News

Group aims to boost creative economy in New England- Culture is a key to economic development

Organization seeks larger role in N.E.

During a recent visit to San Jose, Calif., Michael Greco, a Boston lawyer,
surveyed what he saw as a barren cultural landscape.

By Beth Healy, Boston Globe Staff

”Who would want to come
to Silicon Valley and work
when they have no cultural
institutions like we have in
Massachusetts?” Greco
said that he wondered.

Call it provincial. Call it
New England intellectual
snobbery – or just plain
wrong, if you ask San
Jose’s Chamber of
Commerce.

But Greco is part of a
group of business and civic
leaders, nonprofit chiefs,
and academics who see
the arts as critical to the success of this region, not only to the quality of life, but to
economic development. And they’re trying to form a policy group that stands
shoulder-to-shoulder with this region’s high-tech and industrial councils.

The Creative Economy Initiative started as a research project to quantify the impact of
the arts in New England. Nearly a year after publishing a study on the subject, the
group wants to become a permanent fixture that raises money, holds meetings,
lobbies lawmakers, and coordinates efforts to promote the arts.

It’s a leap that seems daunting even to some of the initiative’s staunchest supporters.

”This resonates powerfully on an intellectual level,” said Cathy Minehan, president and
CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and a new member of the group’s advisory
council. ”I’m a believer, but I think we have to recognize the underlying complexities.”

Minehan, attending a meeting yesterday of the initiative’s advisory board, was among a
majority of members to vote in favor of creating a permanent council. Other backers
included New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen; Niki Tsongas, vice president of
Middlesex Community College; Jonathan Abbott, general manager at WGBH; and
David Hornfischer, vice president at the Berklee College of Music.

Their rallying point is their study, which last year found that 245,000 New Englanders
are part of the ”creative economy.” Their definition covers a broad swath of people, from
the Newbury Street gallery owner and the symphony clarinetist to a computer graphics
professional at a software firm.

Those workers (some of whom would be counted as part of other industry groups)
account for 3.5 percent of the region’s total work force, earning $4.4 billion, according
to the report, and generating $6.6 billion in annual tourism revenue.

”It’s an economic sector that nobody ever saw before,” said James Brett, CEO of the
New England Council, a business policy group that has overseen the Creative
Economy Initiative.

Creative work not only creates jobs but makes this area an attractive place to live,
start companies, and hire people, Brett said. He sees the initiative as ”business
saying the arts are not just good for the soul.”

But among the business leaders, educators, government officials, and nonprofit chiefs
around the table yesterday, there was a clear sense of the challenges ahead for the
nascent group. With the economy climbing out of recession, fund-raising could be
difficult for the group in the near term. And longer term, some members said, the
initiative will have to prove its worth in order to reap support.

WGBH’s Abbott said the group will need a way to ”continually measure” its progress, a
notion that’s become a rallying cry in philanthropic circles. ”People want to get on
something that’s working,” Abbott said.

There were other questions still, such as who will run the new council, and whether the
many different constituencies in the so-called creative economy can see eye to eye.

Shaheen said, ”The question I would have is whether you can get the right players on
the council.” Without persuasive and active members, she said, the group can’t
succeed.

Mark Volpe, managing director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, repeatedly voiced
his concern that big businesses have different goals from arts organizations. ”There are
tensions between for-profits and nonprofits,” he said. Cooperation, he said, isn’t
necessarily a priority for the giant music and media companies.

Greco, the lawyer, acknowledged, ”We are only at the very beginning of this
undertaking.” The challenges are substantial, he said, and ”the cost of not succeeding,
exorbitant.”

Beth Healy can be reached at [email protected].

This story ran on page C3 of the Boston Globe on 3/27/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/086/business/Group_aims_to_boost_creative_economy+.shtml

Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.