Why Does Art Flourish In Cities?

Great art and literature are usually born in great cities. But, it is difficult to satisfactorily explain why this is so.

Artists are risk-takers, and the production of great art and literature is a form of risk-taking. To begin with, there is something to the stereotype of the starving artist. Nine-to-five jobs rarely expect you to be extraordinarily creative. Artists face a different set of incentives. The market for the services of mediocre artists is not huge, except when they appeal to the prejudices of common people. It is the innovators who matter. It takes years, or even decades of struggle to be a skilled artist. Most artists are not likely to find their sweet niche and are likely to perish unknown. So, the process of being an artist is, in itself, a risk-taking endeavour. It takes courage to be an artist, and persist for many decades. Cities attract artists, because cities attract ambitious people in general. Great cities send out the message that you should strive to be successful.  

The desire to communicate is one of the most fundamental needs of people. Cities attract artists also because the spectrum of possible conversations in cities is much wider. They are more likely to find people of similar interests in densely populated cities, because the probability of finding like-minded people in a larger pool is higher. Artists also prefer to live in cities where other creative people surround them, because it is impossible to not be influenced by people around you. This is probably the single biggest reason why artists have moved to the greatest cities of the world throughout history. If you are a great artist, you cannot afford not to be in one.

Clustering has other benefits, too. The movie industry, for example, prefers a talent pool that is clustered in a geographical area. This is because there is intense pressure to hire talented people at a short notice. If people live in different parts of the world, or even different parts of a country, this would prove to be difficult. This is because film projects are short-term, and it is difficult to find people in a talent pool that is geographically segregated or isolated. Clustering also makes it much easier to evaluate potential artists in a short period. This is very true of other fields, too -- in the software industry, employers and employees find it much easier to find each other when companies cluster together in certain geographical locations.

It is a well-established fact that cities are more productive than sparsely populated areas. Economists tend to explain this by arguing that this is because people learn more when they are situated close to each other. This may explain some of the benefits of proximity. But if that were true, the internet facilitates learning even more efficiently. That has not led to cities withering away. The truth is that productivity is greater in cities not because proximity leads to more learning, but because people like to be closer to people with similar interests. It is not the offshoot of proximity but proximity itself that leads to great art.