> Maybe somewhere I haven't heard of (cause I don't live in NYC) in Queens or the Bronx? I don't know if you'd have the same access to culture and money living

> Maybe somewhere I haven't heard of (cause I don't live in NYC) in Queens or the Bronx? I don't know if you'd have the same access to culture and money living in some far-off non-subway-served part of the Bronx though. Large parts of the southern Bronx are served by subway and still affordable. The have relatively bad crime stats and you may feel out of place but all that was true in the LES in the 80s too. And even if there aren't great commuting options to the financial district or midtown, you don't necessarily need to be in quick commuting distance to take advantage of the proximity to the cultural institutions. It's still going to be far easier for your indie band to get booked into some west village bar if you are based out of some far corner of the Bronx than if you are based out of Cincinnati. And if you develop your own artsy section of the Bronx the millionaires that want to feel cool can take uber up there. All that said, the Bronx runs into the whole "gentrification" debate in a way that I don't think some of these other towns across the rust belt do. I get the sense that in at least some of these cities everyone, or almost everyone, is happy to get any kind of population influx.