Great session on Arts, Culture and Creativity as Strategies for Economic Development and Community Vitality.
How does a city develop? Lanie McMullin explained it starts with a city just being feasible - can it survive as a city. Once it's well established, then city leaders start to invest in making it more livable. Not so many cities get to the next stage: making the city memorable. She gave several great examples of how cities like Chattanooga, TN, and Louisville, KY, have used culture and the arts to develop along that continuum and grow their economy.
She also talked about how in the past, workers moved to where they jobs were, but today, employers of knowledge workers have to move to where the workers are. When Nike took over Adidas's market share, she explained, Adidas went after Nike's designer workforce. Come work for us!, they said. Move to New Jersey? No way! the workers answered. So Adidas up and moved to Portland where they could hire away their workforce.
Brenda Nienhouse of the beautiful Fox Theater in Spokane told the story of how a theater that was almost destroyed to make room for a parking lot (really? in downtown Spokane?) was saved, and how the restoration created jobs and is helping revitalize the downtown core. Local craftspeople were hired for the renovation, new hotels and restaurants have opened, and they're attracting better musicians to the local symphony. I have to say, downtown Spokane is very walkable, and all those old red brick buildings are lovely. Plus great coffeeshops.
We also learned all about the Creative Vitality Index created by the Washington State Arts Commission, explained by Kris Tucker. This index doesn't just add up all the donations and spending on nonprofit arts and use some multiplier to calculate impact on the local community. This index seeks to calculate the full creative vitality of a local community, including individual artists, arts organizations and arts businesses. They're using data from Employment Security, the Urban Institute and Claritas to do their magic.
One of the things I really like about the CVI is that it emphasizes the local. Buy from a local supplier, hire a local artist, and your CVI goes up. Buying a book from a local bookstore like Auntie's in Spokane and the Washington CVI goes up more than if you bought the same book from Amazon, even though the giant online seller is located in Washington state.
I can't do the CVI justice in this space - check it out yourself to see how it works, and how it might work in your community.
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