The Paradox Between Creativity and Tradition in Venice, California.

Venice, a neighborhood in Los Angeles California, is the site of my onging research concerning neighborhood change. When new public identities emerge in Venice, they are often inclusive of the collective memory of the place, yet socially exclusive of many of the residents that helped support and sustain these memories. Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a commercial artery that runs through the center of Venice, serves as a recent case in point. Individuals who arrive to open businesses here adapt their stores to the thematic "anti-commercial" commercialism of the street. Meanwhile storeowners, viewed collectively, modify the overall identity of the street in order to coordinate with the larger structural changes in the neighborhood, such as those relating to population demographics, land values, and other effects of gentrification. This symbiotic process -- between individual and street, between street and neighborhood -- enforces new symbolic boundaries between different segments of the neighborhood population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]