It's funny -- you can trace the "1920s Paris scene" through the century til sometime in the '90s, at which point major cultural centers stopped coalescing in that fashion. Many reasons for that. For instance post-1930 you've got Sartre's scene, Hemingway's Cuba, then later Beatnik San Fran and New York, Berkeley (the famous "high water mark"), briefly Aspen, Greenwich Village, the London New Romantics, maybe Seattle. Mostly revolving around music and a certain lifestyle, but definitely some literature. The arts in general. Now ... Brooklyn? Brooklyn's kinda gone off the rails and it's sure as hell not cheap. I think it's the closest you're going to get. Good question. (As far as primarily literary scenes ... the modern publishing industry destroyed literature.) Preemptive edit: it may seem like I largely dismissed the rest of the world -- but I think the 20th century, as far as cultural movements in the sense that you mean, was essentially western. It was in a lot ways the century of the West, and the one we're in right now is most assuredly not. Maybe the next great literary/musical/artistic scene springs up in Singapore or Hong Kong or Joburg.
What I actually wanted to hear was "There's this great beach town in Croatia..." I appreciate how you've traced out the various movements, and I agree with your assessment. I'd also agree that Seattle in the 90s was a hugely important cultural scene. I would like to say that my hometown of Nashville is experiencing a cultural renaissance, but the current surge of creativity feels plastic somehow. Maybe it's just that I'm on the outside looking in, or maybe it's that everything is geared to the Instagram/Pinterest aesthetic, but it seems like there's a certain spirit missing. The most surprising answer I received among my group of friends was Detroit. Apparently they're giving writers free houses? Anyway, Detroit is definitely cheap, and apparently there are a ton of creative and artistic types there. I'm not sure how inspiring the city is, but cities aren't really my scene anyway.
Let me preface this by saying I have no idea what Paris in the 20's was really like outside of what are almost certainly stale tropes in my mind (but possibly accurate ones). I will say this about Detroit though. It is currently undergoing a developmental revival that may or may not last, and this development is built on not just a cultural revival, but a creative, determined, DIY culture that was never not there in my lifetime, and did not need to be reintroduced. Sections of downtown are experiencing a renaissance. Other parts are crime ridden, cheap, terrible, unique, beautiful, and all sorts of other things. The creative class is definitely flowing into Detroit right now and has been for years. I travel to the East Coast and out West a couple times a year on buying trips for fashion & apparel. I've met more than one indie designer in the past few years that, when they hear we live in the Detroit area, say something along the lines of "No way...a got a bunch of friends back in Cali that were talking about just moving to Detroit and getting an old warehouse...just to you know, make art and clothing and stuff." In my lifetime I've witnessed Detroit about to "come back" about 3 times now. Something is different this time, though who knows how it will play out. That uncertainty is what the vanguard creative class is built on. There is a lot happening in Detroit creatively right now. Finally, I should note that a terribly large number of the population of Detroit is overwhelmingly impoverished, unemployed, under educated, and black. When you look at conversations like these, most of the residents would probably just shake their heads and wonder wtf. They don't need a cultural scene. They need schools that don't systematically fail their kids, neighborhoods that aren't havens for violence, a chance in hell of getting a job, and something in the way of city services in exchange for their taxes (for those that can afford to pay them). The creative revival in Detroit is stimulating, vibrant, frenetic, life-giving, lauded...and completely overrated with respect to the amount of progress it represents in local popular culture imho.
Didn't know that about Detroit ... at least a dozen hubskiers from Detroit so maybe they'll chime in. I should've mentioned Nashville in the iconic Opry days. I could've gone in-depth with musical venues -- because a lot of the great 20th century American movements were associated with venues -- but I'm really hungover and the France Switzerland is starting up. -- Don't count out Croatia! Eastern Europe, Berlin, Budapest, some of the Slavic states are all incredibly cheap and really underrated ... wouldn't be at all surprised if there's an actual US expat movement out there soon. Already starting to be one in Berlin.
My reply was definitely more pertaining to music and some digital art or film that I know about in a modern context, though I read plenty, it's mostly "historical" stuff. Like, the newest literature I've read is DFW and a sparse few others, I'm a big pomo fan, but that's anywhere from Burroughs to Pynchon to Delillo. I don't get the sense of a "movement" anywhere, mostly likely because I just haven't encountered it or have pursued it as much. I know you're pretty well-read, and it seems like you would have a better bearing for whatever is going on now, is there like, a case study you know of about your publishing industry remark? Or do you think literature is getting squashed from the outset? Anything you've encountered online you think has potential?
I think the best (fictional) literature in the 21st century will be published online on personal websites. It may be that no one will read it. Or maybe I'm completely wrong. But the publishing industry now is either a) unsustainable or b) has completely different goals that it used to. There was a hubski thread a year or so ago where we tried to name the greatest living American author. It's not like we drew a blank -- McCarthy, Pynchon, Salinger was still alive at that point, etc -- but there wasn't a clear answer carrying the torch. Steinbeck books were events. Consensus literature is no longer also (necessarily) the best literature, which makes it very very difficult to gauge the state of the art. The "problem" with the publishing industry that it's a profit-driven machine and while the books that get published are often quite bad they make money so there is no incentive for publishers to try harder. Remember Rowling's experiment. Talent will not out. And since that's the case people like you and me have to go the extra mile to find our reading material elsewhere. Hence (hopefully) the rise of self-publishing online, serialization on blogs (this and this are two of the best things I'm reading right now), etc. I feel like I read an Atlantic/New Yorker piece about this in the last year but... And we've discussed this on hubski before (since we've got several published/self-published/aspiring authors). I'll keep an eye out.a case study you know of about your publishing industry remark?