Why do artists like crowded&filthy places like NYC (New York: real estate, low crime)
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Excerpt: Why do artists like crowded&filthy places like NYC
Response: Opinion.
People in general do not like crowds or filth. People like open spaces and the beauty of nature.
Private homes are spacious and bathrooms are filled with showering shampoos,conditioners and other toiletries.
Powdery talcums ,beautiful perfumes and gentle aromas of flowery soaps fill the senses.
If any person likes to be chest bumped by a sweated body in a crowded street or stare into the face of an stinky
open armpit while riding a stuffed train followed by foot stepping onto and into dirt filled streets containing wreaking
fluids rolling down sidewalks of restaurants and the remnants of the evening meals adding rats,roaches and maggots
stenches as the pi'ece de r'esistance just to get to work in the morning then my friend they need to have their heads
examined and prescribed a stronger round of Clozapine...............
Depending on the geographic location, within the US, the "crowded, filthy places" are the cheapest places to find a room to "live" in. You generally don't see writers or artists remain there, if, and when, then become successful.
Well they believe that they are likely to make connections among people in big cities like New York. This is the perspective that animates NYT reporting and the opinion pages, that creative people thrive in New York City because they thrive on the synergy of lots of people around. New York City is a cultural capital.
Putting up with the crowds and filth is the price they pay for what they perceive to be the benefits. Also, don't forget that many artists seem to believe they have to struggle for their art and that struggle means authenticity, so fighting to make it as an artist in New York City is a badge of honor.
Those who make it big might remain, but they also begin to gravitate towards the more upscale neighborhoods if they don't leave altogether. Big money means an upgrade in all kinds of ways. Those who don't make it big do something else and eventually leave if they can't afford it or when it gets to be too much and it all wears thin.
Reading biographies of creative types in New York is definitely an education in how they see life in the big city.
Money. You need rich people, a gallery system, and an educated class that is receptive to ideas. NYC became that place above others in the West just as Paris was occupied and London getting bombed. The idea that NYC is a filthy mess is totally foreign to me. Last time I was in New York, I was blown away by the sparkle. There are some shabby small towns out there that because they are puny, come off much worse than NYC.
NYC is no longer the center of the art world anymore like it was just 20 or 30 years ago. It is now spread out throughout the country and many of those places are not “dirty or crowded.”
“No writer who could ever write worth a damn could ever write in ‘peace and quiet.’”
— Charles Bukowski
Haaaahaha... Marcel Proust (a better writer than Bukowski imho, and one of the best ever) wrote his enormous 7-volume novel in his bedroom lined with cork, and mostly in fact in his bed. Emily Dickinson, one of the most interesting poets ever, and certainly the most famous female poet ever, never left her house in Amherst, MA (and hardly ever her room in that house) in her adult life. LN Tolstoy in the imperial Russia wrote all his large novels at his rural estate. Henry David Thoreau - his entire philosophy and literary work was about living in the nature, totally isolated from other people.
Having said that, artists are people who need to feel inspired all the time, and inspiration generally comes from something that stimulates the senses (which is why the incidence of alcohol and drug use is also high among artists), and a large busy city offers a lot of stimulation. Many artists need also human stimulation (evidenced by the fact that they tend to have a relatively large number of strong romantic relationships, as well as a lot of close friendships with other artists), and a big city provides an ocean of humanity.
While a lot of artists generally like urban settings due to stimulation (due to which I, as a non-artist who however does have a strong appreciation of good art, also like the largest of global cities), they do not necessarily like to live in squalor. Art is an endeavor that is paid nothing until an artist becomes well known (which a few artists achieve), and at the same time creating art takes a lot of energy, focus, and time, so artists who are not famous can usually only support their art by doing mindless, poorly paid menial jobs which do not distract from their art... which means that in the city they can only afford to live in squalid places. If they make money with their art, they will immediately move into an expensive, artistically designed home.
I don't think artists like squalid places, but they also don't mind squalid places too much, because they are focused on creating their art rather than on impressing anyone with their real estate (unless their real estate is also their art, eg, in case of architects). If ghetto people could be turned on to art, or if they could at least get a passion for reading books (which activity is every bit as addictive as drugs, to paraphrase Franz Kafka) rather than a passion for actual drugs, maybe that would cut down on crime in squalid places (since a book habit is free, courtesy of your public library, while a drug habit often needs to be supported by crime). I always thought the widespread encouragement and respect for art appreciation during socialist/communist times in Eastern Europe accounted for very low crime rates in that part of the world at that time, even though everyone was poor and lived in squalid conditions and was very dissatisfied with the general condition of their life. Maybe the enforcement of art appreciation is the solution to the problem of ghetto crime?
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