The bucks stop here - News - The Role of the Arts in Economic Development report

Dance Magazine, Jan, 2003 by Allan Ulrich

The American nonprofit arts industry annually generates $36.8 billion in revenue and supports 1.3 million full-time jobs in the fifty states, both in rural and urban areas. Those figures will likely continue to rise in the coming years, as the arts remain a potent direct and indirect contributor to state economies. Those are the findings of The Role of the Arts in Economic Development, a nine-page report published by the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.

The paper notes, too, that, in the form of taxes, governments reap considerable economic benefits from the arts--$790 million in annual revenue at the local level, $1.2 billion at the state level, and $3.4 billion at the federal level. The NGA report cites the symbiotic role played by nonprofit organizations and the commercial arts sector, but finds this relationship difficult to measure. This revelatory document was published in order to encourage state governments to factor in the arts when planning budgets; the report suggests that "governors can position their states to use the arts effectively by promoting new partnerships among state agencies, communities, and the business sector, and by harnessing the power of the arts and culture as tools that unite communities, can create economic opportunity, and improve the quality of life."

How to do this? The NGA brief encourages "leveraging human capital and cultural resources to generate economic vitality in underperforming regions through tourism, crafts, and cultural attractions; restoring and revitalizing communities by serving as a centerpiece for downtown redevelopment and cultural renewal." The report also suggests the creation of "vibrant public spaces integrated with natural amenities, resulting in improved urban quality of life." In addition, the association urges governments to consider "contributing to a region's `innovation habitat,' by simultaneously improving regional quality of life ... and permitting new forms of knowledge-intensive production to flourish."

Although the paper does not separate dance from other nonprofit arts, it cites some astonishing statistics collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In 1998 (the most recent year for which data was gathered), consumers spent $9.4 billion on admissions to performing-arts events. That was $2.6 billion more than admissions to motion pictures and $1.8 billion more than total spending on spectator sports. Between 1993 and 1998, consumer spending on performing arts increased by 16 percent, or $1.2 billion. By comparison, in the same period, real expenditures for both motion pictures and spectator sports grew by only $900 million.

The paper bases its findings on evidence such as crafts production in rural Western North Carolina; cowboy poetry festivals in Elko, Nevada; Philadelphia's Avenue of the Arts; the revitalizing impact on Newark of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center; and Baltimore's Harborplace, which, in its opening year, boasted heavier traffic than Disneyland.

The NGA report urges state agencies to "work to eliminate stereotypical views of the arts" and to "evaluate or nurture culturally based industries indigenous to the state." The sanguine conclusion? "Artistic and cultural assets ... are essential to quality of life, which is, in turn, necessary for sustained growth in the new economy."