I’m a student of classical literature. I have not noticed any correlation between brilliant artistic production and ... the kind of place where I’d like to live. (I live in a bland suburb near a Walmart, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.)
The height of Greek artistic production was during the Peloponnesian War, when Greeks were going unspeakable things to one another all over the Mediterranean. Nobody wants to live through that, if they’re sane.