
Why I Believe New York's Art Scene Is Doomed - bdr
http://news.artnet.com/art-world/why-i-believe-new-yorks-art-scene-is-doomed-214970
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lisa_henderson
About this:

"I think we may be coming to the end of a period where being an artist was
synonymous with being urban, unless we are willing to fight for it—but before
I start it, let me say that I have mixed feelings about my own conclusions."

The great art scenes tend to emerge in great urban centers that are going
through an economic crisis. That is why New York's art scene was so hot back
when "white flight" was in the news -- when all the whites moved the suburbs,
and New York almost defaulted on its debt, then New York was a the world
capitol of art. That was an era when New York had low rents.

Artists need 2 things that rarely come together: a concentration of cultural
capital/amenities plus low rent. A growing city with a thriving industrial
base rarely produces a great art scene. It's when the crisis hits, and
therefore rents are low, that the art scene flourishes. Many of the great
"golden ages" of art arose at a time when urban centers were already in
decline. Much of what we think of as the Italian Renaissance happened after
1492, when the trade routes suddenly shifted to the Atlantic, and the Italian
city-states saw their trade erode. Likewise, the Spanish golden age, in art,
occurred after the shipments of gold and silver, from the New World, went into
decline.

For the last 20 years we've seen cities such as Berlin emerge as great art
scenes, and again, they follow the same pattern: the struggle to integrate the
old Communist regions into the rest of Germany has proceeded with painful
slowness, and Berlin offers a great cultural center with low rents (certainly
low compared to New York, though rents in Berlin have been rising quite a
lot).

The emergence of a thriving software scene in New York certainly puts pressure
on the art scene in New York. It's possible that the center of art in the USA
will find a new home. There are many cities in the USA that are still facing
economic crisis and therefore offer low rents. New Orleans, Asheville and many
other regional centers have incipient art scenes and low rents. Maybe one of
them will evolve toward being the arts center in the USA? But of course, we
live in a globalized world, so it is possible that a place like Berlin could
emerge as the favored location for USA artists.

~~~
elliptic
Periclean Athens, Elizabethan London, and Quattroceno Florence all had
astonishing concentrations of artistic vitality; none of those were in
economic decline.

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pjbrunet
\- If there's more data showing that artists help improve a community's
quality of life, I think that's important data to share. The author figures
that's a given (and I agree) but I don't think the general public gets it yet.
If you roll out the red carpet, create spaces for artists, treat artists with
respect, you might attract more artists. (Instead of harassing them, which is
common.) However, what kind of artists will you get? You need a strategy.

\- There's the whole issue of the Internet that the article doesn't really
cover. Not that long ago, New York artists had to wait for the latest styles
to get from Paris to New York by ship. Today, location is not as much an
issue. If your work is remarkable and you can get a good photo uploaded to the
Internet, who cares where you are? New York artists are a dime a dozen. If
you're somewhere exotic, that could work to your advantage. Years ago I read
an article about galleries closing in favor of more intimate, private viewing
spaces where you could make an appointment to see and purchase something you
saw online. (Assuming you need to see it in person before purchasing.) So the
fancy street address is no longer as important to sell art. And Art Basel (and
similar events) make New York less relevant too.

~~~
jacobolus
Why does the author need to care about “a community’s quality of life” as some
kind of abstract ideal, or collect data about it? What “community” are we
talking about? If it’s the community of artists and other weird/interesting
people, then of course having other similar people around improves the
community’s quality of life, since that’s what the community is.

Do artists improve the quality of life of a community of bankers? Who knows,
and who cares?

~~~
pjbrunet
The assumption underlying the whole article: property values rise because a
neighborhood is "cool" and appealing, because artists live there. (And then
artists must leave because they can't afford rent.) There is data showing
that's true, but I don't think there's any general consensus yet. (So more
people can understand what the article is talking about.) Rising property
values, the cool factor, the vibe, beautiful people, whatever you want to call
the thing that attracts people to an artsy area. I called it "quality of life"
but yes an abstract concept, I was deliberately vague because that's hard to
define. I think people do care, which is why they spend good money to move to
these neighborhoods. Also the artists care because they want credit for what
they helped create.

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jrapdx3
On the other side of the continent, my own observations are remarkably
similar. The same pattern has been happening here in Portland (Oregon) for at
least the last 30 years.

Wherever artists congregate, whichever quarter of the region, pretty soon the
affluent declare it a "cool" place to live, real estate prices skyrocket and
artists can't afford it. Obviously this affects most living there, few can
afford to stay.

So yes, I've said it many times. Why is the city so determined to turn itself
into the suburb we city dwellers wanted to avoid?

Though I am an artist, I'm not poor. I have the means to continue living near
the center of town, but I'm beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of
staying here.

~~~
owen_griffiths
Seems to me, if the artists being present was the real source of the "cool",
then pricing them out would cause the "cool" to reduce, and a balance would
form.

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ebiester
This is tangental, but why aren't we building new cities? We keep on adding
population. We have realized that people under 30 don't want to live in the
suburbs. We have realized that poor and rich alike don't really like the
suburban model.

However, the current set of cities are constrained. We can't really build out,
and public transportation has been found to be a must. Cars aren't the
solution in high density living. As such, we need new land.

Import artists. Bring along tech. Have artisans build some great buildings.

It would only take 50 square miles, some coastline, and some water rights. Why
isn't this the time to be bold?

~~~
wdewind
In the history of humanity the "build it and they will come" method of
creating cities has not yielded great results. Take a look at Brasilia, or
China's ghost cities.

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peteorpeter
If you felt eye strain while reading this, you can blame the `letter-spacing:
1px`. Friends, don't let friends bump the letter-spacing of body text!

~~~
Retra
It looks nice if you're not reading it! :P

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Chevalier
As someone who's lived in New York a long time... this argument is ridiculous.

New York IS cheap. If Williamsburg is too expensive, go another subway stop
out to Bushwick. If that's too expensive, go another subway stop out. Take an
extra ten minutes on the subway and enjoy thousands of dollars off your
monthly rent.

NYC is absolutely enormous, and there are parts of Brooklyn and Queens that
have grown CHEAPER over the past few decades. Admittedly, that's because the
criminal elements of NYC have been concentrated there... but cheap is cheap.

NYC is unique among American cities in that our subway infrastructure allows
ENORMOUS expansion of affordable housing in virtually every direction at no
financial expense and almost no sacrifice in time. It's cheap as hell to live
in the South Bronx, for example, and you'll get anywhere in Manhattan
relatively quickly. San Francisco simply doesn't have the same flexibility,
since the transit there is so god-awful by comparison.

Artists don't get to live in the Upper West Side just because "art!" Go live
in edge neighborhoods, of which there are plenty. If you want to complain that
neighborhoods are increasingly less walkable and more dilapidated the further
out you go... lobby to allow developers to build new, dense buildings out
there. The only solution to expensive housing is to build more housing.

~~~
Ollinson
For me Roosevelt Avenue in Queens between Jackson Heights and Junction Blvd on
a 80F day is the real NYC. People of every ethnicity on the street, everyone
in the shade of the elevated 7 train, street vendors selling everything and
thousands of people strolling along.

Rents are cheap here but it is not glamorous and in some areas even borderline
dangerous (around Corona, especially at night). People in Manhattan and trendy
parts of Brooklyn don't realize it but they're paying high rents for safety.
Gentrification brings police protection and in my area of Queens you're not
going to see cops on that dark corner at 1AM like you would in Williamsburg.

There are many neighborhoods in The Bronx and Brooklyn that are still like
this but people don't feel comfortable living there.

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CyberPants
New York culture and especially their art scene come off as what'd I'd expect
to find if I were to open a magazine off the shelf and look through the ads.
IMO stagnate and incestuous [1] [2] [3] ? Maybe I am not aware of the full
breadth of NY's art scene?

It seems like Berlin [4], Los Angeles [5], Hong Kong/China & Japan all have
much livelier melting pots of subcultures that may have been washed away in
NYC due to cookie cutter art schooling or aspects of the local (sub)cultures?

[1] [http://whitney.org/Exhibitions](http://whitney.org/Exhibitions)

[2] [http://www.moma.org/](http://www.moma.org/)

[3] [http://www.warscapes.com/opinion/sentimentality-critique-
hum...](http://www.warscapes.com/opinion/sentimentality-critique-humans-new-
york)

[4] [http://www.transmediale.de/](http://www.transmediale.de/)

[5] [http://machineproject.com/](http://machineproject.com/)

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stegosaurus
The same is happening in London, UK at the moment; though it's something that
cuts further than just art.

The capital and the surrounding regions are now practically unaffordable for
anyone other than well-remunerated professional workers and those who got in
early.

One thing I find odd about the article is the focus on 'being urban', though.

In the US, is it cheaper to live rurally? In the UK that is not true at all in
my experience, country living here is aspirational and generally a sign of
wealth.

What we have is not really an 'inversion' of white flight; rather, the city
_and_ the suburbs are becoming wealthier whilst the poor move away from the
capital to surrounding cities (or try desperately to cling on).

Then again, what constitutes a 'suburb' is radically different here!

~~~
sliverstorm
_In the US, is it cheaper to live rurally?_

Tremendously so, if you are prepared to live that way. Rural houses are
generally very cheap.

You've got to live a bit dirtier, perhaps with an outhouse and a well and some
chickens, and you have to figure out what you are doing for a living. But in
the US, if you are too poor for wherever you are living, I'm pretty sure you
can just move further away from the city.

A huge chunk of the US looks like this:

[http://www.culinaryanthropologist.org/photos/Smtanya0001.JPG](http://www.culinaryanthropologist.org/photos/Smtanya0001.JPG)

[http://nebula.wsimg.com/98a9d952e9d4c36a0af32e562e73701e?Acc...](http://nebula.wsimg.com/98a9d952e9d4c36a0af32e562e73701e?AccessKeyId=AFC82A4D29E428E10392&disposition=0&alloworigin=1)

[http://gallery.usgs.gov/images/12_01_2011/bfv2YmkXXS_12_01_2...](http://gallery.usgs.gov/images/12_01_2011/bfv2YmkXXS_12_01_2011/large/montana_oldhouse_storm.jpg)

I don't know all the zoning rules, but when you are 200 miles from the nearest
sheriff, I don't think people get too picky.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is so wrong in many ways. Some of your costs go down, but your means of
earning money go down also. Also, there is a cost to having poor
infrastructure in health as well as money (septic tanks ain't cheap, burning
your trash out back will give you cancer), forget about public transit, you
have to have a car. Better to be poor in a city, where there could at least be
some services to help out, and at least the infrastructure is there and
relatively cheap. And finding a job is a possibility.

~~~
stegosaurus
While this might be true, for clarification on my original question I'm not
actually that interested in the 'whole picture' analysis of (income -
expenditure).

In the UK rural property is generally more expensive in addition to being
remote. But then, our urban/semi-urban housing doesn't really resemble
suburbia in the same way. Streets with detached homes, large drive, etcetera
are relatively rare - more common would be semi-detached.

(This post has me wanting to visit the US now... all of my knowledge is
gleaned from photos and hanging around American folk online, heh)

I mean; it sounds to me that a few years salary could enable you to live out
in the sticks and 'retire' for a long time, if not indefinitely. That sort of
thing would be impossible in the UK; ex-social housing in a run down town is
probably your best bet.

It might be that I'm framing things wrongly simply because housing (and
property tax) is so expensive here. All other expenses are practically
negligible in comparison. $3-4000 a year could buy you basic food, utilities,
and a computer to hack away on.

~~~
acveilleux
The scale is a bit different, that's for sure. If you really want the full
effect, drive the trans-canada highway from coast to coast, budget a week.
Most canadians would shortcut through the US and save ~10 hours of driving (a
lot of that with one lane per direction through the northern ontario
wilderness.)

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nether
Are there any affordable but safe neighborhoods in Detroit where one can live
carless? I used to live in Ann Arbor but it was anything but affordable (I'm
paying less rent living in the Los Angeles area within walking distance to the
beach).

~~~
tomphoolery
There are many affordable and safe neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

~~~
ebiester
_Carless_ , affordable, and safe?

~~~
hodwik
Absolutely. Philadelphia is very walkable/bikeable, and INSANELY cheap. It's
an awesome town for art.

~~~
nether
How cheap for a 1-bedroom apartment?

~~~
hodwik
Averaging 750, but you can find 600 and less if you know where to look.

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tomlock
The "war" on gentrification has in my experience been one of the most passive
and apathetic wars, and like the article says, its mostly the first wave of
gentrifiers that complain about it. In university, the local anti-
gentrification movement formed food co-ops and local community groups, and
hung out in tiny coffee shops with local art on the walls. I always felt like
their passive, unknowing contribution to attracting further gentrification was
greater than any resistance to it.

~~~
Ollinson
The artsy waterfront areas that are now gentrified were originally large
dilapidated work lofts that were not really intended for residents. Many of
them lacked bathrooms or kitchens. There is a really good new york times
article from the late 1980s that talks about how residents coped with the lack
of such basic amenities (I can't find it now but I used it previously in an
essay).

Rezoning paved the way for true residential housing and with that came the
high prices.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamsburg,_Brooklyn#Gentrifi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamsburg,_Brooklyn#Gentrification_and_2005_rezoning)

~~~
tomlock
I think we might be discussing slightly different aspects of the same thing.
While I think there are certainly actions that the government takes which
promote gentrification, I feel like the resistance to it can create
communities which actually make the area more appealing to the next wave of
gentrification!

For example, a squat populated by artists might actually provide more
affordable housing for artists while simultaneously making the area more
"bohemian" and appealing to the young professionals that like that kind of
thing.

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Ollinson
This will come off as glib but screw it: New York City is art.

20 minutes riding the subway from point A to point B will give you a better
glimpse of what it means to be alive than any curated show or painting.
Everybody but the ultra-rich ride together in the same cars everyday. In most
other cities people are insulated in their car/work bubble and only the
disabled and poor take public transportation. This mingling is what makes
living in NYC significant to me.

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areed
I find the modesty in the title of this article refreshing. Most editors would
have yanked "I Believe" to garner more clicks.

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hodwik
New York hasn't been a legitimate art scene for ages.

To the down-voters, I'd love to hear you name a significant art movement to
specifically come out of NYC in the last 30 years.

