>Unless you have a profession or work multiple jobs (both of which prohibit having enough time to seriously pursue art) you are completely priced out of America's cosmopolitan cities.

The bad parts of cities are still cheap. Within the last ~4yr I did a $1500/mo single bedroom in Boston and a $1300 single bedroom in Waltham (which is a nice but not "surgeons and lawyers buy houses here suburb of Boston). Yes there were mice but I think that is a pretty reasonable trade for the price.

Things start getting stupid expensive when you try to live how you think a white collar professional should live.