

The Rust Belt Theory of Low-Cost High Culture - wallflower
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/01/cheap_high_culture_in_baltimore_buffalo_detroit_and_other_midsize_cities.html

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danjayh
He missed the big picture in my opinion: in these cities, _everything_ is
cheaper. You can get a new-ish, nice 3000sqft house for 200-300k in a good to
excellent school district in my area (Grand Rapids, MI) ... for those of you
on the west coast, take a look at the houses on grar.com to get an idea of
what housing money gets you in the midwest. Gas? $1.75/gal right now, way less
than some of the larger cities, especially on the west coast (even when gas
prices were high, they were less high here). Food, movies, broadway shows,
symphony, land, taxes, all of life's expenses are less. I used to live in a
trendy 1200sqft condo in the city center (it had all the perks - rooftop deck
with pool and hot tub, indoor parking, community room with pool tables,
walking distance to bars/restaurants, etc.) for $1200/month. Now I live an 18
minute drive from work (13 minutes from downtown) on 11 acres, and I paid <
$200k for my place (although it's only 1500sqft).

If you have to take a pay cut for a software job from $150k in Silicon Valley
to 75-100k here, you still come out with a much higher standard of living and
more left over to save for retirement. What baffles me is that more tech
companies haven't set up shop in these areas. Around here we have Michigan
State University, Grand Valley State University, Calvin College, U of M, and
many other schools with solid engineering programs cranking out a steady
supply of good to excellent engineers. I think that other rust belt cities
have similarly good schools.

Everything you need to live is on sale from the perspective of an individual,
and talent is on sale from the perspective of an employer. In Detroit there is
much engineering talent available due to the presence of the automotive
industry, and once again, everything in certain areas on the east side of the
state is _incredibly_ cheap. I guess the real question is what has failed for
these cities - has leadership failed to attract industry, has the community
failed to advertise the wonderful things happening in them (Grand Rapids, at
least, is a good place to live), or are people just unwilling to put up with
the winters?

~~~
mahranch
> or are people just unwilling to put up with the winters?

This is slightly related; It may not be tomorrow, next week, or next decade,
but eventually, there will come a time when climate change makes living in the
west and/or southwest prohibitively (or increasingly) expensive. I'm not
talking full abandonment often espoused by preppers, far from it. People will
continue to live in the west, it's not going to disappear. However, it will
become cheaper _by orders of magnitude_ to live and do business elsewhere in
the country.

The biggest reason for this is that fresh water will be at a high premium.
They're already experiencing drought issues in the west and southwest due to
climate change, and I suspect places like Las Vegas will be the first to turn
into a ghost town.

Many people mistakenly believe that we can pump water around the country where
its needed. While we have the technology, infrastructure and motivation to do
it, we don't have the legal authority. You see, a few years ago, the Great
Lake states and 2 Canadian Provinces signed the great lakes water compact.
It's a (federally) legally binding contract which forbids exporting the water
from the great lakes out of their respective states. In short, if you want
cheap water, you're going to need to move back to the midwest/north east. I'm
1000% confident that the "rust belt" will rise again. It's only a matter of
time.

~~~
Pxtl
The problem is that global warming doesn't necessarily mean nicer winter here
(Ontario). I mean, ask buffalonians about the lake-effect snow they saw last
November, and scientists say that was caused by the warm lake.

~~~
cjf4
As a Buffalonian, it was actually something of a communally binding event;
people definitely took advantage of the opportunity to show their resilience
and live the ethos of "the city of good neighbors."

Speaking personally, it's the biting cold that starts about now and goes to
about mid March that beats you down. But the weather's pretty good the other 9
months of the year.

------
rayiner
My wife and I recently moved to Baltimore from another rust-belt city with
underrated culture: Philadelphia. Both punch above their weight in art as well
as food. We were all just as the Walters yesterday. A gorgeous museum with no
entrance fee, in a city more famous for its dilapidation than for its art.

The linked-to article about Detroit is quite depressing:

> Officials at the city-owned museum, which, along with Detroit, has struggled
> financially for many years, had said as recently as two weeks ago that such
> a huge commitment — money to help the city pay its pensions — would be
> “completely unfeasible.” But in a statement on Wednesday the museum said
> that it had reached out to corporate leaders in Detroit and would commit to
> a multiyear effort that would “stretch our fund-raising abilities to their
> capacity” as a way to protect its collection.

What a particularly grotesque expression of intergenerational wealth transfer:
taking art away from the young to pay for pensions for the old.

~~~
danjayh
In Detroit, the situation is simple and difficult. The city's population used
to be much larger. The city made commitments to its then-workers based on the
assumption that population and revenue would hold fast. The city's population
shrank dramatically, leaving a small tax base to support huge legacy costs.
End result has been a bankruptcy, cuts to city pensions, and a city that is
solvent but running on a shoestring budget. The final bankruptcy resulted in
the DIA maintaining its full collection and being transferred to a private
nonprofit, made possible by funding from donors and the state (they basically
paid the city the value of the collection, and in return, the city
relinquished ownership of the DIA). All of this was accomplished by the state,
which at the behest of the governor temporarily wrested control of the city's
finances from city leaders and appointed an emergency manager (who,
admittedly, was the one looking into selling the collection ... but with hard
times come hard choices).

They are working to reduce the footprint of the city by literally plowing
sections of it under, thereby reducing upkeep costs, and through this process
will eventually end up with a physically smaller city that is financially
feasible given the current taxbase (fun fact- you can buy a decent fixer upper
house in Detroit for less than the cost of a used car, due to massive
oversupply). Outside of Detroit proper, the surrounding areas have fared much
better.

~~~
danielweber
> The city made commitments to its then-workers based on the assumption that
> population and revenue would hold fast

Just a few years ago the pension board, without oversight, continued to give
out 13th checks (a bonus pension check for the 13th month of the year) in
years that they happened to have above-average returns. Of course, the years
with above-average returns were supposed to balance out the years with below-
average returns.

Google _Detroit 13th check_ for more on that one. Some groups sued to get the
13th check turned back on, arguing that the issuance of them, even though it
happened without oversight, created an expectation of them and therefore a
contractual obligation.

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phillc73
Having lived in London for many years, although now moved to Austria, I feel
privileged to have enjoyed free and very cost effective "high culture" for
many years. So much so, that I simply forgot this wasn't the case in many
other locations.

All London's major museums and galleries offer free entry.[1][2] The BBC
Proms, a classical music festival in the Royal Albert Hall spanning almost
three months each year between July and September, offer £5 tickets to every
concert, if you're willing to promenade (stand).[3] Even tickets for
reasonable seats can be obtained for less than £20, although popular concerts
do book out well in advance.

The article author's assertion that high prices in "creative-class capitals"
are driven by "deep-pocketed local elites and high-spending tourists," is
clearly not true everywhere.

[1] [http://www.timeout.com/london/museums/free-museums-in-
london](http://www.timeout.com/london/museums/free-museums-in-london)

[2] [http://www.visitlondon.com/tag/free-
attractions](http://www.visitlondon.com/tag/free-attractions)

[3] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/features/ticket-
prices](http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/features/ticket-prices)

~~~
danjayh
Many museums in the US (at least in the midwest) have "free days". In my town,
for example, the art museum is free on Tuesday and during certain weeks of the
year (when we have art festivals, for instance).

~~~
devonkim
The source of funding for a lot of these events in the US is somewhat
insidious though. Case in point is Museums On Us is sponsored by Bank of
America. Museums oftentimes barely charge anything for admission partly
because a lot of their cost expenditures are highly restricted by the grants
and agreements of donors they've signed. Museums are visited more than sports
stadiums in the US but museum professionals are hardly paid pro athlete
salaries. Good example of how museums in general are struggling and desperate
is that Fisk Art Museum was motioning to sell off the most prized parts of its
collection to private buyers including Georgia O'Keefe works explicitly
donated by her to keep there so that art is accessible to everyone - at a
historically black college at that. The grant structured nature of musums has
really made it hard for them to operate with modern operating costs, and given
universities' shift toward pro sports for revenue we can't sustain most
museums. Many are literally one person with 20+ volunteer staff, some of whom
were ex-employees that were laid off but just love the collection that much.
Other museums are run by descendants of tycoons and will exist basically
forever.

So do be aware of how you support your local museum. In some cases, I might
argue they're total losses and we'd do everyone involved a favor by letting it
dissolve. Many museums are glorified corporate or robber baron legacy temples.
Museums aren't necessarily money-driven either and each one is highly
reflective of whom the board has appointed to lead it.

I'm not being anti-corporate, just making it clear that museums can be
corporate-run and are highly variable in operations.

Disclosure: my wife is a museum collections curation professional

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personlurking
I can't exactly speak of low-cost high culture but, if you take out the 'high'
part, I can say I've been living this way for the past several years. I enjoy
several cultural outings per month, free or low cost (and usually w/in walking
distance), simply by being "location independent" (ie, living outside the
States). For _years_ , I haven't had to spend more than $600/mo in living
expenses, having lived tons of different experiences across different
countries/cultures and, frankly, I wouldn't trade it.

Standard of living hasn't always been the best but, in the foreign cities I've
now lived the longest in, I've often found the standard way better than
anything I found in the US (a period spanning most of my life).

The main take-away for me has been that a higher/better standard of living in
exchange for lesser pay is a game-changer. The kinds of things danjayh
(currently the top comment) says make it totally worth it. Take the pay cut,
make the change. You may surprise yourself.

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dennyabraham
How are low cost concerts and museums funded? Are donors sufficient? Is it the
low cost of living and resulting reduction in staff costs? Is it sustainable
in the long run?

~~~
moron4hire
Successive years of excellent portfolio management. Assets are purchased with
donor money to create an endowment that makes the entire ship self-sustaining.
Or in the case of some places (e.g. Harvard), becoming an economic juggernaut
within the community.

Actually, "excellent" is the wrong adjective. "Competent" is all that is
necessary. However, the non-profit world is often beset with incompetent
employees at all levels, from your average worker all the way up to the top
directors (well, usually B begets A). There is a problem in the field of
people interpreting "we are a non-profit" as "we are a charity in all aspects,
including hiring". There is definitely a feeling that only "heartless" (i.e.
for-profit) companies worry about productivity.

Let's put it this way: if'n you ever had the notion to lie on your resume to
get a job, look first to the non-profit world[1]. I've seen several instances
at several locations of people with long-standing careers where they STILL
aren't competent at the skills they lied about having on their resume when
they got hired.

[1] that should be read as an indictment of the field, not a recommendation
for lying on your resume.

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moron4hire
As someone who has lived on the East coast the vast majority of his life,
currently lives in DC, and has spent quite a lot of time with friends who live
in Baltimore, this doesn't really mesh with my experiences. Specifically, I
don't think comparing Baltimore and DC is a good example. There are other
locations that you could compare to DC to make a better point, but to bring up
Baltimore as the main subject is not a strong argument.

Yes, you'll be hard-pressed to find a beer in DC for $3, that is for sure.
It's not impossible, but Baltimore is definitely more of a beer drinking town
than DC.

But all of the other talk on music and cultural events is way off. Many of the
museums in DC are free, and there are far more of them. I would say the
Hirshhorn Museum is the finest modern art museum I've ever been to, and it's
completely free, with a wide, rotating selection.

For theater, the Kennedy Center has several shows for as little as $10, so I
feel like you could probably beat the "7 shows for under $100" metric Mr.
MacGillis has thrown down. But there are also many, much bigger events of much
more variety as well. And that's just one theater, there are a lot of theaters
in the DC area.

I also haven't been terribly impressed by Baltimore's housing offerings. They
aren't _that_ much cheaper, when you start considering the commuting costs,
and it's starting to age poorly. Everyone I've known to buy a house in
Baltimore has had to do major renovations. Even living in somewhere like
Bethesda is not that much more expensive than Baltimore and you are still
inside the DC metro area. But taking an hour on a good day to drive 20 to 30
miles to work (he says he and his wife still work in DC) is ludicrously
unsustainable. There aren't any major road projects going in the north-south
direction between DC and _Philly_ , as far as I know. The traffic we have
today is the best traffic we're ever going to have.

Where I think Baltimore succeeds far and away from DC is in neighborhood
culture. You just don't have neighborhoods in most of DC and the suburbs. I
mean, there are neighborhoods, but there is no identity to each neighborhood.
It's all just bedrooms for the Pentagon and Arlington contractors. Why didn't
he talk at all about that? The DC area is a monotone, corporatized town. You
don't have a local bar. You don't have a local hangout. You don't have that
place to go "where everybody knows your name". There is no local flavor
because there are no locals.

I understand the point he's trying to make. I'd like to get out of DC
eventually, because the costs are astronomical (I think it's the 5th most
expensive area in the country). But it won't be to go to Baltimore. The way in
which he's used Baltimore is not playing to Baltimore's strengths.

