But....There are plenty of spaces that rent to artists that are illegal. There are several in my city that I personally know and have visited or worked in.
“There are plenty of spaces that rent to artists that are illegal.”
Back when Baltimore was selling row houses for a dollar, an artist friend of mine bought what had been a small warehouse that had been converted to a home. He gutted it back to the warehouse dimensions, except for a small part he kept as “living quarters”, to satisfy the terms of sale, and used the rest as a studio for his larger projects. He also rented out studio space. He never got it up to code, and the houses on either side remained abandoned, so he knew it was just a matter of time before a fire did the urban renewal that the city didn’t want to do.
He eventually moved out because of the regular break-ins and squatters who moved in when he went somewhere to teach workshops or do installations.