For Release Thursday, June 4, 2009
Citiwire.net
There’s more to the arts than their intrinsic value. The universe of drama, concerts, painting and sculpture also spells economic activity. And there’s something we’ve been calling a “creative economy” — the idea that beyond the intrinsic worth of arts, the culture and creativity they generate, there’s clear dollar and cents benefit for a community. And it’s not just tourism, inspiring learning among youth, drawing talented people to a city, even helping accelerate innovation in other industries.
Check the last months’ news, however, and you find the arts are struggling for economic oxygen. Every field from architecture to graphic design seems hard hit in this hard recession.
So what’s to be done — should we “forget” focus on the creative economy for the moment, or alternatively, forge strategies to support arts, develop creative enterprises more than ever?