The paper unpacks how the ecology of places in a city can create the conditions for the emergence and development of an artistic community. Specifically, we focus on the attendance of multiple places and how this supports the processes of community organizing. To this end, we develop the perspective of preferential circulation, which describes the patterns of attendance at places in a city for the mobilization of resources. Empirically, we study the trajectories of two avant-garde artistic communities - Impressionism and Cubism - that were active in Paris during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Our findings show how communities’ trajectories and the urban landscape coevolve. Beyond mere geographical proximity in a city, place attendances can lead to new organization (of artistic communities in our case), particularly when patterns are shared over an extended period of time. Furthermore, it is a combination of distinct places attended in a singular sequence that enables the processes of community organizing. We contribute to the literature on places by revealing the dynamics involved in attending multiple places, and how this can foster the generation of novelty and community building.
