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Find a new city

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Re: Find a new city

#11

Post by brandur »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #7
brandur wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. Can you clarify your position? My reading is that the article was making the point that rent is significantly more expensive in NY today than it was in the 60s and early 70s when people like Patti Smith were there. As far as I can tell, this is objectively true. Here's a chart of of the last 100 years of rental/purchase prices in NY…

The post is very misleading because it's not about absolute cost of living, you should also suggest data for other towns where an artist could have lived, for example some small town in Ohio. If Patti Smith lived somewhere in Colorado mountains to do her thing, she probably wouldn't be where she is today. Artists require audience, and cities like New York have them, ready to spend money. That's why people moved to Ne…

It's a fair point that the only way for these artists to have become successful in a significant way at the time was to move to a town like New York that can supply the necessary patronage, but I'm not sure that I'd characterize the post as "very misleading".

Even with the city's money, the artists still did have to do the legwork to create a scene that was worthy of investment. Rich people aren't gullible saps who will be parted from their fortune at the first opportunity.

An artist also shouldn't have to be as wildly successful as Patti Smith to be considered a success. Other cities of high culture like Berlin have also fostered incredible art scenes over the last few decades, and without the overflowing capital of NY. Few of those artists made it big, but many did achieve comfortable lifestyles of more modest means, and I think we could say that they "created their scene".

Relevant quote from the article:

> The idea is that you live somewhere cheap, keep your overhead low, make whatever work you want to make, create your own scene. Nobody gets super-rich or super-famous, but dammit, they get to live their lives their own way, unbeholden to anybody.

Re: Find a new city

#12

Post by davidw »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #10

This view ignores the benefits of the large cities. The rents are high for a reason. You want to go there. And not just for the cultural opportunities. Most people want good jobs. You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely. To put it another way, almost everything important and interesting you do will require other people.

> Most people want good jobs.

He specifically mentions that in the article:

> I realize now when I said “young folks” I meant young artists and poets and other creative people who were like me about ten years ago: poor, or not wealthy, trying to figure out where to live, and wanting to do something weird and interesting that doesn’t necessarily fit into a traditional model. Not: get a job at a tech company, get big art world gallery shows, etc.

Re: Find a new city

#13

Post by dcosson »

brandur wrote: post #5
SandersAK wrote: post #3

Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. There is no other place in the US that concentrates so many different types of people. Patti Smith, David Byrne etc all benefitted from there being billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, thespians, high profile doctors, lawyers, and more than a century of civic dedication to arts and culture. There is a shared communal love and suppo…

> Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. Can you clarify your position? My reading is that the article was making the point that rent is significantly more expensive in NY today than it was in the 60s and early 70s when people like Patti Smith were there. As far as I can tell, this is objectively true. Here's a chart of of the last 100 years of rental/purchase prices in NY…

While that's true, I think comparing the East Village back then to the East Village today isn't sufficient to claim that the entire city is too expensive today. Maybe a less drastic approach is fine - instead of "find a new city" which cuts you off from all the resources & audiences only found in a place like NY, just find a new neighborhood.

Re: Find a new city

#14

Post by RussianCow »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #10

This view ignores the benefits of the large cities. The rents are high for a reason. You want to go there. And not just for the cultural opportunities. Most people want good jobs. You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely. To put it another way, almost everything important and interesting you do will require other people.

> You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely.

Not everyone, but let's face it, a HUGE number of existing in-office jobs could be fairly easily made remote, which would cut down on the appeal of large cities. I think if even 10% of all currently in-office jobs became remote, you would see a significant movement away from the big cities.

Re: Find a new city

#15

Post by ghaff »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #10

This view ignores the benefits of the large cities. The rents are high for a reason. You want to go there. And not just for the cultural opportunities. Most people want good jobs. You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely. To put it another way, almost everything important and interesting you do will require other people.

Note though that with respect to jobs, many or most large companies may be in the suburban/exurban orbit of medium to large cities but aren't actually in high rent inner metro areas. The Bay area is something of an outlier in that Silicon Valley tends to be as expensive as SF itself.

In the Boston area, it's quite recent that a substantial number of tech jobs have sprung up in Cambridge/Boston proper. Historically most tech was out in the 128 and 495 corridors--and much of it still is where rents and house prices are (mostly) much lower than in the preferred neighborhoods of the city.

Re: Find a new city

#16

Post by jrochkind1 »

SandersAK wrote: post #3

Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. There is no other place in the US that concentrates so many different types of people. Patti Smith, David Byrne etc all benefitted from there being billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, thespians, high profile doctors, lawyers, and more than a century of civic dedication to arts and culture. There is a shared communal love and suppo…

I think you make a good point that 'cheap' is very relative to your means and access, and the LES may not have been cheap for _everyone_ even in the 80s. Definitely important to remember.

But I'm inclined to believe Smith that it was cheap for her and people like her in a way present-day NYC isn't, for similar people today. I guess we could try to look up rent statistics over time etc.

> if you want that in NY now you move to crown heights.

Pretty sure Crown Heights ain't affordable anymore either. (idle googling suggests median Crown Heights studio apartment price today is $2000. Yeah. "Studio" means "one room (usually very small) apartment" in U.S. rental listings, not something cool like 'giant warehouse an artist can make into an art studio', heh.)

Maybe somewhere I haven't heard of (cause I don't live in NYC) in Queens or the Bronx? I don't know if you'd have the same access to culture and money living in some far-off non-subway-served part of the Bronx though.

I think Manhattan in the 80s really was kind of unusual in being cheap _and_ still a place with lots of money floating around and cultural institutions. This is unusual. It was sort of a mid-point on the re-organization of American urban geography, with NYC being a special case as usual as the biggest city in the U.S.

Re: Find a new city

#17

Post by mkolodny »

I love the sentiment. Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of people hacking on things in garages / shitty apartments. Now those shitty apartments cost $2,000/month. The equivalent of those places, where things like Apple started, isn't Silicon Valley and NYC. It's places like Detroit. Or wherever people doing cool things decide to move and congregate.

Then again, it is still possible to live cheaply in NYC. My friend lives in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn for $450/month. And there's value in living in or near where the community is already strong. You just have to move out a bit further and live a bit grungier.

Re: Find a new city

#18

Post by dionidium »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #16
SandersAK wrote: post #3

Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. There is no other place in the US that concentrates so many different types of people. Patti Smith, David Byrne etc all benefitted from there being billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, thespians, high profile doctors, lawyers, and more than a century of civic dedication to arts and culture. There is a shared communal love and suppo…

I think you make a good point that 'cheap' is very relative to your means and access, and the LES may not have been cheap for _everyone_ even in the 80s. Definitely important to remember. But I'm inclined to believe Smith that it was cheap for her and people like her in a way present-day NYC isn't, for similar people today. I guess we could try to look up rent statistics over time etc. > if you want that in NY now yo…

>idle googling suggests median Crown Heights studio apartment price today is $2000.

It's not quite that bad. Here are some actual listings for one-bedrooms in Crown Heights that rent between $1500-1700:

https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17067721.-1-bedroom-1-bat...

https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17206256.-1-bedroom-1-bat...

https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17246561.-1-bedroom-1-bat...

But everything is relative. Those apartments would rent for around $700-800 in my city.

Re: Find a new city

#19

Post by ghaff »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #16
SandersAK wrote: post #3

Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. There is no other place in the US that concentrates so many different types of people. Patti Smith, David Byrne etc all benefitted from there being billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, thespians, high profile doctors, lawyers, and more than a century of civic dedication to arts and culture. There is a shared communal love and suppo…

I think you make a good point that 'cheap' is very relative to your means and access, and the LES may not have been cheap for _everyone_ even in the 80s. Definitely important to remember. But I'm inclined to believe Smith that it was cheap for her and people like her in a way present-day NYC isn't, for similar people today. I guess we could try to look up rent statistics over time etc. > if you want that in NY now yo…

>I think Manhattan in the 80s really was kind of unusual in being cheap _and_ still a place with lots of money floating around and cultural institutions.

I think you're probably right. On the one hand, the city was something of a train wreck at the time and certainly there were a lot of areas like the LES and probably Hell's Kitchen, etc. that a lot of people generally stayed away from and were probably relatively cheap.

At the same time, Plenty of middle class and wealthier people weren't about to leave Manhattan for a whole host of reasons (finance industry, culture, etc.) in the way that the same cohort was fleeing other cities for the suburbs.

Re: Find a new city

#20

Post by nextos »

mkolodny wrote: post #17

I love the sentiment. Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of people hacking on things in garages / shitty apartments. Now those shitty apartments cost $2,000/month. The equivalent of those places, where things like Apple started, isn't Silicon Valley and NYC. It's places like Detroit. Or wherever people doing cool things decide to move and congregate. Then again, it is still possible to live cheaply i…

I can't agree more. But it's hard. I feel Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of cheap real estate and talent pool.

I find it hard to find places with a lot of talent but undervalued real estate these days. Maybe all low hanging fruit is gone.

In Europe, London, Oxbridge, Stockholm are somewhat similar. Insane prices. Berlin and to a certain extent Copenhagen are cheaper. Some smaller locations like Cluj are quite cheap, but maybe a bit outside common tech circles.

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