Art in the City — The Surprising Impacts of the Creative Sectors on Your City
Many city and government leaders know the general importance of the arts and creative sectors, but these sectors bring way more value to your city than you think — and in ways that you might not expect!
This is our call to action for supporting arts and creativity in your city.
By Dallas Gislason, Jake West and Steve Woolrich
First, a prelude: Why are we co-writing this post?
As an award-winning economic developer who is also a musician, Dallas sees a strong link between the long-term economic vibrancy of a community and the health of its arts and creative scene. And this link is getting stronger in the 21st-century economy.
As the VP of a world-leading interactive lighting design and engineering company (who is also an artist and performer), Jake actively supports creative placemaking across the globe using high-tech, interactive platforms that draw people in and create real benefits for cities and clients.
As one of North America’s leading authorities in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), Steve knows the essential role of arts and creatives in building safe, resilient and human-centric neighborhoods, and he’s infused artists into community safety projects in cities both large and small.
Three key things brought us together on this topic:
First, the devastating impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the arts and creative sectors — from theatres and venues to the small businesses and the artists and musicians that rely on these sectors for their livelihoods.
Second, we were inspired by the potential of arts — and especially how people experience and interact with art and music — to help heal our favorite places, neighborhoods, and cities so they can thrive in the creative age.
Third, for the above two things to happen, we noticed a general absence of a clear and well-rounded case for supporting the arts and creative sectors — one that could help leaders in cities convince the right people to get behind the arts across all its mediums.
We think the case is not only strong but ensuring these sectors can thrive in the months and years to come is paramount to your community’s future. But first, let’s outline the enormous benefits:
PART 1: The Tangible Benefits
Direct Economic impacts
Let’s start with the most apparent value first: the incredible contribution that the arts and creative sectors make to the economy as a whole.
In the USA, the Arts contributed $877.8B to GDP (or about 4.5% of total GDP) and consisted of over 5 million wage-earning jobs across the American economy (2017). In Canada, the creative sectors contributed $59.7 billion to the GDP, 784,500 jobs; 2.7% of the total GDP, and 3.5% of the jobs in Canada.
To put that in perspective: The five largest tech firms in the USA — Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Facebook — have collectively put 1 million people to work from 2000–2018.
The arts employ 5X more people per year. And this isn’t even accounting for the broader creative sectors like architecture and design.
Talent Retention and Attraction
“Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steel-making.” — Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class
As Florida pointed out, “places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail don’t.” This is because, in a modern economy, people — and their ingenuity — that are valued most. Above tax rates, input costs, or supply chains — businesses and commerce will be attracted to talented and creative people and the cities where they live. And to attract them, Florida says, “..don’t waste money on stadiums…or luring big companies [with tax incentives]. Instead, make places where they want to be, with a vibrant arts and music scene and a lively cafe culture…”.
The economic development agendas of 21st-century cities must acknowledge this reality and the role that vibrant places, arts and music scenes play in facilitating this.
Author note: While the creatives may drive economic productivity, it’s equally important to ensure an inclusive agenda (something Florida admits he got wrong initially. Realizing later that only when the creative class is growing and succeeding in ways that don’t force others out can true prosperity occur! This article explores this revelation).
Facilitating Commerce through “Sticky” Places
But these vibrant arts and music scenes do more than just attract talented professionals. They help nurture healthy local shopping districts and drive retention and repeat business.
In a survey of 43,000 citizens from 43 cities, the Knight Foundation’s Soul of the Community Initiative found that the “aesthetics of a place — its art, parks and green spaces,” ranked higher than education, safety, and the local economy as a “driver of attachment.”
To turn this attachment into commerce, renowned urbanist Brent Toderian gives us the ingredients for “sticky streets”.
Among things like “windows with something interesting and active inside”, “lively patios for people-watching”, “lots of casual seating and informal food opportunities”, “a combination of sun, shade, wind protection, water (especially to create “white noise” for noisy streets)”, Toderian says that Sticky Streets need “things to look at and engage with, such as public art and preferably interactive”. He also reminds us that the least sticky thing a street can have is blank walls and poor light. He half-jokingly refers to these as “teflon streets”: boring, dull or even places perceived as unsafe, that people want to get through as quickly as possible rather than stick around.
Arts Play a Huge Role in Community Safety
Some may find this surprising, but community safety and well-being practitioners worldwide have long since recognized the benefits of engaging artists and musicians in their pursuit of reducing crime and bringing positive activities back to our streets — with real results!
In 2010, Red Deer, Alberta, found themselves enjoying the sound of music coming from an old restored piano installed under an alcove next to a restaurant in the downtown core. The area was prone to various issues that are typical in most cities today (drug deals, loitering, vandalism, and the list goes on). Almost overnight, this simple intervention helped transform Ross Street. People came from near and far to listen to people play the piano. It was the first outdoor street piano in Canada — a legacy that has led to dozens of street piano installations across the country.
But they didn’t stop there! The Art Alley initiative deployed in Red Deer was another extension of how the arts can activate alleyways which are often problematic. It was a joint effort by the City of Red Deer and the Downtown Business Association and was funded for five years. Local artists were employed, and a series of 9 murals were created starting in 2014.
The Red Deer approach utilizes a growing but long-standing practice called Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED), which expands upon the assumption that the proper design and effective use of the built environment can lead to a reduction in fear of crime and the incidence of crime, and an improvement in quality of life. The practice has continued to evolve over the years, but both first and second-generation principles are often based in the arts, or at least by practitioners who see the connection.
Here are some CPTED principles that support the arts:
NATURAL SURVEILLANCE — relies on the notion of seeing and being seen. People also tend to feel safer when they can see and be seen.
MAINTENANCE — creates a sense of guardianship or stewards of a place or space.
SOCIAL COHESION — A socially cohesive community is one where residents and visitors participate in community life, have a sense of responsibility and decision-making within their neighborhood, and seek methods of conflict resolution. The physical environment can support these interpersonal dynamics by considering how people use and experience a space and participate in activities together.
COMMUNITY CULTURE — Communities of well-being have a positive sense of identity and pride. There is a sense of place, a shared history, and commemorative or significant neighborhood events or people. Placemaking through street art, festivals, and the arts is how community culture is developed and celebrated.
CONNECTIVITY — Communities do not exist in a vacuum. Connectivity addresses the ability of communities to create relationships with external support networks, ultimately strengthening the options available to solve local problems and influence municipal planning and development-related decisions. It can also include physical infrastructure such as access to community spaces, walking and bike pathways, transit, and green spaces.
Murals, street pianos, and other placemaking and art installation initiatives bring people to the streets, creating safety in numbers. Numerous people, including artists and musicians, flock to the streets to enjoy the sights and sounds and care for these places that have changed their lives. Jane Jacobs first observed this phenomenon in the streets of New York and Boston and described what was happening to cause reductions in crime: “there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street.”
PART 2: The Less Tangible Benefits
Art Nurtures a Sense of Belonging
As this report from the Community Foundations of Canada points out, the broad reach and deep emotional connections made through the arts prove they are powerful instruments to enhance belonging:
“Whether we perform, applaud or volunteer, the arts breathe life into every community. They touch the lives of almost everyone. They can make us think, laugh, cry, dance or debate. We feel pride when local artists succeed. We reminisce about joining thousands in a special concert or festival. We gather in art spaces for special celebrations or at memorials for powerful remembrance. Relationships and belonging grow in that moment when our hearts and minds are open to new experiences and to one another.”
Belonging is so important in our world full of screens where more and more people feel isolated rather than connected. But in order to bear the fruits of the enormous potential benefits of arts, we must ensure that our arts and cultural institutions are inclusive. Why? Because belonging is also essential to making our cities more welcoming and diverse (and as Dallas points out in this previous post, diversity is increasingly important to cities!). However, as this impassioned post from a Black artist in Vancouver points out, it’s not always the case that our arts organizations are genuinely working for everyone. Let’s make sure that they do.
The Role of Arts in “Cross-Pollination”
Here’s where it gets really fun. The Arts and Creative Sectors have real positive impacts on people working in other sectors. Here are some fun examples:
- Albert Einstein’s first love was music and it’s well documented that he played his violin “Lina” quite beautifully. He has stated that music inspired his scientific theories
- Samuel Morse (inventor of Morse Code) was an accomplished painter and even attended the Royal Academy of Arts
- Beatrix Potter (beloved children’s author who has sold over 100 million books such at The Tale of Peter Rabbit) was a passionate and skilled naturalist who studied plants and animals in depth
- Hedy LaMarr, the famous moviestar, invented and patented the technology used during WWII to quickly change radio frequencies (the root technology of modern bluetooth)
- Brian May (that’s Queen lead guitarist Dr. Brian May to you!) is also an astrophysicist and wrote his PhD dissertation on interplanetary dust. Read it here if you’re nerdy enough!
- And the most famous of all of course: Leonardo Di Vinci who was renowned in, well, civil & mechanical engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, zoology…(the list goes on!); but as we all know, his most famous works come from his mastery of painting: the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper
- And these are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a fun fact that Nobel Laureates are 2.85 times more likely than the average scientist to have an artistic or craft hobby. Coincidence?
The case here is simple: encouraging children (and people of all ages!) to engage in arts increases their potential to contribute to other fields.
Human Creativity & Inspiration
“I call the age we are entering the creative age because the key factor propelling us forward is the rise of creativity as the primary mover of our economy.” — Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class.
So far, we’ve learned that the Arts are good for the economy, help our cities attract and engage talent, make neighborhoods safer, help facilitate commerce and human interactivity, help nurture a sense of belonging, and even help people in unrelated fields unlock their potential. These are just a few reasons that the renowned education-reform leader Sir Ken Robinson said that “Creativity is as important as literacy.”
There’s just a massive case to be made, over and above all the benefits we spelled out here, that just being in proximity to art makes business and society better. Researchers in Korea sought to prove this out. Their research found that being inspired by a piece of art can increase creativity, and within a business environment, it led to better performance in problem solving exercises.
Where this gets more applicable is that according to the Conference Board’s “CEO Challenge 2017” survey, 72% of respondents stated that creativity is of high importance when hiring. So it’s actually in the best interests of employers of all types to encourage access and proximity to art and other inspirational aesthetics and experiences both within and outside the workplace. The good news is that there is evidence that more businesses are recognizing this and are making investments in the arts.
Outside the workplace, there is a solid case to be made to use interactive installations in the public realm. These surprising and inspiring elements not only unlock creative energy but also help release endorphins and lower stress — all aspects that lead to positive outcomes for communities and workplaces alike!
The End of Stale, Boring Streetscapes & Places
In 1974 musician Terry Jacks released a song titled “Concrete Sea.” The concrete sea describes the urban landscape that seemed unnatural and stifling to Jacks. Fast forward to 2021, and a worldwide pandemic that shut metropolitan cities down for months at a time. Without the hustle and bustle of people in the streets enjoying the sights and sounds, it felt apocalyptic at times.
The saving grace for our cities has always been the arts and culture scene that has painted over the idea that our public realm was, in fact, baron and unnatural, as Jacks suggested. Despite Covid-19, there is a dire need to get back to business, and a considerable part of that means reinvesting in the arts. According to the largest architectural design firm globally, Gensler Research Institute, the most critical factor to exceed people’s expectations in public spaces is novelty. Number two: beauty.
Imagine if we applied this to our streetscapes, neighborhoods, and places to create unique, unexpected, aesthetically pleasing experiences. Now imagine that those same places were always changing and evolving and ready to surprise us!
A New Era of Reinvigorating Cities
Just like some animals molt their skin to make way for new growth, continuously updating a city can bring constant new life and reinvigoration. Though it can be a significant challenge for cities using traditional approaches (infrastructure and large art installations are expensive!), this is where digital, interactive-based art and crowdsourced/participatory art can both shine.
Creating designated areas of the city where artists can add to, cover up and re-invigorate street art means that the beauty is constantly reinventing itself. It also means people will be brought together to experience it (and to create it!). City Hall can set the parameters, engage the arts organizations, and set them free within the sandbox.
With interactive technology platforms, some cities have been able to change the built environment cost-effectively in order to refresh public space on an annual basis through technologies that can be programmed (or “snap-on” pieces that convert or expand the art for a holiday celebration or festival). A patron this year may return the following year but will have a completely different experience as the year before. This is a powerful motivator for repeat visitation.
Art is an essential aspect of the identity of any place. As cities become increasingly similar with chain stores, restaurants and services, individuality becomes indistinguishable. The distinct personality of a city or neighborhood is a significant factor that attracts people — from visitors and potential new residents.
PART 3: Taking Action — Kick-Starting a New Era of Creativity in Your City
What needs to be done to help these sectors not just make it through the post-COVID recovery period but thrive in the months and years to come? Here are some ideas:
- Save the music, theatre companies, and performance venues. We’re going to need these places when it comes time to save our social lives (and mental health!) and get back to these immersive experiences with friends. This national campaign in the US was a great example because it landed funding for venues in the Biden administration’s stimulus package. Here’s another campaign from the UK. In Canada, there’s the #FortheLoveofLive campaign that started in February 2021. Wherever you live, find the campaign that will bring back these venues and support them.
- Save the artists and musicians. Have you ever wondered why Icelandic people are so creative? Despite a population of just 330,000, Iceland is home to over 7000 companies in the creative sectors. 1 in 10 people there have published a book. And a full 1 out of every four people works in the creative industries. A 2011 study sought to find the answer to this. Though there are some cultural reasons (gender equality, less hierarchy in society, encouraging children to play and experiment, etc.), one key finding was that artists feel safe to explore their craft: “Never underestimate what knowing you will always have food, shelter, childcare, and education will do for your creativity.” Perhaps not surprisingly, most other countries don’t treat artists this way. Why not? Why can’t we have more programs that support these creative (and highly risky/low financial pay-off) careers?
- Commission art in your community. Having a “market” that artists can strive for and compete within creates incentive to refine their craft. This was one of the major factors that drove the Renaissance period in Florence, Italy. Wealthy merchants would grant money to the Church to use for competitions for everything from art installations, sculptors, and even new doors. If you’re wondering how all that worked out, here’s a list of some of the famous artists that emerged. This goes for businesses and property developers, too: why not use art to inspire tenants and patrons, and not only to just check a box in the community amenity agreement. As we pointed out, it helps enhance the safety and crime reduction elements of the buildings (in addition to just being pleasant for all involved!)
- Enable flexible performance spaces. Resilient environments that can thrive through any setback will be critical going forward. Here’s a story of a Vancouver theatre that embraces flexibility to diversify and reduce risk. But there will be many barriers for these venues to do this, most of which are regulatory (from liquor licensing to zoning). Forcing these small companies through the hoops and red tape is a massive waste of their time and resources. Therefore, encourage your local governments to be proactive by reviewing what barriers might prevent the survival of these types of venues. Alternatively, granting temporary permits or pilots/trial periods while the regulations are being worked out is a great way to not just work with the venues through troubling times but can lead to better policy through iteration and learning. This is often referred to as a “regulatory sandbox.”
- Bring Artists Together. Group projects, collaborations, free street walls, and space where artists can go wild (or as some artists refer to it as “hive” projects), are great ways to bring the community together, give people a sense of pride in their neighborhood and are even helpful for gang-related initiatives or other initiatives that reduce crime and conflicts. In your community, seek out the cultural planners, neighborhood associations, placemaking and arts organizations that could collaborate to make a space (or spaces) like this come to life.
- Force collisions between Artists, Creatives and Entrepreneurs. We all have that one friend who long ago went to SXSW (South-by-Southwest) and now never shuts up about it. One of the main reasons that SXSW is so effective as inspiring attendees is that it deliberately forces people from many different backgrounds and sectors into the same spaces to draw ideas from each other. One could argue that SXSW has become too corporate in recent years, but what if you could replicate the feel and impact of SXSW right in your city? Call it an Idea Festival or whatever, but the key is to bring together people from diverse backgrounds and age groups to discuss ideas, solve problems, or hold design charrettes.
“You can be creative in anything — in math, science, engineering, philosophy — as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance.” — Sir Ken Robinson
- Bring back the polymath by encouraging Interdisciplinary Education: Jake notes here that Justin Love, the founder Limbic Media, was the first graduate at his University with a joint degree in Computer Science and Visual Arts — this has made Justin’s company both technologically innovative and highly design forward (placing a lot of emphasis on beauty and emotional appeal of the products). Over the last many decades, there seems to be more of a push to narrow fields of study instead of expanding them. While this may work for preparing us to get a job upon graduation, it leads to less innovation because, as design company IDEO notes: people who have access to and experiences from a broader range of disciplines are more innovative because they can collaborate more easily with people from across multiple disciplines.
- Celebrate failures and “the attempt” — in the tech sector, they’ve created “FuckUp Nights” to bring aspiring entrepreneurs together to hear stories of trial and failure and what lessons emerged from these. This helps create a culture shift (especially important in Canada) around the idea of failing. That it should bring celebration and congratulatory messaging for “the attempt” and what can be carried forward to the next project, rather than shame. Let’s do this with the arts. In ancient Italy, notable artists like Leonardo Di Vinci worked in guilds alongside other artists. Their failed attempts could be improved in the safety of peers who were also attempting new cutting-edge experiments.
- Draw Inspiration from Around the World and Bring it to Your City: We put a few extra ideas here to get your brain churning. But our point here is to find ideas from around the world, pick one that resonates, and then try to implement it in your community. These can be anything from festivals, installations, and large events, or down to small neighborhood projects, like Emergency Preparedness/Safety Boxes or Little Free Libraries.
Installations to elicit play and interaction
Explore, Join or Create “Placemaking” in Your Neighbourhood
Reflection and Interaction
Art for social change
Around the world, artists are working with diverse communities to create positive change through processes of participatory art-making. Various terms are used to describe this diverse field, each with its own nuanced goals and practices. These include art for social change (ASC), socially-engaged art, community-engaged arts (CEA), animation culturelle, community cultural development, cultural mediation, social (practice) arts, and participatory arts. In addition, arts education, recreational arts, creative arts therapies, popular education, and innovative leadership processes can be closely related to these forms.
And Last (but far from least!): FUN for all ages!
As adults we seem to forget its importance, we get side-lined with the seriousness of life and all its responsibilities. We become critical thinkers and complicate the world around us. We need to have more FUN, and awake the child within us. There is no better way of achieving this than through the arts, and embracing our child-like creativity.
Children see and interact with the world differently than adults do, yet their specific spatial, social, and developmental needs are not widely understood, which resulted in them receiving little consideration when it comes to how cities are designed — so says Kristin Agnello, an award winning planner, who just released a book titled “Child in the City.” She encourages us to “explore opportunities for children to be active participants in the design of their communities, thereby supporting the development of an active and engage society.”
Download the book for free — Child in the City: Planning Communities for Children and their Families
We’re always looking for more ideas and inspiration. If you want to connect, you can find our contact information linked in the opening paragraphs.
