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By the way, isn't the idea of an artist living in this huge warehouse loft with concrete floors and exposed brick walls that's within walking distance of his/her favorite coffeeshop where he/she has conversations about post-modern art over multiple cups of a fair trade coffee a little cliche? It's like sitting on a jury and expecting courtroom procedure to play out the way you saw it on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit."
Galleries are just show places for art. That doesn't mean that creativity is being fostered in the neighborhood. And the ironic thing is that most artists could never afford to live in an "arts district" in their wildest dreams. My sister is a musician who currently lives out of my mother's basement.
I actually think that walkable, dense/industrial areas are draws for wannabe artist types who think that artists should live in dense, walkable neighborhoods. These people are more focused on the outward affects of the "artist" (the Chuck Taylor's and weird haircuts) than they are on the actual art.
It's almost like teaching someone to play tennis. A question you'll often get from a beginner is, "What racquet does Federer use?" My response is usually, "Federer could use a stick and still beat you 6-0, 6-0." They're usually more focused on the equipment, the accessories, the shoes, the water bottles and looking like a tennis player more than they're focused on becoming a tennis player.
If you look at some of the more "creative" cities today (at least in Hip-Hop and R&B), they are not very dense or walkable. For example, most of the members of A Tribe Called Quest live in Atlanta in McMansions. Musiq Soulchild also lives in a McMansion. So does India Arie. Somehow they are able to create great music by getting into cars and driving to each others' houses/studios.
Like most things in life, this is not a black and white situation.
There are posers in arts districts, there are legit artists in these same districts.
And of course millionaire mainstream R&B / Hip-Hop artists live in mansions (I doubt they deserve the derisive Mc-moniker). They are millionaire mainstream R&B / Hip-Hop artists.
What neighborhood did A Tribe Called Quest live in when People's Instinctive Travels... came out?
What neighborhood did A Tribe Called Quest live in when People's Instinctive Travels... came out?
Looks like: St. Albans, Queens, NYC. Not very hip or dense for New York standards. Mostly black (94% !) residential neighborhood on the edge of the city; probably where many of the members grew up.
If you look at some of the more "creative" cities today (at least in Hip-Hop and R&B), they are not very dense or walkable. For example, most of the members of A Tribe Called Quest live in Atlanta in McMansions. Musiq Soulchild also lives in a McMansion. So does India Arie. Somehow they are able to create great music by getting into cars and driving to each others' houses/studios.
I think you're misunderstanding what creative means here. People already at the top of their game don't need to randomly bump into acquaintances on the street for networking. They're already famous, people seek them out. Hence why famous directors can live in the middle of nowhere.
Creativity as it's discussed in the urban form is about who is going to be the next big thing. The inventor, the startup tech business, the struggling artist, etc. In all cases, they are far more likely to have opportunities to break through if they live in a city, and they're even more likely if they are surrounded by a social milieu within their neighborhood which allows them to bump into comrades all the time.
Looks like: St. Albans, Queens, NYC. Not very hip or dense for New York standards. Mostly black (94% !) residential neighborhood on the edge of the city; probably where many of the members grew up.
"Old" and "disused" buildings are vintage. Just like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Shirts are vintage. Just like vinyl records are vintage. Just like Atari is vintage. When cities do not have much construction that's vintage, they will create it. That's why you see so many newly constructed "artist" lofts with concrete floors and exposed ducts and an overall industrial look and feel. Florida is basically saying (or has said in other articles), "If you want these talented people, this is the stuff you need!"
No, old and disused buildings aren't necessarily "vintage"--and you can't build new "vintage." A Babe Ruth baseball card is "vintage", but if you create a brand-new Babe Ruth baseball card it isn't "vintage," it's counterfeit--just as the newly-constructed and overpriced "artist's loft" buildings are counterfeit. You're mistaking an applied label for the actual substance.
Old and disused buildings are not valuable to creatives because they are "vintage"--they are valuable because they are cheap. If they then transition from disuse to popularity, they become "vintage." But you can't go directly to "vintage" status.
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Why have you zeroed in on "rowhouses" with laser like focus? Rowhouses were merely one example of "vintage" housing that I used.
No, they were one example that Florida used, and you focused in on that. But he's not talking about the kind of housing that is already considered "vintage" in that manner (already-revitalized historic district) so much as the interstitial and underutilized spaces where rent is cheap.
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"Old." So in other words, "vintage." If the emphasis in merely on "short," then there's a wide variety of newly constructed suburban development that can fit the bill.
You're considering those two things interchangeable. They are not. Nor is shortness inherently good--the point of the "old" part, that differentiates it both from new construction and high-demand "vintage," is that it's cheap and available.
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Why is that important? Facebook and Google employees are doing all types of "creative" things and they drive to work.
Some do, some don't. Walkability facilitates creative networking--but the point of the article, that walkability and skyscraper-style density are not equivalent, appears to be something you're missing entirely. Nobody is saying that driving to work somehow erases creativity entirely.
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So...if you live in a less walkable to almost unwalkable city, you cannot...
Meet people in clubs.
Go to galleries.
Run into people at bars?
Not "cannot." Slightly less likely to, perhaps.
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So in other words...dense walkable neighborhoods are not required to spark creativity.
No. But walkability (and to some extent, density) help facilitate that creative spark. We're not dealing in absolutes here, but variables. In some cases, local adaptation changes the equation. Suburban "hacker houses" spark more creativity because they increase their own density: instead of each hacker living in their own little tract house and only seeing the others at work, several live together in close proximity, collaborating and sharing ideas, and also saving on rent. So it's no longer a "single-family" home, but a higher-density boarding house that facilitates interaction. And when you have such a place, people want to come over and hang out to be part of it.
It's easier to do such things in a walkable neighborhood that is designed for that sort of interaction, doing it in the suburbs is kind of a kludgy workaround--which is why, in places like the Bay Area, there are some office parks but also a lot of places in urban centers close to transit.
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I don't see why living in an auto-centric environment precludes the ability to interconnect. You just drive to a restaurant to meet someone instead of walking to it.
It doesn't preclude it, it just makes those chance meetings less likely--including interaction that occurs to and from a place. If you see someone you know on the street and you're walking, you are more likely to interact and talk than seeing someone you know while driving by.
By the way, isn't the idea of an artist living in this huge warehouse loft with concrete floors and exposed brick walls that's within walking distance of his/her favorite coffeeshop where he/she has conversations about post-modern art over multiple cups of a fair trade coffee a little cliche? It's like sitting on a jury and expecting courtroom procedure to play out the way you saw it on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit."
It's a cliche' because it does, in fact, happen. The loft doesn't necessarily have to be a huge warehouse, nor do the walls have to be brick or the floors concrete. But otherwise, yeah, that's pretty much how it works. And having had plenty of those conversations about postmodern art over multiple cups of fair-trade coffee, I feel fairly well-suited to say, yes, that actually does happen.
No, old and disused buildings aren't necessarily "vintage"--and you can't build new "vintage." A Babe Ruth baseball card is "vintage", but if you create a brand-new Babe Ruth baseball card it isn't "vintage," it's counterfeit--just as the newly-constructed and overpriced "artist's loft" buildings are counterfeit. You're mistaking an applied label for the actual substance.
That's not what I meant. It's obvious that you can't create an "old" building. My point was that the aesthetics of the buildings do matter (in this case, a building that has a "vintage" look). We see this all the time not only in architecture, but also in "vintage" and "stressed" clothing, which is intentionally made to appear older than it actually is. Anyone who's ever walked into a Guess store or Abercrombie Fitch has seen this.
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Originally Posted by wburg
Old and disused buildings are not valuable to creatives because they are "vintage"--they are valuable because they are cheap.
Where are these cheap disused buildings in 2012 that you speak of? Yes, artists lived in these buildings back in the 70s and 80s because that was all they could afford. But that's not the case today.
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Originally Posted by wburg
No, they were one example that Florida used, and you focused in on that. But he's not talking about the kind of housing that is already considered "vintage" in that manner (already-revitalized historic district) so much as the interstitial and underutilized spaces where rent is cheap.
You are completely reading this into his article. You're concluding that artists move to former industrial districts because they are cheap. Florida doesn't offer anything in the article that would warrant that conclusion. In fact, the two neighborhoods he uses as examples, Greenwich Village and SoMa, are anything but cheap.
At one point artists certainly did live in former industrial districts because of lower rents. But today those districts are few and far between.
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Originally Posted by wburg
You're considering those two things interchangeable. They are not. Nor is shortness inherently good--the point of the "old" part, that differentiates it both from new construction and high-demand "vintage," is that it's cheap and available.
Why do you assume that old buildings will be cheap? They are often more expensive than newer construction. Do you seriously think that a bombed out brownstone in Bed-Stuy is cheaper than a new construction home in Perth Amboy? And again, Florida makes no mention of artists seeking out these places because they are cheap. He really doesn't explain why creativity springs eternal in these places at all. He simply tells us that it does.
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Originally Posted by wburg
but the point of the article, that walkability and skyscraper-style density are not equivalent, appears to be something you're missing entirely.
The point did not escape me. I think it's a silly point to make. Florida is the master of pointing out very obvious correlations. He is not, however, so gifted at explaining why things are the way they are.
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Originally Posted by wburg
Nobody is saying that driving to work somehow erases creativity entirely.
I get that. I'm asking how greater walkability leads to greater creativity. It's a simple question.
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Originally Posted by wburg
No. But walkability (and to some extent, density) help facilitate that creative spark. We're not dealing in absolutes here, but variables. In some cases, local adaptation changes the equation. Suburban "hacker houses" spark more creativity because they increase their own density: instead of each hacker living in their own little tract house and only seeing the others at work, several live together in close proximity, collaborating and sharing ideas, and also saving on rent. So it's no longer a "single-family" home, but a higher-density boarding house that facilitates interaction. And when you have such a place, people want to come over and hang out to be part of it.
Okay. So hackers could very well live together in an apartment complex in Richmond and create the same "creative" sparks that they would generate living in the Mission.
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Originally Posted by wburg
It's easier to do such things in a walkable neighborhood that is designed for that sort of interaction, doing it in the suburbs is kind of a kludgy workaround--which is why, in places like the Bay Area, there are some office parks but also a lot of places in urban centers close to transit.
No it's not. You just get in a car and drive to someone's house. How is that a "kludgy workaround?"
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Originally Posted by wburg
It doesn't preclude it, it just makes those chance meetings less likely--including interaction that occurs to and from a place. If you see someone you know on the street and you're walking, you are more likely to interact and talk than seeing someone you know while driving by.
Where do you live?
Last edited by BajanYankee; 05-18-2012 at 03:28 PM..
Where are these cheap disused buildings in 2012 that you speak of? Yes, artists lived in these buildings back in the 70s and 80s because that was all they could afford. But that's not the case today.
It sure is. In Los Angeles many predict Westlake and Boyle Heights to be two neighborhoods that become the "New Echo Park" - Why? Because they are insanely cheap. It doesn't hurt that these areas are also very walkable and feature rail public transportation - in fact it is probably a big draw. Not all artists want that, some prefer a car-oriented lifestyle in the burbs, some prefer a rural lifestyle.
In Boston, the other city I am relatively familiar with, Jamaica Plain and Mission Hill were both formerly high-crime, dilapidated neighborhoods, but have been turned around - they are not all the way gentrified (neither is Echo Park in LA), so there are still plenty of old, cheap buildings for artists to live in, and in many cities.
New uses require old buildings--and that usually means cheap buildings.
And yeah, it means that cities that demolish their historic building stock, or never had it in the first place, are kind of out of luck when it comes to fostering creative communities.
You have it backwards; the new uses require cheap buildings, which usually mean old buildings. There are probably exceptions, especially now -- buildings which were built during the boom and abandoned without being occupied.
But these buildings often aren't in dense, walkable neighborhoods. Areas where artists go to are often run down (again, must be cheap) former industrial areas (not really neighborhoods, because few lived there) with few amenities; the buildings are cheap and for some types of artists (muralists and sculptors, for instance) the kind of space you can get is essential. Northern Liberties in Philadelphia was a typical example. Once an area is actually labeled an arts district (as Northern Liberties has) and becomes a place people want to go to, it's probably going to be priced too high for new artists to move in; that's certainly true in Philadelphia, where artists have moved up into parts of Kensington.
Silicon Valley startups don't require as much space, thus you get the legend of companies started in someone's donated garage (HP, Apple, Google).
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