Skyrocketing prices on housing and professional space have driven many artists out of the very neighborhoods they helped to pioneer, and other cities, including Philadelphia and Minneapolis, have been very aggressive at luring artists their way with marketing campaigns and housing incentives.

Two years ago, Hope Forstenzer, a graphic designer and glass blower who had lived and worked in Brooklyn for 10 years, left for Seattle because of the high cost for work space.

"There was just no way with the way my finances were set up so that I could ever buy a co-op in New York," Ms. Forstenzer said in an interview. "What you need to put down has gone from 10 percent to 20 percent, and that, combined with the fact that the price for electricity skyrocketed, I chose to come here, where I could buy a house for 5 percent down."

Like many other artists who have traditionally set up shop in the city's less expensive quarters, "What I want for my life is to get by on as little money as possible and do as much of my art is possible," she said. "But there is no such thing as what SoHo was or even Williamsburg once was, where a group of artists could buy a building. That is no longer possible in New York."

The consolidation of industries that serve artists or distribute their goods has also pushed artists out. Kevin Cunningham, executive artistic director of 3-Legged Dog, a media and theater company, cited the consolidation of vendors that rent lights and equipment in the last decade, which has resulted, he said, in a 250 percent rise in costs for that equipment.

The city's Department of Cultural Affairs, aware of the potential for brain drain in the arts, is working to create new housing and financing packages for people in the arts. For example, the city has found ways to use bonds traditionally sold for investments in public property to help private arts concerns.

The city is also pursuing an arrangement to allow artists to invest in buildings with philanthropists putting up half of the money, with the agreement that they would get half the profits in a sale, a program without real precedent in New York.

"There is widespread appreciation of the role arts plays in shaping our economy," said Kate D. Levin, New York's cultural affairs commissioner. "We think there is a sense of possibility in addressing these issues that wasn't there before. We frankly defined some of these areas of concern. They are complicated issues."