Ever since that winter night in 1916 when Marcel Duchamp, John Sloan, and several other artists declared Greenwich Village an independent republic by climbing to the top of the Washington Square arch, building a bonfire and shooting off some cap guns, certain neighborhoods have become identified as havens for the arts.

The latest local example of this is Union Square where city planners are rezoning the area to give incentives to arts-related commercial and housing developers. The zoning, still in progress, would set aside affordable live-work spaces for artists.

It is important to note that current affordable housing in the area would not suffer and artists are not going to jump the line for an affordable place to live. According to the city, nobody will lose an affordable unit because an artist got one.

It is unproductive to pit affordable housing advocates against artists. Yet it is important to recognize that, as the Green Line begins to make its way to Somerville, city officials are going to great lengths to pave the way for Union Square to become some kind of hipster haven. A cynic might say the arts rezoning is simply code for pushing out the working class folks there now and this plan is a ploy to speed up gentrification with the arrival of improved transit.

Would this time and effort be better served by focusing on affordability and anti-displacement issues?

The mayor is charged with growing the tax base and his focus on preserving and increasing the city’s creative class is admirable. But when Union Square becomes the coolest place on earth, where will all the people who live there now go? The artists may want to find out because, if history is any indicator, they’ll be following a few years later.