I see a lot of today’s dedicated artists who don’t want to have to grind like mad just to afford rent moving to mid-size cities or even small towns. It’s really

I see a lot of today’s dedicated artists who don’t want to have to grind like mad just to afford rent moving to mid-size cities or even small towns. It’s really the only economically rational move. Big cities have priced out any culture that is not either subsidized somehow (e.g. trust fund) or already established. I’d argue that many have even priced out entrepreneurship that is not lavishly funded by VC or founder capital. My generation (I am on the young gen-X / old millennial cusp) believed, with some truth, that one had to go to one of maybe six to ten cities to do anything cutting edge in most fields. For young people today I don’t think this is true anymore, and if anything these cities have become traps that will destroy your ability to become established. As would be predicted by the “law of rent,” real estate costs have grown so as to soak up any advantage in being in these places.