Anomie of the Artists

"Tennessee Williams once purportedly quipped, "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland." His witticism holds much less humor now that an aspiring generation of cultural creators can't afford to live in New York or San Francisco and New Orleans has been wiped off the cultural map, at least for the foreseeable future.

Generations of flawed planning and transportation policy have extinguished vibrant urban life from all but a handful of American cities. For writers, who merely need an affordable room of one's own, the hyper-gentrification of places like New York and San Francisco is less of a disaster than it is for musicians and artists who need exposure in high-profile cities to get noticed."

"What happens when the culture creators get geographically separated from the culture financiers and purveyors? Will more and more cities resemble Washington, D.C., a place where great art is displayed but never created, and Philadelphia, where it is created but rarely displayed?"