Working artist's dilemma

I grew up in this city, and prize the energy and diversity of all of our neighborhoods. As a working artist, I need a workspace. I also don't make a lot of money. So I rent what I can afford, in industrial areas. Like other small manufacturers, we working artists are priced out again and again: as industrial zones become filled with hotels, restaurants, and "creative/tech" firms, working artists, makers, musicians, and jobs-producing manufacturers are priced out. This has happened in Soho, Williamsburg, Gowanus, LIC, etc. I've been priced out of Manhattan, Park Slope, and Greenpoint. I'm lucky enough to still be clinging to my workspace in Queens, but will probably have to leave when my lease is up in 3 years.

And here's the dilemma: as a white artist, I don't want to be a gentrifier. I want to refuse it: I don't want to be a pawn in displacing any community of color, any immigrant community, any working-class community. I know that the idea of "artists" has been used by real estate to raise property values (we saw that when the Brooklyn Museum hosted a REBNY real estate conference, and when real estate developers hosted an "art party" in the Bronx titled "The Bronx is Burning," and branded parts of the South Bronx the "Piano District.").  I am leery of artists flooding into poor communities of color, though realistically, I get that everyone will go where they can afford the rent. I am starting to think that in order to refuse the gentrification dynamic, all artists must become activists. We need to support and join with communities as they fight back against displacement, and we need to fight for policies such as the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (SBJSA), commercial rent protection that would benefit not only artists, but all small businesses and manufacturers. We need to stop seeing ourselves as "different," economically, from bodegas, car repair shops, and struggling bookstores.

If you're interested in becoming active to work for policies that will help protect industrial zones, save the arts in NYC, and work against artists being used as gentrification pawns, check out the Artist Studio Affordability Project.