Introduction

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Artist and musician David Byrne recently wrote that the cultural life of New York City had been “usurped by the top 1 percent,” implying that our society’s emphasis on the bottom line has compromised our humanist sensibilities.

With soaring housing and health care costs, and a culture that seems more interested in financial stability than creative expression, has it become too expensive to pursue the arts in this country?