Expensive cities are killing creativity
Expensive cities are killing creativity
I know the issue has bubbled up from time-to-time in the forum, but I think this piece is the first I've seen that addresses the commodification of creativity and it's effect on the *creative* class. Quote:
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Yawn. The same topic just getting recycled over and over
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The most expensive cities on earth are also generally the most creative/innovative cities on earth.
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Cheap cities should therefore be hotboxes of creativity. But most often they are not.
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I love how it ties in St. Louis at the end!
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Necessity is the mother of invention, and there's no other necessity quite like having to pay rent.
Expensive cities have their downsides, but stifling creativity really isn't one of them. |
Detroit is cheap, move there.
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Yes. I heard that artists are flocking to Detroit big time.
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Doesn't mean that there aren't some, though. There are more than 5 million people living in the metro area. |
It (detroit) does have a high concentration of auto and related engineers though--a class of highly educated, very skilled professionals that are probably responsible for more bulk creativity than all of san francisco or new york's so called creative class (these are mostly webpage designers these days anyhow).
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This is happening all over London. The creative cheap rent districts have been replaced just as their creative inhabitants have. The centre is no longer the pluralistic place it once was. Likewise Berlin- when it went bankrupt in the early noughties it was the best thing that happened to it, seeing in a wave of students, artists, designers and writers drawn by the cheap rents in a city centre. Now it's become so hip, it's all being priced out - the nightlife, the start-ups, the boho hangouts and independent stores.
The money continues to flow in, from multinationals and tourists, businessmen, relocating billionaires and tax dodgers, but the actual grass-roots talent is stifled away to somewhere cheaper, or entirely. |
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Don't most artists (film, music, dance etc) originate from everywhere, small towns/suburbs/urban centers and then move to the city for work? They acquire/obtain a talent and then move to where they can make money off of it. Ie: Hollywood, Manhattan |
^of course. but what you are saying is that expensive cities are magnets for creativity. They suck in the talent from the "cheaper seats". I mean, just like Frank Sinatra sings, "If I can make it there, I'll make it...anywhere; It's up to you: New York, New York!"
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This is where Los Angeles should flex its muscle. LA isn't cheap but it's hardly restrictive in the SF and NYC sense, but at the same time LA retains some international clout. You can make it in LA and still find some 900/mo rent. Lots of creative people have gotten over their hang ups about LA's auto centric nature to make this is a fertile place for contemporary art. I just wish our general populace was smart enough to recognize it.
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High income professionals and capitalists who have enough money to survive on investments most often, IMO, are CONSUMERS first. In general, most have decided that the arts- as defined by the 'artistic community' is not worth devoting one's life to. Rather, value often is determined by the exclusivity of possessions.
IMO, despite the internet, that the creative centers will flourish in the 2000 10s and 20s in the big Texas cities, particularly Houston. Houston has grown huge with little zoning, and, so has become a quilt of different income levels, with distinct neighborhood differences. The city is growing rapidly, particularly the lower middle class, where recent immigrants are rapidly advancing out of the lower class. IMO, this upward mobility fuels cultural optimism, which is the foundation of the energy that the artistic community feeds upon. |
In terms of the UK, other cheaper cities in the North have been internationally renowned for being creative centres, most notable Liverpool particuarly in the 1960's and Manchester most notable in the 80s'/90's. Whilst Hull has just been awarded City of Culture status.
In terms of London, it covers such a vast geographic area that there will always be some cheaper areas for struggling artists away from central areas, whether it be parts of the East End or indeed South London. :) |
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I think it's a crude notion to think that only poor people are creative and more wealthy people are not. As an artist I work daily with wealthy people and they are often some of the most creative people I know, many times that's how they got wealthy in the first place and they have more time because of their wealth to be creative. I am able to be more creative myself as a more established artist, working full time as an artist and also now gallery/store owner than I was when I was having to work other jobs to make ends meet. Also, I know many people who have "ideas" and are creative, but whose ideas and creativity are lackluster, on all ends of the financial spectrum. Plenty of poor people are just as worthless at having new and creative ideas as some rich. Having money or not doesn't mean your ideas or your creativity is going to be any more or less. Having a bit of money however, may actually mean that you were "successfully" creative, and can now afford to be even more creative, afford better "tools/materials" of the trade, and afford more time to spend on being creative.
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Actually, while creative types are often on the vanguard of increasing wealth and concomitant economic effects (the plutocratization of New York is arguably a macro effect of the same trend of the artist-driven gentrification) urban plutocratization has led to artist migration to less-expensive cities. In the U.S. this has manifested as a movement of creative types from Frisco to Oakland, for example, or New York to Newark, NJ, and Philadelphia; a UK example is the growth of northern English cities'* artistic scenes as they are being pushed out of London proper.
Detroit really has also become an artistic magnet as well. ___________ *Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, York... |
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