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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Coming up later this hour, we're going to have a guest. Also with that guest, we're going to invite your eulogies for Rob Reiner. What will you remember most about his work in the arts, or maybe some of you even knew him? Your eulogies, your remembrances of Rob Reiner coming up. You know what makes New York City the most famous city in the world? You know what makes it that tens of millions of tourists visit us each year? You know what makes it that people from around the world choose this city as their home or dream of living here someday?

Yes, I know it's lots of things, but near the top of the list are the music, the art, the fashion, the films that are born here and consumed throughout the world, wouldn't you say? The artists who define our city are struggling. New York City's creative sector has declined, by one measure we have, by 6% since 2019. That's in the number of jobs. Nearly 50 cultural venues have closed since the beginning of the pandemic, closed and not reopened.

Another startling stat, creative workers earned 23% less than the national average after adjusting for the city's high cost of living. Maybe that one isn't so surprising. You've heard the term starving artist for many years and even generations. These figures come from Creative New York, a new report released by Center for an Urban Future. It identifies the crisis. They call it a crisis within the arts and culture sector here in New York, but they also offer a roadmap for the next mayor to revive the city's, what they call, creative core, fueling our economy and identity.

Eli Dvorkin is editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future think tank and the author of Creative New York. He joins me now to discuss. Eli, thanks for coming on for this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Eli Dvorkin: Yes, thanks so much for having me back, Brian. Great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, spoiler alert. No surprise, the cost of housing is one of these things. We're going to put this out as a listener question here. If you are trying to make it as any artist in New York, no matter what your medium is, where are you living? 212-433-WNYC. Where are you making it work? If the old artist neighborhoods were maybe SoHo, maybe then Williamsburg, where are you finding affordable housing now as you try to make it, if you're not heavily subsidized by your parents, let's say, or something like that, where are you living now to try to make it in the art in New York?

Ridgewood, Queens, Jersey City. Tell us where, and tell us about your industry and how you have experienced the decline of the broader creative sector here in New York, if that is your experience. Tell us how you're thriving or trying to in whatever your medium is. 212-433-WNYC. Let's identify artist housing in the private housing market to the extent that we can. What are the artist neighborhoods right now for people trying to make it in Metro New York? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. As your calls are starting to come in, you can also text that number. Eli, let me just ask you what's driving this decline in jobs, and have certain fields, certain media been hit harder than others?

Eli Dvorkin: Yes. Thanks so much, Brian. I think it's really a collision of forces right now, clearly the affordability crisis. It's hitting artists and cultural workers and creative workers especially hard. In large part because, Brian, their incomes just haven't kept pace with rising costs. One stat that really jumped out at me from our research we found that today artists across New York City, artists and creative workers, they're earning almost 23% less after you adjust for the cost of living than the national average for folks that work in those fields.

There's a real pain point there for creative workers in New York City. They can't make those dollars stretch as far as folks in similar fields in other parts of the country. It's not just affordability. There's other factors that I think are hitting our cultural sector especially hard right now. There's real shifts in how creative work is made and consumed. We're seeing more and more New Yorkers opting for in-home streaming rather than in-person performances. That's having a ripple effect. We're seeing more of our creative workforce shifting from full-time jobs to freelance roles, which creates a whole new level of economic precarity.

Ultimately, we're seeing-- We're seeing some big new challenges on the horizon, including the role that AI is playing in our creative economy. All of this is happening, Brian, at a time when other cities have really stepped up. They're creating jobs, they're adding housing, including artist housing, they're investing in their creative infrastructure. The idea that if you wanted to be an artist, if you want to be a creative worker, that there's no better place than New York, I think that's starting to fray as other cities are being really competitive in building their cultural and creative ecosystem.

All of those things together are leading to the situation we're in today, where for the first time in decades, we're seeing a reduction in the number of artists who call New York home and the number of creative industry jobs that are here in New York City. This should be a warning sign for policymakers across New York City.

Brian Lehrer: What are some of those other cities that are trying to be more welcoming to creatives?

Eli Dvorkin: We have seen that the story that we're seeing in New York right now is not the case everywhere else. We've seen, for instance, the creative workforce flourish since 2019 in Nashville, where the creative sector workforce is up almost 18%, in Dallas, up 14%, Miami, up 12%. Even though New York City's creative workforce is still by far larger. Larger, actually, than the combined totals for Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta altogether, we are seeing that other cities are growing while we're in decline right now.

That's concerning because ultimately, part of the argument, I think, Brian, why there would always be growth in our creative economy is that, look, if you want to be an artist or if you want to work in fashion or film, there has always been the sense of-- Look, New York's never going to be the easiest place to live. It's never going to be the cheapest place to live, but the opportunities are here. It becomes worth all the struggle, all the hassle, all the cost and expense, because the opportunity's here, and it's here unlike anywhere else.

While I would still argue that there's no place in the country with more opportunity for artists and creative workers than New York, that has started to shift. Other cities are making a serious play for creatives and for artists, saying you can thrive and have a meaningful career here and find great job opportunities, but you can do it somewhere where you can afford to live, where the cost of housing is 30% or 40% less, where you can live life with a little bit more ease than you can in New York City. That's a real shift, even just since 2019. It's part of what's, I think, changing people's perceptions of what it would take to really continue to live and thrive as an artist in a city as inhospitable on most days as New York can be.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe it's an unfair stereotype, but I never thought I'd hear a guest come on the show and say, "People who want to be painters, people who want to be musicians, are moving to Dallas." Let's--

Eli Dvorkin: Yes, not just painters and musicians, Brian, but also folks who work in advertising, who work in film and TV, who work in fashion and other creative industries. It may not be that every artist is going to flock to Dallas, but Dallas has actually grown a lot when it comes to this broader creative ecosystem. I don't think that we're going to see all of our creative jobs move to Dallas anytime soon, but it's really a warning sign when we see that our creative economy is shrinking when so many other cities across the US have actually seen growth, even since the pandemic.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear where some of our callers are living as young artists trying to make it in the New York area. Many people are calling in. Let's see where around here people are living. Willa, in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Willa.

Willa: Hi, Brian. Yes, like your guest was saying, I'm not a traditional fine arts artist. I'm a multimedia journalist, but I live with three other roommates in Crown Heights. One is a comic book artist, one is a graphic designer, and the other is a chef. Yes, we were 25, and I love living with them. That's not what I'm trying to say. We do have to live, the four of us, in an apartment because-- and the rent is still way over comfortable affordability. Yes, but it's--

Brian Lehrer: Crown Heights, but in those conditions?

Willa: Yes, but it's still like the city is still-- I think, because it's so walkable and you see so much, it nourishes artistic creativity in a way that maybe Dallas couldn't.

Brian Lehrer: Are you from here originally? Just curious.

Willa: Yes, I'm from Sleepy Hollow. I'm from right [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Willa, thank you very much. That's one version of coming to the city to live as a young artist from the suburbs. Julia in Glendale, you're on WNYC. Hi, Julia.

Julia: Hi, Brian, longtime listener, multiple-time caller. Really good to hear you. Yes, I've been in New York since 2008. I am a Russian immigrant that grew up in Texas actually, which in Austin, Houston, and Dallas has a great community. I'm out in Glendale now. I was able to find my own apartment finally, after living with roommates and partners forever. We have a new artist-run gallery. A lot of artist-run spaces have closed since the pandemic, hundreds in North Brooklyn and Queens. I'm really excited tomorrow we have an opening, and the website is cia.gallery.

Brian Lehrer: Talk about Glendale, Glendale, Queens as a community. Are other artists living there? Do you find that kind of community there?

Julia: Yes. It's definitely an old school community with families, which I love, but it's by the cemetery. It's like the end of part of the L train line. It's funny to be pushed out here. I did see a couple people attempt to start music bars and little restaurants. Some of them are doing okay. There's a little bit less traffic out here, but this is the only area, the edge of Ridgewood and Glendale, that people in this region have been able to afford leases for ground-floor spaces, because landlords are still keeping a lot of our storefronts in Manhattan and North Brooklyn completely empty as you can see. Huge storefronts and people ask like 5, 10, 15k for rent. People are trying it out here, but there's a little less traffic. I definitely see people I saw walking around in Bushwick and Williamsburg getting their groceries out here. We come out here.

Brian Lehrer: As the line moves north in that case. Julia, thank you very much. Emmett in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Emmett.

Emmett: Hi, Brian. I live in Kensington, Brooklyn, with my partner, who used to work in the arts, but she's now in healthcare services. I work a full-time job in a gallery, and we both make pretty comfortable salaries. Our apartment's a two-bedroom in Kensington, and I use one of the bedrooms as our studio/office. It's comparably affordable to our income. There's such an issue with how the city configures affordable, is just entirely broken. The standard advice is a third of your take-home pay.

Whenever I look at the affordable housing portal, everything I qualify for would be half of our income. I think the city just needs to come about with social program housing and also look at stuff like the Westbeth model. Artists just can't afford to live here anymore.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Emmett. Let me go back to Eli Dvorkin from the Center for an Urban Future on that because your report is largely a roadmap for the next mayor. Maybe pick up on what Emmett was saying about the unrealistic definition of affordable housing and take it from there.

Eli Dvorkin: Sure. Definitely, your callers are reflecting so much of what we saw in the report, including the loss of artists in many neighborhoods that have really been anchors for artists for generations. We saw, for instance, a decline of almost a third in the artist population on the Upper West Side, for instance, a 55% decline in the artist population on the Lower East Side over the past 10 years. You're also seeing growth in a lot of the neighborhoods that your callers are calling from, including in Crown Heights, in Ridgewood, and Glendale.

What really strikes me, though, in terms of housing is that-- two things. One, clearly, part of our challenge is that we simply have not built enough housing in New York City, period, at multiple income bands. Workforce housing and affordable housing in particular, we're building more than we were 20 years ago, but we're nowhere close to keeping pace with job growth and with population growth. It is clearly a huge threat to the continued vibrancy of our economy overall, and in particular, our creative economy that's just having sufficient housing, period.

Certainly, your caller is right that when it comes to sufficient housing at the most deeply affordable levels, there's big gaps there, too. I would say there's a unique challenge that the city faces around artists in that we have not been building artist housing in New York City. That is a problem that is really unique to New York City. Other places, including upstate and many other cities across the country, they've been building housing over the past 10 and 20 years for artists, whether they're fully artist housing buildings like Manhattan Plaza or Westbeth, which were pioneering models in New York City decades ago, or projects where they're going to build 50 new units and 5% will be set aside for artists. We're not doing that either.

What we've saw in the report is that while other cities across the country have built thousands of units of artist housing over the past 20 years, in New York City, that number is zero. In fact, the last project to open up new housing for artists in East Harlem, El Barrio. That project opened to great acclaim and is full, and generally reflects the demographics of the neighborhood. That was the last new artist housing to come online in New York City, and we're talking about nearly 20 years ago now. There's a huge need to build housing across the city to help address this crisis. I think there's a unique opportunity for the next mayor to lead on building a little bit of artist housing everywhere.

Brian Lehrer: Also on real estate, listener writes, "Artist here. Biggest challenge is real estate. Not only housing, but commercial and studio space. As a visual artist, you not only need a home, but in a lot of cases, you need a separate space to work." You are proposing things like a city-facilitated, pooled insurance program to address some of the skyrocketing costs, also for the city to create a portable benefit system for freelance artists. What would some of that look like?

Eli Dvorkin: Yes, sure. I'll mention [unintelligible 00:15:42] take a couple of those pieces, Brian. Certainly, a lot of the affordability crisis isn't limited to artists and cultural and creative workers. They're feeling it the hardest, for sure, but it's also affecting our arts organizations, our performance spaces, our venues. They're really feeling it, too. Just one example from a report, we talked to an organization that provides shared back office services to mostly small arts organizations. Across all of their clients, the companies that they work with, mostly nonprofit arts organizations, they found that their median operating expenses grew 64% since 2019, while their median revenue grew about 2%.

That real divide between skyrocketing costs and flat revenues and flat incomes, that's really driving so much of this affordability crisis. What else can the city do about this? Definitely for venues, one of the things that jumped out at me was insurance costs have just gotten so out of control in New York City. We talked to several venues that reported that they're spending four or five times as much now as they were prior to the pandemic. One venue told us they're spending as much per month in their insurance premiums as they used to spend per year. That level of growth in terms of insurance costs is just totally unsustainable.

One of the things we recommend there is that the city could really lead in fixing that problem or addressing that problem by launching a pooled insurance program for small cultural venues, nonprofit theaters, and performance spaces. That could help to address some of the cost pressures that they face, especially those organizations that are going out on their own, trying to secure insurance and then seeing their premiums rise significantly every year. There's definitely a need to act there.

We also saw some real vulnerabilities in terms of the growth of our freelance economy, Brian. To underscore what that looks like, so many of the creative industries that are declining right now, and it's really concerning to see a loss of jobs, 19% in film and TV, and 15% in advertising, and 14% in applied design. One of the things we're seeing at the same time, though, is that where there is growth, it's often in freelance work. New Yorkers are working in some of those same fields. They used to be employed full-time, now they're employed in a freelance basis. That leads to a whole new set of vulnerabilities.

For instance, self-employment and creative industries actually increased 10% since 2019. It's really one of the only categories that's grown. The number of independent artists, writers, and performers in New York City is up 65% over the past decade. Now, that's partially a reflection of how there are still a thriving community of independent artists in New York. I think there's a really alarming warning sign there, which is so many of those folks actually used to have benefits. They used to have health insurance, they used to have the security of a full time employment, and now they're trying to make it work freelance.

To help with that population, we recommend that the city launch portable benefits for freelancers and self-employed creatives, reflecting the desperate need that so many folks face for health coverage, for retirement savings, the benefits that typically come with full-time employment. I think New York City could lead nationally on that in the new year, and the creative workforce is a great place to start.

Brian Lehrer: A couple of more callers on what neighborhoods they're living in in the city now that they can afford to live in as artists. Roy, on Roosevelt Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Roy, real quick.

Roy: Oh, yes. I've had the pleasure of working in two creative areas, first as a concert pianist, and then also I worked in advertising, first at Young & Rubicam, and then [unintelligible 00:19:12], and this was a very convenient commute to both places. Also, the Island itself has been very attractive to visual artists. They have a gallery here on the Island and to performing artists, both classical and jazz.

Brian Lehrer: Roy, I'm going to leave it there, but yes, score one for Roosevelt Island. Thank you so much for that. One more before we run out of time. Samuel in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Samuel.

Samuel: Hi, how are you? I just wanted to say I'm a Brooklyn native and I've lived-- I've had to move three times in the last year. I currently reside in Bed-Stuy. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily an artistic hub, but it's adjacent to Bushwick, and Ridgewood is close. I would say that that is where a lot of things are forming artistically. Also, I've been in New York City nightlife, particularly drag, cabaret, and event production, for over a decade, and the decline in participation by the audience has grown considerably.

I would agree with the previous comment that people are staying home and they're not coming out to see shows anymore. I know that most drag queens I know in New York City now have other forms to supplement other jobs, to supplement their income, not just drag. Whereas, let's say 10 years ago or pre-COVID, drag was all that they needed to survive in New York City and to afford housing.

Brian Lehrer: Samuel, thank you for that report. In our last 30 seconds, Eli, these proposals that you have in your report, can you tell yet if you have a receptive ear in the Mamdani administration?

Eli Dvorkin: Look, I'll say I think the mayor-elect is a true lover and believer in New York City's arts and culture sector. I'm really optimistic that these specific ideas around tackling the affordability crisis in ways that can strengthen and sustain the vitality of our arts and culture sector and creative ecosystem will have a receptive audience in City Hall. The reality is that New York still has the largest and most interconnected creative ecosystem in the country. We should celebrate that. We should do everything we can to sustain it.

The question is, is the city going to be ready and willing to invest in the people, the policies, the infrastructure needed to keep it vibrant, equitable, and growing in the future? I'm optimistic that we're going to see some change starting in January.

Brian Lehrer: Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future, with their new report on Creative New York. Thank you very much for joining us and sharing it.

Eli Dvorkin: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

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