SoHo district of New York City represents an empirical referent, illustrating how an initial population of low income artists (pioneers) invaded a commercial and industrial area, converting business/manufacturing spaces to residential/work spaces. Their actions modified the area to such an extent that more affluent middle-class households (settlers) could enter and, in some instances, displace the earlier residents. This process illustrates the ecological concepts of invasion, succession, and adaptation, and helps explain the current patterns of neighborhood revitalization and gentrification taking place in a number of older inner cities.Albert Hunter, Herbert M. Hunter, Simon J. Bronner, and Gerald D. Suttles made a number of useful suggestions to this article. Amos H. Hawley clarified a number of theoretical points, and Robert B. Wolf made the paper more readable through his careful editing. Funds were provided, in part, from the Capital College Fund for Research.James R. Hudson holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan and is currently Coordinator of the Behavioral Science Program at the Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg, Middletown, PA 17057. He recently publishedThe Unanticipated City (University of Massachusetts Press, 1987) and continues his interest in the changing social organization of older inner cities.