About the Issue of Moving Away from the Plateau:

I am living the life of a starving artist these days. With faded pants and shabby shoes I read
the hour and crave dinner invitations. So why not honor initiatives happening to save neighbourhoods from becoming condovilles? Well I will show my support but am too realistic to fool myself that a picture on an empty is going to delay the coming of cement trucks. Guess it's something like destiny. As much as I'd like to I think that gentrification is inevitable, it happens as housing demands grow as do property values while there is always a strata of the population that gets squeezed and eventually can no longer cope with the increased cost of living. Ergo the exodus of artists who are generally less affable, to a lower income area which was St. Henri years ago. I might actually make the move since I am being squeezed on the plateau but I might not.
Having experienced yearly rental increases has gotten me to produce more here as time as progressed. So I think that feeling the pinch is in a way a catalyst that gets me to recycle my creative juices faster. I like to think of myself as willing to accept a challenge now and then so why not the challenge of facing an increased cost of living without moving away!
The plateau has provided me with a wonderful view of a spaciuos park from a facing balcony which I can use to paint on. It has offered me access to galleries, bookshops and cafes which are my favorite haunts and once more I have cultivated contacts over the years, so am reticent in giving that up. Why start all over again for the price of saving a few dollars a year. I respect the decision of others who will make that move for the sake of principle or because a rental increase of 5 bucks. It is 5 too much but I would rather seek an alternative solution to the age old problem of richer property owners making condos out older dwellings. Maybe it's time for me to think affluent instead of being a defeatist! Besides I need the richer people to buy my artwork.