Urban Creative Disconnect

Many American cities have become so expensive due to gentrification that it has pushed out most young artists and other creative types to the fringes of the city or further away to the more affordable suburbs. Well-funded art galleries, both traditional and arrivistes, have successfully taken over formerly edgy neighborhoods sometimes constructing new architectural showcases to offer world-renown works affordable only to billionaires and multi-millionaires worldwide. It's artwork that doesn't speak to the common man whatsoever. It's a rude imposition of rich man's art that doesn't represent the majority of tastes in a multiethnic urban environment. This art is sedate, predictable and exclusionary. It's a trend that demonstrates how society is becoming more politically correct, more conformist and acquiescing to big corporate interests.

As a New Yorker I've witnessed the exodus of young artists from neighborhoods that provided a particular edginess and grit that fomented the imagination and whose greasy spoon diners, roguish cafes and dive bars served as de facto culinary rebel bases for their gatherings. In the past these changes took place at a glacial pace, beginning with the West Village in the 1950s and 1960s, then Soho the "downtown scene" in the 1970s, East Village in the 1980s, and finally West Chelsea and Williamsburg in the 1990s.

The last rebel outposts clinging to its former existence as affordable artistic havens are Bushwick, Sunset Park and perhaps in an overlooked neighborhood, the eastern fringes of Chinatown. There are pockets here and there in the aforementioned artistic colonized neighborhoods of the 1950s through 1990s but they're an aberration due to quirky real-estate laws applicable only to a specific block or a building. Any struggling young artist you might see in those environs is probably only visiting or passing through.

On one hand, the upside is that, thanks to social media, young artists can still create, promote and distribute their works worldwide. The downside is that there are few brick & mortar venues for them to meet personally and engage with likeminded artists for inspiration and collaboration. More artists are increasingly working further apart in a semi-secluded bubble environment. The lack of intimate gatherings to cross-pollinate ideas tends to erode one's creativity. For this reason the level of edgy creativity will flat-line before nose-diving and robbing society of truly unique signature works.

However just like in the wilderness, these urban jungles go through cycles of death and rebirth. Eventually the economy will 'tank' again and the urban centers will revert to its former gritty and dystopian glory at which time the next generation of young creative artists will fill the abandoned buildings and provide a new kind of vibrancy.