Book review: The creative underclass: youth, race and the gentrifying city by Tyler Denmead

In The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race and the Gentrifying City, Tyler Denmead reflects on his role in founding New Urban Arts, an arts and humanities programme primarily for young people of colour in Providence, Rhode Island, using this as a means to critically examine how well-meaning arts organisations can replicate systems of race- and class-based inequalities in the face of gentrification. By highlighting the lived experiences and creative strategies of young people living through the challenges of gentrification, the book offers a means to begin envisioning a future city that enables the creativity of all, rather than ‘creativity’ as a luxury consumer product, writes Kevin Ritter. The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race and the Gentrifying City. Tyler Denmead. Duke University Press. 2019