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In the 2000 census, somewhere around 150,000 New Yorkers described themselves as working in the arts, design, entertainment, and sports occupations. These people, making up 4.3% of the total working population, are the nucleus of what urban theorist Richard Florida calls the "creative class".
This map, showing the density of artists and designers in the five boroughs, confirms what we already intuitively know: the creative class is centered in neighborhoods with the most cultural activity. Indeed, more than a fifth of residents in Chelsea, the Village, Soho, Tribeca, DUMBO, Williamsburg and Long Island City are engaged in creative pursuits.
Still, there are a few surprises. Clinton Hill, Long Island City and the Upper West Side are each home to comparatively more artists and designers than the Lower East Side, while Washington Heights contains the highest concentration north of Midtown.
From The Strokes to aNYthing's Aaron Bondaroff, New York's Creative Class has been an important element of reviving the city's status as cultural capital in the last decade. But are they actually essential to maintaining a healthy economy, as Florida thinks? And what can be done about artists' contradictory role both catalyst and victim of gentrification?
Adam Brock, Gothamist's mapper in residence, is a GIS specialist at the Pratt Center for Community Development and a sustainable design student at NYU's Gallatin School.
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"...the creative class is centered in neighborhoods with the most cultural activity."
How are you defining "cultural activity"?
(But are they actually essential to maintaining a healthy economy, as Florida thinks?)
The "creative class," if expanded to include media and fashion, generates a lot of new business activity. So does the "technological class" and the "financial class."
The importance of the former to central cities is its location preference. If the map were expanded to include the suburbs, it would still look as it is. This group prefers central locations, and works best when provided with extensive interaction with other people.
The financial class is more likely to live in the suburbs, even if working in the city.
The technological class, they say, prefers isolated "nerdistans" in the suburbs.
"Still, there are a few surprises. Clinton Hill, Long Island City and the Upper West Side are each home to comparatively more artists and designers than the Lower East Side"
Who in god's name would consider that a surprise? Get out of the house a little.
If anything I think it shows new york as a media-hub. Look at the difference between midtown office prices and downtown ones. The media is booming, eclipsing a consolidated and relatively sickly financial center.
All that said, there is no way that the amount of artists in the area do anything but give NYC great PR on the world stage which probably generates business in the form of psychological desireability of living and doing business there.
I think I'll pick up the creative class book today.
Nice graphic, but note that it's based on 2000 Census figures and therefore may be somewhat out of date.
The map is somewhat misleading in that it shows only a percentage of population working in the creative industries and not the number of people. This might explain the slightly eggagerated weight put on low-residential-density industrial areas like Long Island City and the area around the Gowanus Canal. Naturally a high percentage of the population of those areas are artists; who else chooses to live amidst sheet metal fabricators and beverage distributors rather than tapas bars and schools?
I'm curious about the hotspots in the more densely-populated neighborhoods. In midtown, Hell's Kitchen is home to actors and entertainment industry-types, but what about that odd blob around East 59th street?
A second axis of data showing total population per neighborhood would certainly help flesh out this map's story.
any job sector that provides services or goods to those both within and outside the local area drives the economy, so that would include the arts and also finance, technology etc as a previous poster mentioned. I think that's economic base theory.
just after i clicked on the "creative class" link at the start of this article, the first thing I saw on the new page was a large banner reading "Creative ShOpportunities". And then I threw up in my mouth.
If you're surprised about Clinton Hill, it's where Pratt is located. I think some people who describe themselves as "artists" live around there.
UWS is still -relatively- affordable in the northern reaches, there's Columbia, etc.
That map is out of date, circa 2000 - you'll probably find a big chunk of downtown Manhattan pouring into Brooklyn, and Brooklyn deeper into Brooklyn, and more of a presence in Queens. I'd imagine that 90% of those creative class East Village / LES residents have been replaced by brown-suit accountants.
"describe themselves as "artists"" LOL!
""Creative ShOpportunities". And then I threw up in my mouth."
lol...way to funny..
"describe themselves as "artists"" LOL!
""Creative ShOpportunities". And then I threw up in my mouth."
lol...way to funny..
As a few folks have pointed out, the 2000 was an eon ago in NYC's roiling real estate market, and the map would probably look a bit different today. The expansion into E Williamsburg and Bushwick would be much more pronounced, and there might just be a pocket of tan in the South Bronx.
However, I doubt that it would show much of a decrease in areas that artists can no longer afford. The map shows people in the arts AND design professions - this covers not only the starving artists but ad execs and movie stars as well. That's why the 2000 map shows Soho, long-since gentrified, as dark purple.
I don't want to complain about the accuracy of the map, but I didn't realize there were creative people inhabiting Central park legally. Why is it colored like there are creative people, or for that matter any people, living there? The map is dated 2000, did they throw people out of CP after that year?
In Florida’s world, of course, decisions are never a matter of economics. And in his desperation to deny the most basic facts of the world we live in, he has mistaken the side effects of a booming economy – restaurants serving nouveau cuisine, quirky coffeeshops, art galleries, a vibrant music scene, a movie theater showing old foreign films, Dieselboy – for the causes of growth. His advice to cities is, in effect, to build Potemkin bohemias, complete with authentic edginess, leveraged culture assets, and street-level culture, all prepared for those esteemed dignitaries, the members of the creative class, to arrive.
-- Paul Maliszewski
I live in Washington Heights, and whenever I meet someone new and the subject of what they do for a living comes up, invariably, the person does something in the arts, myself included. It's no surprise, really, since Washington Heights is still affordable, has large apartments, great neighborhood parks (many of these people have small children) and has the A Express.
Since that map doesn't define what being "creative" means (are advertising salemen included?), makes no accounting for neighborhood density, and is six years out of date, its pretty much useless. Do creative people live in DUMBO anymore? Still it looks pretty.