The 100 Best Small Art Towns in America: Discover Creative Communities, Fresh Air, and Affordable Living

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Summary: Read With A Grain of Salt
Review: John Villani's The 100 Best Small Art Towns in America is essentially a once over lightly and don't take it to heart book. The demographic information is interesting but the economics and information on the "small" "art" towns in America is highly problematic. First off--I don't know too many real artists who can afford $200,000 for a shack with a view or even the $150,000 he posits as bottom line living. We need a reality check here. What he lists as "art" is mind boggling everything from beer fests to bakeouts. He misses entirely the poetry festival in Bisbee and does no rating at all of the quality of the art produced or carried by these galleries. His profiles are without depth and don't give you any real insights into how it might be to really live in most of these towns as a working artist. If you are retired, have a good income, etc. you might be able to use this as a first step but after that you are on your own. I went into the realestate net and found prices on various places that contrast with his, I am an arts person so I know some of the communities he describes--and he is all wrong about living the artistic life in New Mexico, etc. Save your money and check this out at the library.

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Summary: Where Art Still Matters
Review: Lists towns of relatively small size to down right tiny where art still matters. Good for those looking for a place to settle down as well as those who might want to visit. It doesn't cover every small art town and I'm not sure exactly what criteria is used to pick the towns. The information none the less is interesting and worth a read.

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Summary: A Good Starting Point
Review: Since I'm an artist and I travel many miles to exhibit at Art Festivals, I often refer to this book before a journey to see what interesting towns may be near our route. Some of the places have been gems while others were pretty disappointing. I already had my own list of quaint towns and many were in this book, but some were a real surprise. I think it should be approached from a "it's a nice place to visit but you couldn't afford to live there" position. Its a good starting point and hopefully future editions will be more on target.

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Summary: thanks for the rent increase
Review: since this book was published, the rents for towns mentioned have increased by an average of 10 percent. could it be that the author owns properties in the towns he citess?

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Summary: "affordable" is in the title, but not in this book!
Review: The California cities listed are NOT affordable for the typical artist. Mill Valley, CA is prohibitive in terms of affordability, as is the entire SF Bay Area. Key West is also a curious choice--it is small and picturesque, but it's not cheap and there aren't really that many art opportunities unless you are churning out "tourist art". This book is needed by the art community, but the research seems to be lacking. I guess the author had a great vacation and tax decuction doing the "research" in nice tourist locations for this book. A tourist destination is quite different from the reality of living there. To suggest Key West as an affordable artist mecca is not acknowledging that it is essentially a resort, with a resort economy--either you come with gobs of dough and live the high life, or you live life as a $10 worker bee fetching towels or drinks for the well to do. Artists need a more practical book.

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Summary: Short-sighted research
Review: The city of Fort Myers, FL is disparraged in this book as a menagerie of NASCAR fans and strip clubs. Anyone who's spent time in Fort Myers knows that there aren't many strip clubs and the ones that are here aren't a big part of the local scene (what to do on a random Saturday night) like they are in other parts of Florida, like Tampa, Clearwater, or Miami.

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Summary: Waste of money
Review: The information in this book is available for free on several websites. Places Rated and Find Your Place will give you much more information for free. I found the information on Minnesota towns to be way outdated and just plain wrong. Save your cash, use the web.

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Summary: needed resource
Review: This book is great but Keene NH give me a break

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Summary: Good source if you are starting a search
Review: This is a concise reference tool for finding communities to visit or move to.
Three years ago I launched a search for a new home town. Big city life no longer appealed. I used every resource I could find and then hit the road and visited about two dozen towns over two years. Many factors and many data points refined the search, and this book was a useful tool. The town I decided to live in was very much as described, and many of the other towns that I visited were also as described in this book. If you are searching, use multiple resources as a sort of check and balance, but make this one of them.
Happy in the Rockies

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Summary: More of a tourist guide than a home selction guide
Review: Three and a half stars from me, really. I like the fact that the book includes Canada as well. For completeness, maybe it should have included Mexico as well. To me, the book reads more like a tourist guide. There is not really enough information or tables of comparison, to use the book as a guide to select a new hometown from. Still, it does highlight a lot of places to look at, that one would otherwise have by-passed. From that point of view, maybe it will make a contribution to the economies of the artist communities presented. I think we need a similar resource for Australia.