If you’ve ever wondered what forces are driving the growth of the global art market’s exponential growth, let us offer a non-obvious contributing factor that comes of a Financial Times story on the transformation of the world’s great cities into “citadels for the elite.” How does this relate to the art market? Following Columbia University Urbanist Saskia Sassen’s comments below, for a global elite to have easy intercourse, it needs a common context of experiences and interests. Wealthy persons from Russia, Brazil and China might not have much in common as everyday experiences but increasing they share in interest in—or passing knowledge of—art and artists.

Here’s what Sassen told the FT:

Global cities are turning into vast gated communities where the one per cent reproduces itself. Elite members don’t live there for their jobs. They work virtually anyway. Rather, global cities are where they network with each other […] So top-level corporate and professional sectors of São Paulo begin to have more in common with peers in Paris, Hong Kong et cetera than with the rest of their own societies.

Priced Out of Paris (Financial Times)