In the last week or so the NY Foundation for the Arts has run some articles about the difficulties artists in NYC face with affordable housing. The biggest problem being that they tend to make neighborhoods such cool places to live that people will pay a premium to do so and the artists can’t afford that much.
While the articles are about New York the stories they tell are being repeated across the country.
In the first article, NYFA Executive Director, Michael Royce, recounts his somewhat harrowing experiences with the first five apartments he had when he moved to NYC. For him and many artists, the opportunity to live in a community of artists trumped the squalid conditions and violent surroundings.
At the end of the article he lists people to contact if you are an artist living in NY State and want to participate in focus groups about affordable housing.
The second article is an interview with Paul Nagle who serves as the Director of Communications and Cultural Policy for one of NYC’s council members.
He talks about trying to create a sustainable policy for affordable housing. He acknowledges it is difficult to discuss affordable housing for artists when there is such a dearth of cheap housing for everyone but points out that the artistic presence actually enhances the quality of life in whatever neighborhoods it appears in and thus is an effective investment of funds and policy.
He also notes that policies must be created to stem the expulsive influence of gentrification because it impacts more than just the artists.
“But it’s not just the arts. It means all mixed economic activity and all middle-to-low-income activity will be driven out as well. Then you have a luxury neighbourhood, which in New York City basically means that it is completely dependent on the stock market… and I don’t know where the sustainability is in that formula. So this becomes less about being nice to artists and more about maintaining stable communities with character and diversity where people can actually live.”
It seems that any municipality hoping to attract Richard Florida’s creative class would be wise to watch the issue and fabricate a policy early on so they don’t encounter similar problems.