Dump the Co-op

New York is losing its creative population. This article in the NY Times reports the official numers on a trend of which many of us are all too keenly aware. You can't be an artist and afford to live in Manhattan, the city that for a very long time has been America's epicenter of artistic output. With nearly every Manhattan 'hood fully gentrified, artists, creatives, and other non-investment banker types have moved out to Brooklyn, but alas the forces of gentrification have followed them.I am not going to decry gentrification, by the way, as I was part of the first wave of gentrification of the East Village, moving my upwardly mobile ass into an apartment building where junkies still lived in the lobby.But, when you find that after ten, fifteen, twenty years in the city, with your income rising, you still can't afford to become a property owner, you start to wonder, what the heck is going on here?Here' s my answer: co-op boards.They can demand huge down payments (20% and higher are not uncommon). When the average apartment price in Manhattan is 1.1 million dollars that's a lot of loose change to plunk down in one sitting.If a bank is willing to loan someone the money, why should a co-op board demand such high down payments? The obvious answer is that huge down payments act as a convenient filter. Only the ultra rich can afford to move in. And the ultra rich tend to prefer living with the ultra rich.Before long, the island of Manhattan is going to be a sea of investement bankers with nary a sculptor, glass-blower, independent filmmaker, or aspiring fashion designer anywhere in sight.Why am I writing this? Because I am (almost definitely) returning to the Big Apple and I can no longer afford even to rent in Manhattan. I've been spit out of that apple like a worm. Brooklyn, here I come.