The UK Has a Great Idea for Venues and Developments Coexisting

Live long enough in a city and you’ll probably notice it: live music venues help raise the profile of a neighborhood, drawing more and more residents there. Eventually, new developments go up there — and brings in an influx of new neighbors whose noise complaints about the venue force it to shutter. Jeremiah Moss wrote about this in his book Vanishing New York, and it’s a phenomenon that’s occurred all over the world.

In New York City, that’s affected venues large and small. As someone who spends a lot of time watching live music, I’m sympathetic to the artists and venues that did everything right and still wound up on the wrong side of an official complaint. Is there a better way to do things — a way that music venues can continue to do what they do best (and make enough money to stay in business) without their neighbors being overwhelmed?

As Christian Eede reports at The Quietus, there’s an effort underway in the U.K. to find that elusive balance. A proposed law would require that developers constructing resisdential buildings near venues in England take steps to soundproof them.

The law is part of a larger initiative from the U.K.’s Labour Party to stimulate the creation of venues, bars and restaurants. The government has framed this as part of a larger effort to streamline certain processes. “This Government has a plan to replace shuttered up shops with vibrant places to socialise turning them into thriving cafés or busy bars, which supports local jobs and gives people a place to get together and catch up over a beer or a coffee,” said Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in a statement.

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The Quietus’s reporting also highlighted the work being done by the nonprofit Music Venues Trust in the U.K. to raise awareness of the threats faced by venues across the country. The group has been working for similar goals for many years now, and one hopes that this latest initiative is successful — and that it can be replicated elsewhere.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…