About this:<p>"I think we may be coming to the end of a period where being an artist was synonymous with being urban, unless we are willing to fight for it—but before I start it, let me say that I have mixed feelings about my own conclusions."<p>The great art scenes tend to emerge in great urban centers that are going through an economic crisis. That is why New York's art scene was so hot back when "white flight" was in the news -- when all the whites moved the suburbs, and New York almost defaulted on its debt, then New York was a the world capitol of art. That was an era when New York had low rents.<p>Artists need 2 things that rarely come together: a concentration of cultural capital/amenities plus low rent. A growing city with a thriving industrial base rarely produces a great art scene. It's when the crisis hits, and therefore rents are low, that the art scene flourishes. Many of the great "golden ages" of art arose at a time when urban centers were already in decline. Much of what we think of as the Italian Renaissance happened after 1492, when the trade routes suddenly shifted to the Atlantic, and the Italian city-states saw their trade erode. Likewise, the Spanish golden age, in art, occurred after the shipments of gold and silver, from the New World, went into decline.<p>For the last 20 years we've seen cities such as Berlin emerge as great art scenes, and again, they follow the same pattern: the struggle to integrate the old Communist regions into the rest of Germany has proceeded with painful slowness, and Berlin offers a great cultural center with low rents (certainly low compared to New York, though rents in Berlin have been rising quite a lot).<p>The emergence of a thriving software scene in New York certainly puts pressure on the art scene in New York. It's possible that the center of art in the USA will find a new home. There are many cities in the USA that are still facing economic crisis and therefore offer low rents. New Orleans, Asheville and many other regional centers have incipient art scenes and low rents. Maybe one of them will evolve toward being the arts center in the USA? But of course, we live in a globalized world, so it is possible that a place like Berlin could emerge as the favored location for USA artists.