David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent, I'm out of here

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/07/new-york-1percent-stifles-creative-talent

by jamesbritt • 13 years ago

47 90 13 years ago

theguardian.com

busterarm15• 13 years ago

This is pretty on point. I already left but I'm coming back to give it another shot.

After 25+ years in the city, those hardships really do take their toll though.

jlgreco14• 13 years ago

What's he want, more rent control? To put "the 1%" 'up against a wall'?

What is this article other than a whiny complaint, pandering to the envious masses?

busterarm15• 13 years ago

Rent control is <40,000 units citywide. Rent control is not the problem. Floor-Area Ratio zoning and parking requirements are. Both are keeping more dense housing from being built which is keeping rents up.

Who do you expect to do for service workers? Honestly. Do you expect those people to live in squalid conditions 20 to a room like we did 100 years ago?

Are you aware that that rents even within a 2hr commute distance do not decline enough to be affordable (except in a declining number of bad neighborhoods)? You can live on the Metro North/Amtrak routes as far up as Poughkeepsie and still pay $1200-$1600/mo for a studio/1br. Commuting is also expensive on its own with monthly passes often costing ~$400/mo. Plus having to have a car and car insurance in those areas on top of that.

Where do want to put people who do low-wage jobs that can't be automated? What's your plan?

TheLegace• 13 years ago

This is exactly what Toronto is trying to do by subsidizing housing in metropolitan area.

People maybe inclined to argue against subsidizing more expensive housing in downtown areas, but the cost of commuting from lower income outer areas actually increases pollution, and traffic costs. It also breaks the poverty cycle by preventing geographic and possibly cultural segregation of the lower income families.

ChuckMcM2• 13 years ago

I'd be interested in articles on ideas for dense and affordable urban housing which side steps the blight/crime aspects. Does anyone know if there is work going on in that space like the MIT small house[1] competitions?

[1] http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/1k-house-prototype-0915.h...

rayiner8• 13 years ago

Uh, you can get perfectly nice 1 bedroom apartments in Mt. Vernon for $800/month, and that's a 30-minute metro north ride from midtown manhattan. I used to live in New Rochelle, which is a 35 minute ride from Midtown. The high-rises right next to the train station are pretty expensive ($1500 for a studio), but there is a ton of affordable housing within a 15 minute walk. It's a town of mostly working-class hispanic immigrants.

harryh2• 13 years ago

That 40k number is flat out wrong.

"But even in Manhattan, nearly half of all rental apartments are rent-stabilized."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/realestate/rent-stabilized...

misiti37802• 13 years ago

there are a shitload of rent stabilized apartments though ...

http://www.housingnyc.com/html/resources/faq/rentstab.html#d...

"Rents Stabilization FAQ

See also Rent Control FAQ's

Is there a difference between RENT CONTROL and RENT STABILIZATION? What exactly is rent stabilization? Can my landlord evict me and use my stabilized apartment for his family, and how many apartments in the building can he take? What happens when the rent for my stabilized apartment rises above $2,500? How can I find out if my apartment is stabilized? Can the management company sell my stabilized apartment? Similar buildings in my neighborhood are stabilized - why isn't mine? Should my landlord inform me that my unit is stabilized? Disclaimer: By providing answers to frequently asked questions, the staff of the Rent Guidelines Board attempts to clarify the often complex programs and regulations governing landlord tenant relations in NYC. However, the information provided herein does not represent official policies or opinions of the City of New York or the Rent Guidelines Board nor should this information be used to substitute for advice of legal counsel.

Is there a difference between RENT CONTROL and RENT STABILIZATION?

Some of the people who email us say "rent controlled" but actually MEAN rent stabilized -- they do not know the difference.

Why is it so hard to be accurate? There is a difference between rent control and rent stabilization, as only about 38,000 rent controlled units exist vs. about one million stabilized units, and rent control has a different set of regulations than rent stabilization.

The term "rent regulated" encompasses both rent controlled and rent stabilized units. By the way, the Rent Guidelines Board has the responsibility for setting rent adjustments for rent stabilized apartments. We have no jurisdiction over rent controlled apartments, which is the responsibility of the NY State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR). "

bkirkbri• 13 years ago

What's he want, more rent control?

That's one option.

To put "the 1%" 'up against a wall'?

That kind of hyperbole is unwarranted given the very reasonable tone of the article.

What is this article other than a whiny complaint, pandering to the envious masses?

I'd call it an astute observation by a creative, intelligent person about the city in which lives.

jlgreco14• 13 years ago

A hyperbolic call to action is more useful than no call to action at all. This sort of article really rubs me the wrong way, I apologize for my overly abrasive tone.

VLM• 13 years ago

I think he wants the 1% to leave because they're not artists but their presence drives up prices. There's only space for one of them in that town...

Kind of like no one can afford to live in SV unless they're in tech and/or are rich.

Price out the producing class, production leaves the area.

jlgreco14• 13 years ago

If it wasn't the rich, it would be the "yuppies" out-bidding the grunge and punk. One scape-goat or another, when really all it boils down to is that they don't have enough money to live wherever they want to. Welcome to reality. I can't afford to live on the beach in Malibu, is that a social injustice too?

codemonkeymike• 13 years ago

Well you could always move to New Jersey, Not much better but for me I have no plans to move away from the east cost.

so_says3• 13 years ago

Towards the end of the article, Mr. Bryne touches on a topic that is at the heart of a city devoid of culture --- people who buy large swaths of property and then do not live here. We don't need rent control, but we do need to build affordable housing instead of luxury condo after luxury condo for people to use a few weeks out of the year. The least expensive average rental price for a studio is $1481/month. Landlords require you to earn 40x the monthly rent. That's $60K a year. That's a nice living in most places in the US. In NYC, it's just scraping by. http://www.mns.com/manhattan_rental_market_report

busterarm15• 13 years ago

I really think that New York City needs to institute _massive_ tax penalties for people who don't reside in their apartments as a primary residence. I know that our property taxes are already high, but just about everywhere else has big incentives for residing in your property.

There's a lot of apartments in manhattan that are only lived in ~4 weeks a year and aren't rented out otherwise. I wouldn't be opposed to a higher tax rate for those properties. They're effectively jacking up other people's rents and making them have to commute from farther away.

jlgreco14• 13 years ago

Would such tax penalties stop the rich from renting/owning in NYC? I doubt it, they are rich after all. Would those tax penalties convince them to declare those homes their primary residence? Maybe, if they were American. But would declaring those homes to be their primary residence actually get them to spend more time in them? No.

Is it really a problem that rich people aren't living in all of their homes simultaneously? No. That is their own business, don't worry about what they do, worry about what you do.

What is next, complaining that middle class families often leave one car sitting idly in their driveway?

paddy_m• 13 years ago

NYC should remove zoning restrictions so that developers can build dense quickly. Density is what makes NYC great. Density is also what will bring down the rents. Increase the supply.

We also need to remove parking minimums across the whole city, currently they don't apply in Manhattan. Parking minimums can increase the cost of apartments up to 50% http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/09/16/apartment-blockers/

rayiner8• 13 years ago

I have a book of jokes from the 1970's. One of the jokes is "if it weren't for the muggings, there would be no human contact in New York." I remember reading it recently and finding it so anachronistic. The idea of getting mugged in Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn seems so alien to me today (though I remember as a visitor in the early 1990's the same areas seemed quite post-apocalyptic).

My point is... take off the rose colored glasses.

herbig• 13 years ago

If we're talking personal anecdotes, I live in Brooklyn and know three people who have been mugged in Brooklyn or Manhattan within the last five years.

I've never personally felt unsafe anywhere I go in Brooklyn at any time of the day/night, but my female friends do not share the same feelings. For them, walking alone at night in areas of Crown Heights or Bedstuy is not the best idea.

dannowatts2• 13 years ago

yep. first weekend of a friend moving to brooklyn, just outside williamsburg, my friend was mugged at knifepoint on the train. shitty things still happen :/

moogleii• 13 years ago

Quote from the article: "I don't romanticize the bad old days. I find the drop in crime over the last couple of decades refreshing. Manhattan and Brooklyn, those vibrant playgrounds, are way less scary than they were when I moved here. I have no illusions that there was a connection between that city on its knees and a flourishing of creativity; I don't believe that crime, danger and poverty make for good art. That's bullshit. But I also don't believe that the drop in crime means the city has to be more exclusively for those who have money. Increases in the quality of life should be for all, not just a few."

rayiner8• 13 years ago

What he fails to raelize is that the drop in crime is the result of the "Disney-ization" of New York City. All that "1%" money has been funneled into policing, redevelopment, etc.

Contrast: Philadelphia. In the 1970's, New York and Philadelphia were pretty similar. But New York was fortunate to be host to the financial boom of the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's, while Philadelphia saw its core industries continue to decline. Today, the per-capita murder rate in Philadelphia is more than 4x higher than New York's.

notahacker• 13 years ago

But why wouldn't Manhattan and Brooklyn landlords prefer rental incomes from financiers moving in from Long Island to the much smaller rental incomes from the struggling artists they replace? Who's paying for the artists to stay? And what about the vast majority of urban emigres that aren't artists and work far too many hours earning far too little disposable income to be active participants in art scenes. Do they deserve the same chance to stay? For that matter what about those people being displaced who actually are responsible for much of the crime; let's not forget that urban migration patterns affect crime rates as well as vice versa?

It's not exactly like members of the 1% don't cough up large chunks of change to support their preferred forms of art anyway (whether you consider that art to be less interesting, authentic or edgy than what it displaces or not). In that vein, I can literally watch the gentrification on my London street, and it'll look even more vibrant and arty once the boutiques and street cafes have fully replaced the betting shops, by which time I won't be able to afford the rent.

pessimizer3• 13 years ago

I don't believe that crime, danger and poverty make for good art. That's bullshit.

First of all, it's not. Second of all, "crime, danger and poverty" are not the opposite of high rents. Low rents are. Low rents make for good art. High rents make for good stockbrokers and bankers.

doktrin• 13 years ago

Did you read the whole piece before commenting? The author specifically mentions the hardships you describe.

bilbo0s• 13 years ago

"...The idea of getting mugged in Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn seems so alien to me today..."

???

Do you live in the City?

Because I know at least 2 people who have been mugged. In Brooklyn.

[Edit]:These muggings occurred over the course of the last year.

tootie• 13 years ago

I don't think he really proved his thesis. It seems like NYC is churning out artists at a faster rate than ever before. Most of our finest amenities and cultural institutions are thoroughly available to the 99%. I was at Brooklyn Bridge Park this weekend and it just felt like the pinnacle of urban society. The underpriveleged get cheap lacrosse lessons (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/nyregion/adding-diversity-...), Smorgasburg was grillin' up maple bacon, the hibachis in the picnic area were firing, kids were swinging on tires, there were soccer teams and amateur anglers pulling in East River bluefish. It was utterly spectacular.

gaius2• 13 years ago

Has there ever been a time without massive inequality in NYC? It's been a standard theme in TV and films for as long as I can remember that Manhattan is stunning wealth right next to Harlem's grinding poverty. Look at Eddie Murphy films from the 80s, Coming To America, Trading Places, etc. What's different now?

saidajigumi• 13 years ago

There's a vast difference between an NYC that has massive inequality and the NYC that's being created today -- one where gentrification that squeezes out not just "crime" but anyone below an upper class income status. That's the trend and future that Byrne describes:

If we look at the city as it is now, then we would have to say that it looks a lot like the divided city that presumptive mayor Bill de Blasio has been harping about: most of Manhattan and many parts of Brooklyn are virtual walled communities, pleasure domes for the rich (which, full disclosure, includes me), and aside from those of us who managed years ago to find our niche and some means of income, there is no room for fresh creative types. Middle-class people can barely afford to live here anymore, so forget about emerging artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, journalists and small business people. Bit by bit, the resources that keep the city vibrant are being eliminated.

He goes on to describe a number of elements that contribute to these trends:

The talent pool became a limited resource for any industry, except Wall Street. [...] any businesses that might have employed creative individuals were having difficulties surviving, and naturally, the arty types had a hard time finding employment, too.

Environment drives out creatives -> creative industries have hard time hiring (start moving elsewhere) -> Environment gets even worse for creatives.

gaius2• 13 years ago

Right, but gentrification is nothing new. Look at London. All the creatives (how I hate that term, as if everyone else isn't, but I digress) clustered around Old Street because it was cheap. They were edged out by hipsters with trust funds, like vampires sucking out the cultural blood. Earlier Islington was where the creatives lived, but they weren't edged out, they gentrified the place themselves, getting jobs in "the meeja"! But London is still a vibrant city. Now all the low-budget art is happening in formerly rough area Dalston.

a8da6b0c91d3• 13 years ago

Trading Places was set in Philadelphia for some strange reason.

dev_jim• 13 years ago

Those movies were addressing a contemporary phenomenon when inequality took off again after being relatively dormant since the 1920's. A combination of deregulation, a reduction in top tax rate, and demand for all kinds of debt caused an explosion of wealth on Wall Street. Meanwhile the rest of city was still recovering from being bankrupt in the 70s.

Pxtl4• 13 years ago

The only way to fix the crazy housing market of NYC is to make more places like NYC. As long as NYC remains a completely unique singular jewel of successful urban living while the rest of the country embraces suburban sprawl and terrible transit, NYC will remain almost comedically expensive.

MrZongle2• 13 years ago

Causing a problem to spread to more areas so the original area's problem isn't as bad relatively isn't a solution.

That's madness.

Pxtl4• 13 years ago

When the problem is caused by a shortage of supply (prestigious NYC housing) compared to the crazy-high demand? Then yes, more supply is a solution.

jlgreco14• 13 years ago

Being a desirable place to live isn't a "problem" it is a feature.

Being the only desirable place to live might be problematic to some people who want to live in that desirable place cheaply, but the solution to that is not to tear down the desirable place to the same level as other cities, "Harrison Bergeron" style.

dannowatts2• 13 years ago

i've been a fan of david byrne for some time and so i may be a bit biased in saying that i think he is spot on.

as an artist myself, it's refreshing to hear someone who has 'made it' be honest and authentic in his representation of struggling as an artist. it's comforting as well that he isn't disillusioned about his success, his talent, the luck, the struggles. and he wants to use his success to help the current/next generation of artists and creatives get a foothold in the city? cheers to him!

nostromo• 13 years ago

I think New York should welcome the uber-rich with open arms. NY's history is all about 1%ers, like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller and Bloomberg.

But what is deleterious to the feel of the city, in my view, is the Dubai-ization of the real-estate market. Entire buildings are empty. Apparently the global elite buy and sell New York real-estate like they do oil futures: not to use but as an investment. These folks aren't citizens, like the Billionaires I mentioned above, but transients.

The New York Times had a good article on these empty buildings earlier this year: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/nyregion/paying-top-dollar...

“I was living on the 16th floor, and I was pretty much the only one there,” said Charlie Attias, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group who rented an apartment at the Plaza for three years and has handled many transactions in the building. “We had the occasional visitor — I mean, the occasional owner — once in a while. Actually, when we saw somebody, it was a big thing,” he added. “Oh wow, somebody’s in my hallway!”

badman_ting• 13 years ago

I think New York should welcome the uber-rich with open arms.
But what is deleterious to the feel of the city, in my view, is the Dubai-ization of the real estate market.

OK, but that's being done by rich people buying properties as investments.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

>“I was living on the 16th floor, and I was pretty much the only one there,” said Charlie Attias, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group who rented an apartment at the Plaza for three years and has handled many transactions in the building. “We had the occasional visitor — I mean, the occasional owner — once in a while. Actually, when we saw somebody, it was a big thing,” he added. “Oh wow, somebody’s in my hallway!”

I'm pretty sure this is just me, but that sounds awesome. I love the idea of having an entire high-rise to myself and whoever I'm living with.

pessimizer3• 13 years ago

NY's history is all about 1%ers, like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller and Bloomberg.

Not New York's creative history, which is largely based in gradual urban decay and eventually the default. Affordable housing for artists near affordable venues for art are what creates art (if that's not too obvious.)

jamesbritt3• 13 years ago

which is largely based in gradual urban decay and eventually the default.

Indeed. NYC in the '70s and '80s was a dangerously magical (and magically dangerous) place.

Some good resources:

VH1's (no, seriously) "NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1080761/)

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever (http://www.amazon.com/Love-Goes-Buildings-Fire-ebook/dp/B005...)

I'd be interested in anyone can recommend good books or movies about the NYC art scene of the late '70s or '80s. (I've seen Downtown 81; it's good, but not a documentary. It does capture the downtown NYC of that time, though.)

The whole loft scene was a result of squatting in empty industrial facilities, thanks to economic downturn.

bradleyjg• 13 years ago

Queens is still here and as ethnically diverse as ever. The Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn West and South, and Manhattan North of 110 Street are all places where people live. You don't see many pied-à-terres on Grand Concourse.

These complaints are from one warring faction of the wealthy. One faction wants total isolation in their neighborhoods and the other wants a sprinkle of the right kind of poor person as scenery. To me it's an irrelevant debate. I couldn't possibly care any less whether young bankers or young artists dominate the East Village.

Let them have their whole foods and their dog walkers and their prestigious addresses. We have an income tax -- they are contributing tax money for the rest of us. Even the absentees are paying property taxes while not consuming any services.

All of this strikes me as the rich complaining about the richer, while trying to couch their complaints in populist rhetoric.

zwieback• 13 years ago

This is a good time for a plug of William Dean Howells' "A Hazard of New Fortunes", a 100+ year old book about the difficulties of starting a new creative endeavor in NY. It features a countryish financier who made his fortune in natural gas and lots of anecdotes about apartment hunting in NY of the 1890s.

qohen• 13 years ago

Available for free download or reading online at Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4600

Or, if you prefer, here's the tl;dr version:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hazard_of_New_Fortunes

rwhitman• 13 years ago

Having lived in both NYC and Los Angeles for extended periods of time, NYC for the last 3 years and LA for the previous 7, I was surprised by how little of the underground creative DIY energy is left here. When I first moved to Brooklyn 2 years ago I was invited to some loft parties and underground art events, but compared to LA they felt "manufactured" - as if trying to nostalgically reproduce something that was lost - rather than the unabashed fuck all mentality of the downtown LA underground art scene. Which is bizarre, because everything I had known to date had told me it was supposed to be the other way around.

From my perspective NYC has already begun its final transformation into total yuppie assimilation - it takes a good half hour subway ride from Manhattan before you can run into any genuine 'starving artists' any more. Even places like Bed-Stuy are now loaded with wine bars and upscale restaurants. A loft space even deep into Queens is a coveted piece of real estate.

There's really not much compelling left for someone who spends their nights being creative while squeaking by day on a coffee shop barista salary. While there are ample opportunities there isn't much of a way to invest the time into making them work - anyone squeaking by can't afford to live here without spending their evenings and creative time working a second job, and the living space that they have to work in is in many cases literally a creativity-stifling closet with no windows. Thats why so many people in this situation are migrating to rural suburbs or cities like Portland or Philadelphia where the low cost of living allows you to have both affordable workspace and some free time for art.

There really isn't a way to undo this situation unless the cost of real estate in NYC drops precipitously, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

alexnorman2• 13 years ago

I am not a huge fan of this thread but I am compelled to comment being a native New Yorker. The 1% clearly refers to a "post-Guiliani" New York which has both positive and certainly negative sentiment from most who live here. However, to better understand the creative complexities of the city is to think of it as just that, a city... with 5 boroughs not just certain areas of Manhattan and certain areas of brooklyn but also Bronx, Queens, Washington heights and all the other areas that still blossom with creativity that once were clearly visible in the now over commercialized areas of soho and tribeca. Don't fret, creativity still abounds just not in plain-view, but in those areas that are less frequented by the "rag & bone" set...

David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent, I'm out of here

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