Why Overly Gentrified Cities Lack Vitality and What We Can Learn from New York
Great cities aren’t built solely by architects or planners; they’re forged in the friction between people, place, and culture. When cities become too planned, too polished, or too gentrified, they often lose the very thing that makes them vibrant: spontaneity.
Urban vitality doesn’t grow from homogeneity; it thrives in chaos, diversity, and creative tension, and nowhere has this been more evident than in New York City, long regarded as both a cultural capital and a crucible for artistic innovation.
New York: The Blueprint for Urban Vitality
What makes New York magnetic isn’t its skyline, it’s its messy, layered street culture. It’s the fact that fine art galleries exist a few blocks from graffiti-covered alleyways. That wealth and struggle, tradition and rebellion, occupy the same urban frame.
Throughout the 20th century, New York gave rise to pivotal art movements not just because of its institutions, but because of its informality. The Abstract Expressionists didn’t paint in pristine studios, rather they worked in cold lofts in SoHo (before it was SoHo). Jean-Michel Basquiat emerged from the streets of the Lower East Side, writing poetry on walls before he hung canvases in galleries. The very DNA of New York’s art scene is intertwined with its street life, its contradictions, and its noise.
In this way, New York proves a powerful truth: culture doesn’t trickle down from institutions, it bubbles up from the street.
When Cities Become Too Controlled
In contrast, overly gentrified or over-planned cities often struggle to generate that kind of cultural energy. Their design suppresses rather than supports unpredictability.
Canberra, for instance, Australia’s purpose-built capital, is architecturally rational but culturally restrained. Its wide streets and zoning silos may look impressive on paper, but they rarely inspire serendipity or subculture. The absence of street-level tension leaves little space for the unexpected, and therefore, little space for artistic risk to thrive.
Culture needs room to ferment. When cities prioritise control over curiosity, or aesthetics over authenticity, they may appear safe and modern, but they rarely produce groundbreaking art.
Spontaneity Is a Fertile Ground for Higher Art
Artists feed off atmosphere. The best work often comes not from isolation, but from immersion; in noise, in people, in texture. Cities like Berlin, Tokyo, Mexico City, and New York have all generated important cultural movements precisely because of their complexity. Their rich, unfiltered streetscapes provide endless visual, emotional, and political material.
Spontaneous urban environments allow for:
The coexistence of high and low culture
Encounters between strangers, ideas, and aesthetics
A sense of urgency that fuels creative output
Informal networks of collaboration and rebellion
In short, cities that embrace messiness become muses.
Public Art as a Connector
In the context of these cities, public art plays a unique role. It bridges the sanctioned and the subversive. A mural can live in conversation with a gallery. A graffiti tag can influence a global design trend. Street art is no longer a peripheral expression; it’s a core part of how cities speak to themselves.
As a mural artist, I aim to work in this spirit. My practice is informed by the layered environments I encounter. Not just architecture, but the everyday rhythm of a place. It’s why I value collaboration, site specificity, and working with, rather than against, the visual language of the street.
Planning for Culture Means Planning Less
This doesn’t mean cities should abandon design. It means they should design with openness. Vital cities leave space for the unsanctioned, the emerging, the weird. They protect affordable studios, open-ended laneways, local businesses, and multi-use spaces. They understand that culture isn’t created by policy alone; it needs permeability.
New York didn’t become the art world’s capital because it was perfectly planned. It became great because it made space for people to shape it; artists, immigrants, poets, punks, and entrepreneurs alike. Its vitality is not curated, but earned, daily, through its unpredictability.
If we want cities that pulse with culture, and not just polish, we must resist the instinct to over-gentrify. Let the city stay a little raw. Let it surprise us. That’s where the real art begins.