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> Hoberman makes clear one crucial factor in the city’s creative energy: “cheap rents.” I keep seeing this in various places. The rise of the "College Music" s

> Hoberman makes clear one crucial factor in the city’s creative energy: “cheap rents.” I keep seeing this in various places. The rise of the "College Music" scene in Athens, Georgia during the 80's has also been in part attributed to the cheap rent in the student ghettos (typical of many college towns). Growing up in Kansas City, the neighborhoods around the Kansas City Art Institute were also low-rent. Child (impressionable) me remembers walking through the neighborhood at night, let by my mom, for the free Friday night film ("Journey to the Far Side of the Sun", "Fantastic Planet" to name a few I recall). There was a large chicken leg sculpture, perhaps 8' tall in one yard that always spooked me to walk past. Some kind of sculpture of broken bits of mirror and glass made another small lot look like an alien set from "Star Trek"....

SecretDreams 1y ago
It turns out that when it's more affordable to live, more people will have things to live for and focus on beyond just grinding to pay rent and scrounging dollars to buy food. We've collectively destroyed this concept for the next generation of young people and we need to desperately course correct.
- coldpie 1y ago
  > We've collectively destroyed this concept for the next generation of young people and we need to desperately course correct. Sorry, turns out it's economically way more important for the richest two dozen people in the world to turn all of our collective resources into computer programs that will tell them how special and cool and inventive and totally not "the man" they are. Anything that gets in the way of that must be destroyed.
  - dnissley 1y ago
    It was actually just everyday people who chose to destroy the concept of cheap housing, not "the richest two dozen people in the world". By limiting supply in the name of neighborhood character, boomer environmentalism, and property values.
    - kurthr 1y ago
      No, it was the banks that held the mortgages, and the builders and real estate agents who make the most on rising prices. You can't buy a house without selling the one you live in... without leverage!
      - xmprt 1y ago
        I don't know what kind of backwards logic that is. Banks help first time homebuyers purchase their house. Builders build houses and add supply that helps meet demand (everyone needs a place to live). Real estate agents help navigate the process for people who are unfamiliar with all the different steps. There are bad actors in all of these (banks caused the financial crisis and agents are probably paid more than they're worth for $1M+ houses in CA), but the biggest root cause that's missing from your comment is NIMBYs blocking new development almost everywhere.
        JKCalhoun 1y ago
        Not seeing "NIMBYism" in Nebraska. Instead I am seeing developers who would rather build an upper-middle class neighborhood, not a starter home one, because they can get a much larger profit for only a little more effort/material-cost. I suppose when they are finally unable to sell them they'll start addressing starter homes. I have no idea who could still be buying all of these though. (Perhaps people leaving CA like I did after retiring — they're not going to like the property tax rate though.)
        dnissley 1y ago
        NE seems relatively affordable? Expecting starter homes to be a category of real estate that is newly built seems naive. Starter homes are some combination of older, smaller, bad location which makes them more affordable. Why wouldn't real estate developers satisfy the demand at the high end before moving down market? Seems like the easiest way to turn a profit to me. Rational actors etc
        setr 1y ago
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- kurthr 1y ago
  Real estate and rent, just like bitcoin, designer fashion, "art work", and watches. Unfortunately, you need somewhere to live. If it's more profitable to hold empty real estate than or less dense/improved property waiting for it to go up then that's what will happen. If people can effectively speculate on something in a leveraged high liquidity environment, they will, and prices will go up. Look at the terrifyingly overbuilt real estate in China with pricing comparable to NYC or London and huge vacancy rates.
fiftyacorn 1y ago
Barry Miles book "London Calling" about the evolution of london counter culture post-war also cites this with all the artists living in squats
awongh 1y ago
I always believed in that narrative but nowadays I do think there's some selection bias at work- no one mentions all the other places that have some creative people that were never the birthing ground for a cultural movement. Because after a certain point I realized- lots of places are cheap (sure slightly less now) but not everywhere is going to produce some kind of large scale cultural movement. The one that a lot of people seem to know is Detroit- for the last 20 years everyone has been saying wow, lots of artists, wow, you can buy a house for $10 or whatever, but that hasn't been enough. Sadly a part of me believes that maybe physically localized culture isn't a thing anymore with the internet. Being able to make beats / tiktoks anywhere is too much of a counter-force to people being in the same physical space, no matter how much people seem to love the idea- and this is the true boring reason why this doesn't happen anymore, not that *blame the boomers* rent has gone up.
- msgodel 1y ago
  I think for localized culture to develop it needs to be exclusive in addition to the need for it to be cheap for people to focus on cultural rather than economic output. Outsiders hate being excluded though so the barriers all get knocked down. In face our modern social norm considers any kind of exclusion a moral failure, even excluding people who dislike the social norms. Maybe this results in a more efficient (perhaps even more pleasant) society but the cost is unique local culture.
  - flir 1y ago
    I think it's more about Capitalism. It took about 6 weeks for grunge to make it from a Seattle basement to a Paris catwalk, and that was three decades ago. If it might make money, it'll get amplified.
    - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
      Nirvana debuted in 1988 and it wasn't until 1991 that they hit it big and brought grunge to the larger music world outside of the region. We were drowning in crappy corporate driven pop prior to that for years (with bright spots like techno, industrial, etc.)
thomassmith65 1y ago
Mark Fisher was arguing the point about cheap rent ages ago in 'The Slow Cancellation of the Future'. As an example, he used London squats in the 70s enabling punk rock.
rex_gallorum2 1y ago
There was a connection between deindustrialization in American cities (and the crappy property market in the 80s) and the music and arts scenes in the 80s and 90s. It was relatively cheap and easy to set up studios, galleries, music venues, or just squat in empty industrial buildings. Property owners were happy to have someone to keep the lights on and keep the bums out. Stages and makeshift bars were built out of scraps, and bands were booked, and people came. Music scenes used to require physical spaces (and arguably still do) to breathe and take shape. I've watched interviews in which veteran musicians from one city in Texas describe how things developed in the 80s - it was all made possible by rock bottom rents and tons of empty warehouse space. I think the situation was similar across much of the US. Space was cheap enough to allow for low-profit activities and businesses to take root. The stakes were very low compared to today. An analogous situation emerged in other places (in part for different reasons) such as the former East Berlin. I would guess similar circumstances also emerged in the UK around the same time - perhaps someone here can confirm.

SecretDreams 1y ago

It turns out that when it's more affordable to live, more people will have things to live for and focus on beyond just grinding to pay rent and scrounging dollars to buy food. We've collectively destroyed this concept for the next generation of young people and we need to desperately course correct.

coldpie 1y ago
> We've collectively destroyed this concept for the next generation of young people and we need to desperately course correct. Sorry, turns out it's economically way more important for the richest two dozen people in the world to turn all of our collective resources into computer programs that will tell them how special and cool and inventive and totally not "the man" they are. Anything that gets in the way of that must be destroyed.
- dnissley 1y ago
  It was actually just everyday people who chose to destroy the concept of cheap housing, not "the richest two dozen people in the world". By limiting supply in the name of neighborhood character, boomer environmentalism, and property values.
  - kurthr 1y ago
    No, it was the banks that held the mortgages, and the builders and real estate agents who make the most on rising prices. You can't buy a house without selling the one you live in... without leverage!
    - xmprt 1y ago
      I don't know what kind of backwards logic that is. Banks help first time homebuyers purchase their house. Builders build houses and add supply that helps meet demand (everyone needs a place to live). Real estate agents help navigate the process for people who are unfamiliar with all the different steps. There are bad actors in all of these (banks caused the financial crisis and agents are probably paid more than they're worth for $1M+ houses in CA), but the biggest root cause that's missing from your comment is NIMBYs blocking new development almost everywhere.
      - JKCalhoun 1y ago
        Not seeing "NIMBYism" in Nebraska. Instead I am seeing developers who would rather build an upper-middle class neighborhood, not a starter home one, because they can get a much larger profit for only a little more effort/material-cost. I suppose when they are finally unable to sell them they'll start addressing starter homes. I have no idea who could still be buying all of these though. (Perhaps people leaving CA like I did after retiring — they're not going to like the property tax rate though.)
        dnissley 1y ago
        NE seems relatively affordable? Expecting starter homes to be a category of real estate that is newly built seems naive. Starter homes are some combination of older, smaller, bad location which makes them more affordable. Why wouldn't real estate developers satisfy the demand at the high end before moving down market? Seems like the easiest way to turn a profit to me. Rational actors etc
        setr 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
kurthr 1y ago
Real estate and rent, just like bitcoin, designer fashion, "art work", and watches. Unfortunately, you need somewhere to live. If it's more profitable to hold empty real estate than or less dense/improved property waiting for it to go up then that's what will happen. If people can effectively speculate on something in a leveraged high liquidity environment, they will, and prices will go up. Look at the terrifyingly overbuilt real estate in China with pricing comparable to NYC or London and huge vacancy rates.

fiftyacorn 1y ago

Barry Miles book "London Calling" about the evolution of london counter culture post-war also cites this with all the artists living in squats

awongh 1y ago

I always believed in that narrative but nowadays I do think there's some selection bias at work- no one mentions all the other places that have some creative people that were never the birthing ground for a cultural movement. Because after a certain point I realized- lots of places are cheap (sure slightly less now) but not everywhere is going to produce some kind of large scale cultural movement. The one that a lot of people seem to know is Detroit- for the last 20 years everyone has been saying wow, lots of artists, wow, you can buy a house for $10 or whatever, but that hasn't been enough. Sadly a part of me believes that maybe physically localized culture isn't a thing anymore with the internet. Being able to make beats / tiktoks anywhere is too much of a counter-force to people being in the same physical space, no matter how much people seem to love the idea- and this is the true boring reason why this doesn't happen anymore, not that *blame the boomers* rent has gone up.

msgodel 1y ago
I think for localized culture to develop it needs to be exclusive in addition to the need for it to be cheap for people to focus on cultural rather than economic output. Outsiders hate being excluded though so the barriers all get knocked down. In face our modern social norm considers any kind of exclusion a moral failure, even excluding people who dislike the social norms. Maybe this results in a more efficient (perhaps even more pleasant) society but the cost is unique local culture.
- flir 1y ago
  I think it's more about Capitalism. It took about 6 weeks for grunge to make it from a Seattle basement to a Paris catwalk, and that was three decades ago. If it might make money, it'll get amplified.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
    Nirvana debuted in 1988 and it wasn't until 1991 that they hit it big and brought grunge to the larger music world outside of the region. We were drowning in crappy corporate driven pop prior to that for years (with bright spots like techno, industrial, etc.)

thomassmith65 1y ago

Mark Fisher was arguing the point about cheap rent ages ago in 'The Slow Cancellation of the Future'. As an example, he used London squats in the 70s enabling punk rock.

rex_gallorum2 1y ago

There was a connection between deindustrialization in American cities (and the crappy property market in the 80s) and the music and arts scenes in the 80s and 90s. It was relatively cheap and easy to set up studios, galleries, music venues, or just squat in empty industrial buildings. Property owners were happy to have someone to keep the lights on and keep the bums out. Stages and makeshift bars were built out of scraps, and bands were booked, and people came. Music scenes used to require physical spaces (and arguably still do) to breathe and take shape. I've watched interviews in which veteran musicians from one city in Texas describe how things developed in the 80s - it was all made possible by rock bottom rents and tons of empty warehouse space. I think the situation was similar across much of the US. Space was cheap enough to allow for low-profit activities and businesses to take root. The stakes were very low compared to today. An analogous situation emerged in other places (in part for different reasons) such as the former East Berlin. I would guess similar circumstances also emerged in the UK around the same time - perhaps someone here can confirm.