An article about the revival of Hudson, NY is on the top list at the New York Times today. The slide show is stunning. The above picture are properties for wealthy New Yorkers, who come up for the weekend. The homes come equipped with a property manager who maintains those lovely gardens.
The articles talks about the influx of creative types who are leaving the cities for a more bucolic and affordable lifestyle. Etsy has a cool office there. Want a job?
Unlike other upstate towns that are trying to lure creatives with the promise of cool, old, cheap homes, Hudson is getting the rich folks there with these designer weekend homes and hotels. Creative types need to sell things to picky, rich people. It also has businesses like Etsy to provide employment. So maybe it will be more successful than other towns.
I do hope that places like Hudson are ultimately successful. The article briefly mentions that 25 percent of the town is below the poverty line, so keep in mind that we’re seeing a highly selective view of life. Not everybody is thriving by selling vintage typewriters. But I do hope that it works out, because we need places for people who don’t have six figure careers. New York City used to provide corners of the cities for low-income, creative types, but not so much anymore.
We need places for the 99 percent.
Apt. 11d 
I work in Hudson a fair amount (there is an excellent theater there – Stageworks/Hudson), and it is a lovely but very strange town containing the super rich weekenders and the super poor full-timers. The Hudson Valley is undergoing such an interesting shift as so many of us have left NYC for more affordable areas. Unfortunately, rents in Hudson are already skyrocketing to practically NYC prices. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.
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I have four friends (three have kids) plus one more from out of state who live within 1 1/2 hours north of NYC (all within the past few years). Another friend and her family are considering moving there from out of state (still on the east coast).
They are all creatives (photographers, artists, graphic designers, writers). None are in the economic class to own a vacation home and four did start out in NYC. All are plugged into their communities through kids/school/local businesses/etc.
I think it’s a great choice if you don’t have to be in the city every day for paid work. And of course it’s like any career/life choice – they all worked their a**es off in their 20’s and early 30’s to get to the point where they have the contacts and network to work virtually.
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I foresee some interesting times in school politics when these two different demographic groups clash and two competing visions of what a school is for meet.
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Seeing the Etsy offices only made me miss Regretsy.
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1) I wish people wouldn’t use this term “creatives”- it’s dumb and mildly offensive.
2) I really wish people wouldn’t use so much (obvious) photoshop in photos like those. It would be nice to know what such places really look like, and it’s blazingly obvious that the colors don’t look like those in the photo. The photo doesn’t even look good- it looks plastic.
3) This claim is over-stated: New York City used to provide corners of the cities for low-income, creative types, but not so much anymore. The rhetoric about NY becoming just a play-land for the rich isn’t really true. See, for example, this
4) If people really want to go to a nice place in semi-upstate New York, they should go to Washington County. But, I hope not too many people will go there, despite it’s charming restaurants and great artisanal
cheese makers . (The second one is really in Vermont, but just over the border. There are several others in the area.)
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Ouch.
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One is a “creative” as opposed to a “suit,” the latter appellation being more than mildly offensive.
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