Creative Communities: Art Works in Economic Development

Foreword

Since I took over as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in 2009, I have spent a lot of my time in pursuit of creative placemaking, which seeks to integrate art and design in community planning and development , build shared spaces for arts engagement and creative expression, and increase local economic activity through arts and cultural activities. This goal has borne fruit in national programs such as Our Town, Art Place, and other NEA-supported initiatives under my tenure. Another focus of mine for the last four years has been to bolster research and evidence sharing about the value and impact of the arts in American life. Without good data and analysis—much of it grounded in economic theory— we cannot hope to strengthen communities through the arts or to achieve any of the other goals that we have set for the National Endowment for the Arts, the largest nationwide funder of the arts. Consequently, I have amped up resources and expectations for research at the NEA. For example, in October 2012, the NEA’s Office of Research and Analysis published a five-year research agenda that includes a system map and measurement model for understanding “how art works.” (See www.nea.gov/research/How-Art-Works/index.html.) This volume thus marks the convergence of two of my major themes as NEA chairman: the arts as an engine in transforming communities for the better, and the arts as an integral, measurable component of the U.S. economy. In 2011, the NEA’s Office of Research and Analysis issued a public call for research papers attempting to measure economic activity resulting from“the creation of arts districts, the construction of performing arts centers and museums, and arts-favorable tax policies and other incentives for productivity Foreword vii 00-2473-5 00 frontmatter_Rushton 3/13/13 9:31 AM Page vii and innovation in fields such as architecture and design, visual and performing arts, and literary and media arts.”In its call for papers, the NEA placed special emphasis on New Growth Theory, popularized by Paul Romer and others. Why the emphasis on New Growth Theory? Admittedly, there have been numerous well-intentioned and often compelling studies of the arts’ local economic impact, yet a common weakness has been that it is nearly impossible to tell whether the arts’ effects on, say, local tourism spending could have been replicated by the introduction of non–arts-related activities—for example , the construction of a sports facility. The argument is not so much that such studies are overestimating the effects of the arts; rather, a case can be made that those effects are undervalued, simply because the tools used are not precise enough to account for the effects independently of other economic variables. New Growth, with its assumption that new ideas lead to new economies of scale without a diminution of resources, seemed a natural fit when discussing why the arts matter in stark economic terms. In any case, we were prepared to explore the theory’s potential.And indeed, some of the papers that we received chose to address the theory in relation to the arts and economic development . Some, but not all: other papers examined links between arts participation and scientific innovation; the effects of cultural tax districts on giving to the arts; and the impact of per capita cultural spending on local economic growth, among other topics. On the strength of those draft papers, the Brookings Institution hosted a one-day symposium entitled “The Arts, New Growth Theory, and Economic Development.” Sponsored by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, the event featured not only the authors of the chapters that appear in this volume but also the urban economist Edward Glaeser, happiness researcher Carol Graham, and top officials and analysts from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The agenda and video from that day are available at www.arts.gov/research/Brookings/index.html. Where do we go from here? One of the big lessons learned at the Brookings event was that we need long-term, reliable data to more effectively track the arts’ unique effects on economic development, whether related to New Growth Theory or not. I am pleased to note that through a historic partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, we will have that resource ready for the use of all economists and policymakers who care...