Clearly Athens has been going through it as of late. The 2009 financial crisis and the subsequent underthought austerity measures put in place by the IMF crippled the country’s economy, and hit its capital hard. Due to this, things got cheaper for foreigners, and huge amount of tourists and investors were flooding the place before the COVID pandemic; apparently this improved things a bit, but tourism definitely brings its own headaches. And, as I write this, some of its suburbs just stopped burning.
So yes, Athens is pretty screwed up right now. However, things are bad in the sense that they were in New York in the late 70s, or in East Berlin after the wall came down: this economic suffering has coincided with Athens becoming a rare, rare beast. Rent is cheap, and so is the food (which is, clearly, Greek, a great cuisine); additionally, it’s safe. All this adds up to major appeal for a certain group: artists.