China artists seeking lower rent cut path outside Beijing

Yanjiao

ARTISTS in need of cheap, affordable studio space are often drawn to out-of-the-way or hardscrabble neighbourhoods. The visual artists who flocked to SoHo in Manhattan decades ago helped resurrect what had been a deteriorating factory and warehouse district.

Young artists also helped revive parts of Brooklyn neighbourhoods such as Williamsburg and Bushwick, and a similar pattern has occurred in many other major cities, including Berlin, Paris and Detroit.