Creatives Flock To Bushwick As Rents Spike Citywide

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — Bushwick has seen the city's biggest spike in creative professionals moving into the neighborhood as rents have soared in Manhattan, new data show.

More than 6,000 creative professionals moved to Bushwick between 2008 and 2017 as artistically inclined residents fled the Upper West Side and Chelsea, according to a report from Comptroller Scott Stringer's office.

Manhattan housed more than half of the city’s creative workers about a decade ago, but its share dropped 10 percent as Brooklyn’s rose from 27 percent to 38 percent, according to the data.

The Upper West Side once held the highest concentration of people with creative sector jobs at 18,000, but that number plummeted to 14,000. The Lower East Side, Chelsea, Greenwich Village and SoHo also saw their artistic populations drop.

Meanwhile, Bushwick and Bed-Stuy saw the steepest gains in the city with 6,198 new creative workers in Bushwick and 4,451 in Bed-Stuy.

Analysts from the Comptroller's office noted creative workers are often laden with student debt and don't immediately find themselves in high-paying jobs when their educations end, which makes affordable rent a top priority.

The report also notes the City's median contract rent rose 35 percent and well outpaced wage growth in most creative industries.

"Given the growing affordability challenges for creative workers, it is not surprising that over the last decade New Yorkers in the creative occupations have been spreading from higher-rent neighborhoods that had once functioned as strongholds for those working in the arts and culture sector to lower-rent areas outside of Manhattan," analysts wrote.

The report goes into great detail about the nature of New York's creative sector, which employs more than 293,000 people, pays roughly $30.4 billion in wages, and creates about $110 billion in economic activity.

Stringer said the analysis shows the city's artists make a crucial economic contribution to New York and encouraged the city to invest in supporting and creating cultural institutions across the five boroughs.

"This report provides a thoughtful and comprehensive roadmap for the City to fully realize the potential of the creative economy," Stringer stated. “New York City is the creative capital of the world, and this report shows how the sector at the heart and soul of our city is also a pillar of our economy."