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Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

I live in Berlin, which has a history of being both poor and having an extremely creative subculture.

It's interesting but sad watching that creativity vanish as the rents rise. There's more money here now, but less creativity.

I think this apparent contradiction is resolved by asking "who had the time to be creative?". When rents were low, artists could make ends meet and still have time to create. As rents are rising, the artists are pushed out, or forced to spend more time making money. The new tenants are people earning decent money, who again are either working too hard to create, or are not "artistic" in that sense (me included).

The old squats and communal housing are being redeveloped, the graffiti-covered walls are being repainted so the houses they cover keep their value. The focus moves from "poor but sexy" to "let's make lots of money". Everyone is richer, except the culture.

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Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct.

It's a concern that spans decades.

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same.

(Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)

I came in TO in the middle oughts and there were patches of the city still having that artsy, edgy and unkempt vibe, and even the commercial Yonge strip from Bloor down to Queen was atmospheric. All got lost to the glass condo towers, and the faux hipster hoods are souless and uninteresting. I feel Toronto became a victim of its own success, great economic progress does not equal vibrant and livable city!

Absolutely. I came here in 2006 for a few years and there were still plenty of spaces, though the old ones were lost. Came back in 2010 and things had moved a little further west again. Found a bit of a haven in and around Bloor/Dufferin to Lansdowne and up to Dupont, but all of my old spots there have nearly shut down and further extraordinarily large developments are planned. Used to play semi-regularly at The Silver Dollar (RIP). Grimey, but fun.

Parkdale still has its moments but even it is being hit now and Little Tibet is feeling that sting.

There's constant [sad/angry] joking about every block consisting of Shopper's Drug Mart, Rexall, Starbucks, and bubble tea. It's not at all that bad yet, but it's also not as much of a satire as it sounds, sadly.

These days my partner and I have been strongly considering a move to Hamilton if we can sort it out with our work.

As a resident of Toronto I feel less bad about the visual display of the city and worse about the outflux of artistic talent. So many artists I knew a decade ago are living far out in the burbs, where it is harder to find events and develop talent. There are new artists but the artistic communities are becoming a mix of young people and people with corporate jobs. Very few people pursuing their craft full time are making a viable wage in Toronto and this bodes ill for future generations of art in the city.

Case in point, close to where my humble abode is, there is a newly built artscape center, a supposed hub of a condo tower with spaces for installations and happenings. Well, since it is a newly built unit, it falls outside of rental control bylaws, thanks to the boneheaded legislature introduced by the wrecking ball that is Doug Ford, and the rents there promptly went up 20% or so at the end of the initial one year leases, so all the struggling artists that this artscape hub was supposed to provide home to, started leaving in droves.

replace toronto with Manhattan's lower east side, or brooklyn's williamsburg or sf's mission district, or all of oakland

The artist scene is constantly moving taking advantage of unsafe areas making them safe so they can be pushed out once word gets out this is an artist area.

That’s my observation too. When it’s protected, it rots as it yields elites and keeps outsiders out. It becomes a reference point to pseudo intellectuals so they can judge anybody who diverge from this mecca, up until some other place replaces it and becomes a museum.

so... where are the places that are experiencing the other trend?

Where are the artists going to?

Where are the places that used to be rich, but are becoming "poor but sexy"?

Sometimes they don't just move. Sometimes the arts scene and communities are just dissolved and they "suck it up" and get a "real job" like... [from personal experience] get a real estate license so they can pay the bills and end up settling down.

The savvy ones scrounged up enough to buy property and either hold out their with less of a community, or they sell and move and just do their own thing.

In Ontario, there isn't a cheaper place for quite an expanse. Hamilton or other smaller cities are a bit of the last holdouts. But because of some of the exodus from Toronto (and like cities) they are being bought up and redeveloped as well.

Some escape to small towns, but those usually stay small and grow sleepy even though they're interesting places.

I've always worked a day job, even at my most active, so I've kind of had one foot in both worlds.

Cities were attractive because people were close together—there was variety, word could get around. They were vivacious. It would be terrible to see that completely snuffed out.

Leipzig

Interesting, thanks. A new place on my "must visit while I'm in Germany" list :)

I heard the same almost 10 years ago. Is it still true?

Calgary!

oh, you said poor AND sexy...

funny enough though, as oil and gas declines in importance (and loud, oxygen-sucking volume) some new and preexisting voices are getting an opportunity to emerge. We're young, educated and ambitious so despite poor economic fundamentals I'm bullish ...

Detroit has been trying to cultivate this recently, best of luck to them. There are places in Baltimore too.

Hong Kong and Tokyo somehow manage to stay creative and interesting despite being more expensive per square foot than the new Toronto.

The difference, in my uneducated opinion: commercial and retail space in those cities goes up. It is not strictly at street level, as in Toronto. Look up and you will see signs for bunny cafes, stationery, restaurants, all kinds of small/odd fashion stores...

All the condo districts in Toronto look the same: a small sliver of retail on the ground floor, invariably Rexall, Rabba's, or Aromas. And that's pretty much it.

Would love to hear from someone more familiar with urban planning on this topic.

Didn't Tokyo actively encourage building?

Toronto is fairly encouraging of building as well. It's just that it's the fastest growing city in the western world so demand is growing faster than supply.

Most cities have problems with staying creative in the face of high rents because most artist jobs pay very poorly (unless you're one of the few who makes it big). It's pretty terrible that musicians, writers, painters and sculptors tend to be in salary brackets where they can never retire and never own a home unless they become huge.

The art and culture of a city will suffer greatly if the next generation of artists is entirely forced into corporate jobs with part time on art. This is even more true if those jobs require creativity reducing the creative energy available for art.

Toronto is building a lot, but you basically see more expensive condos that are already sold out for people who doesn't even live there

“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine.” - John Adams

Seems like we are regressing from artists back to "mathematicks". Hopefully we don't regress further into "Politicks and War".

This is an amazing quote that I'm glad I now know. Thanks for sharing!

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