Art festivals are a feature of many urban districts undergoing gentrification; they help to catalyze change by drawing a set of consumers with particular cultural interests. This article examines whether the arts produce racial exclusions by examining long‐term Black and White residents’ participation in and perceptions of the monthly Last Thursday Art Walks in Portland's gentrifying Alberta Arts District. We use surveys to measure arts participation and follow‐up, in‐depth interviews to understand whether long‐time residents feel excluded by the arts, and if race is a factor. We find that Black residents participate less in Last Thursdays than White residents, and they often feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. We conclude that the arts‐anchored symbolic economy results in racial exclusions that have little to do with differences in arts appreciation, but much to do with perceptions of people associated with the arts, and with residents’ abilities to use the arts to identify with neighborhood changes.

Many U.S. local governments that promote economic development give business subsidies, creating high levels of risk and uncertainty. Their main concern is that firms receiving subsidies may not benefit the city as much as the cost of the subsidies. To overcome this risk and uncertainty, many local governments now use subsidy controls, such as performance agreements, clawback clauses, and evaluation policies. Using survey data from more than 1,600 local governments, the author found that the majority use both business subsidies and subsidy controls. A positive association exists between these two activities: Local governments that give more in subsidies tend to employ more subsidy controls. This suggests that there is not a trade-off but rather a complementary relationship between promoting development aggressively by giving subsidies and regulating businesses to ensure that city residents benefit from subsidies.

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New supermarkets in previous "food deserts" can benefit residents by improving their access to healthful, affordable food. But in gentrifying neighborhoods characterized by the inflow of middle-class, white residents and the outflow of working class, minorities, who benefits from a new supermarket that emphasizes organic food and environmental sustainability? This paper contributes to the food access literature by examining the food shopping behavior of diverse residents by using survey data and probability sampling in the Alberta neighborhood in Portland, Oregon (USA). Regression results show that college-educated (62%) and white residents (60%) are much more likely to shop there weekly, regardless of age, gender, owner-renter status, distance from supermarket, or length of time living in the neighborhood. These findings indicate that supermarkets that promote healthy living and environmental sustainability need to be sensitive to the racial "symbolic boundaries" and socioeconomic barriers that may create "food mirages" by limiting food access to poor and minority residents.

Alberta Street is emblematic of Portland’s image as a city that embraces the “creative class,” ranking high in being “bohemian” and embracing “diversity.” It is a street that has had a decline in Black businesses and an increase in White ones, both mainstream and bohemian. Through interviews with longtime Black and White residents, we find that race is salient for understanding their use and opinion of the new retail sector. Many Blacks have negative feelings, and they use racial language to articulate why they dislike the products offered and how they feel culturally excluded. Longtime, mainstream White residents, in contrast, fully embrace the new retail. These findings should give pause to cities that promote economic development by making themselves attractive to the “creative class”: They may be refashioning their cities and neighborhoods—including their retail—in a way that is hostile to some forms of diversity, including longtime Black residents in gentrifying neighborhoods.