This is the next one on the line for me: "The Warhol Economy". It seems fascinating and could not be more relevant specially to professionals in the creative industry. If you are in any way, shape or form related to the field, or if you are at all interested in public policy, it's a must-read.
Check out a great interview with the author, Elizabeth Currid, following below. Currid is Gawker's "Celebrity Theory 101" author. By the way, this is her first book. Not too shabby.
*********************
Here's from a review from the New Yorker:
"Any discussion about New York City's economic well-being tends to start and end with one phrase: Wall Street. As the Street goes, we assume, so goes the city, which is why politicians will do almost anything to keep the brokerages and investment banks happy.... [In] The Warhol Economy the social scientist Elizabeth Currid argues that this fixation is misdirected, and that it has led us to neglect the city's most vital and distinctive economic sector: the culture industry, which, in Currid's definition, includes everything from fashion, art, and music to night clubs. In other words, it's SoHo and Chelsea, not Wall Street, that the politicians should really be thinking about. Of course, everyone knows that art and culture help make New York a great place to live. But Currid goes much further, showing that the culture industry creates tremendous economic value in its own right."
-- James Surowiecki, The New Yorker
Here's from a review from The Economist:
"New York's cultural economy has reached a critical juncture threatened by, of all things, prosperity. The bleak economic conditions of the 1970s allowed artists to flock into dirt-cheap apartments and ushered in the East Village scene of the early 1980s. The boom of the past decade, by contrast, has priced budding Basquiats out of Manhattan, pushing them across the water to Brooklyn and New Jersey. Studio flats meant for artists-in-residence get snapped up by bankers. The closure last year of CBGB, a bar that became a punk and art-rock laboratory in the 1970s (and whose founder, Hilly Kristal, died last month) came to symbolise this squeeze. Ms Currid sees this expulsion of talent as a serious problem. The solution, she argues, lies in a series of well-aimed public-policy measures: tax incentives, zoning that helps nightlife districts, more subsidised housing and studio space for up-and-coming artists, and more."
Here's an excerpt from the official description:
"The implications of Currid's argument are far-reaching, and not just for New York. Urban policymakers, she suggests, have not only seriously underestimated the importance of the cultural economy, but they have failed to recognize that it depends on a vibrant creative social scene. They haven't understood, in other words, the social, cultural, and economic mix that Currid calls the Warhol economy."
And here is my favorite, an excerpt from Annie Fischer's Villace Voice article: "there's now documented proof that New York's taste makers need to drink together for the sake of the city's financial health. Cheers to that."
You can click here to check out the entire video - you can't control the timer, but it's all in there - or you can watch it below in three parts.
