Comment 53264

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted December 17, 2010 at 19:09:06

The point I was trying to make is not that artists are rich, it's that areas where art districts pop up in this way often tend to correlate with booms in real estate speculation. As Mrjanitor points out, this has a lot to do with the fact that artists themselves are generally rather poor, and art galleries don't always bring in much revenue. Therefore, locating in low-rent areas makes a lot of sense. The thing is, art galleries also tend to be rather high-brow forms of entertainment and expose a lot of people who aren't poor to these areas. For this reason, they are often at the middle of these things, despite the best intentions of those who started the galleries.

There's a difference between talking about privilege and demonizing people. Class isn't just imaginary - there are very real differences in what kind of rights people have downtown. Being a property owner doesn't mean you don't work hard, or that you're evil. But it does mean that there's some people who have far less ability to speak up for themselves than you do, as well as to find housing. Living in the ghetto isn't a choice for everybody.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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