
The Last Artists of SoHo and TriBeCa - keiferski
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/t-magazine/soho-artists-john-newman-laurie-anderson.html
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L_Rahman
I'm as far from NIMBYism as is possible for a person to be [1] but the urban
neighborhood growth curves seem to inexorably point to either of:

1\. open air mall with prestige housing and office space (SoHo) 2\. steel and
glass mall with prestige housing and office space (LIC, Hudson Yards)

I know it's possible for there to be growth that is for people and not
plutocrats. I live in the East Village and I love the density we have here but
any attempts to upzone other neighborhoods to equivalent density seems to
result in this kind of soulless mediocrity.

[1]: I support Tokyo style zoning, abolishing street parking and private
vehicle traffic in urban cores, and would gladly have someone start building a
twenty story apartment building next to where I live. If a majority of the
units get allocated to poor families at risk of losing housing, even better :)

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matchbok
> If a majority of the units get allocated to poor families at risk of losing
> housing

Those programs, by and large, do not work at all. The biggest bargaining chip
a poor family has is the threat to move to cheaper apartment (if the supply is
there). Forcing them into sub-standard subsidized apartments is a band-aid
where they are afraid to make more money.

~~~
adamsea
Source?

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FartyMcFarter
Who cares about where artists (in particular) live? Are they somehow more
entitled to particular areas compared to people in other occupations?

In fact, if we're talking about the kind of artist who works from home and
does not need to commute, one would think that it's less important where they
live (compared to people who actually need to get to their workplace every
day).

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danharaj
Do you think artists just work from home, comrade McFarter?

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FartyMcFarter
No, but I thought they're more likely to do so in general compared to people
in other jobs. I could be wrong though.

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mathewsanders
This article is such a mess. It’s talking about 1950’s 80’s and early 2000’s
(with reference to “but 15 years on”) so is basically generalizing half a
century in a few paragraphs.

Across all these periods of time large parts of Manhattan had relatively cheap
property. Soho/Tribeca were probably favorite spaces for studios compared to
other parts of Manhattan because they included non-residential buildings with
huge open spaces with higher chance of natural light.

15 years ago the greatest density of NYC’s new artists were probably found in
Williamsburg for some similar reasons, today they’ve been priced out and are
probably more likely to be found in Bushwick. In 2035 they’ll probably be
centered in some other neighbourhood.

What the author fails to mention is the enormous number of artists that died
during the AIDS epidemic.

I know this is just fluff to provide something in between advertising of the
NYT magazine, but this is exactly why I’ve cancelled my subscription. GAH!

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malvosenior
It seems normal to me that over the course of 40 years that neighborhoods that
became some of the most desirable in the world would be too expensive for
artists to live in.

Not quite sure what the point of this article is.

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readhn
It seems like this is a common theme in every city these days - people are
forced out of their neighborhoods by high RE prices and as a result high cost
of living.

Perhaps one way to address this could be to modify outdated landlord laws -
make it so it is prohibitively expensive to be a landlord in a major city or
to be a landlord period. There is no need for landlords these days, its an
outdated concept that must die off, just like landlords from centuries ago.

Also, perhaps introduce rules prohibiting city transformation into one big
"shopping mall".

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closeparen
So the only way to get housing should be to come up with a down payment,
qualify for a mortgage, and accept all the risk and transaction costs of
owning? This will _increase_ affordability?!?

What should kids fresh out of college do?

