Culture, arts vital to Economic Development- Regional Focus Crucial to Success

Arts and culture are big business in their own right. But they’re also key to attracting knowledge-based businesses and educated workers, and making communities more enjoyable, officials from three major U.S. cities told Phoenix-area arts leaders Thursday.

John Stearns
The Arizona Republic

Regional visions, strategies and plans benefiting arts and culture have emerged in Atlanta, Cleveland and Denver, all of which value arts and culture as central components of their economies.

Arts and culture generate a $1.3 billion economic impact in northeastern Ohio and employ more than 3,000 people in Cleveland’s home of Cuyahoga County, said Thomas Schorgl, president of Community Partnership For Arts And Culture in Cleveland.

"It is a serious industry," he told more than 100 regional arts leaders meeting at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix.

"The arts are front and center in major cities in this country," said Myra Millinger, associate director of Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation, one of the seminar’s organizers. To encourage a similar arts focus in the Valley, she suggested that:

• A regional arts vision and plan are critical.

• Cultural arts must be integrated into economic-development goals and brought to the public-policy table.

• Cultural activities must be viewed in the broadest sense, with individuals and communities viewing arts institutions as having an important place in the region’s future.

• Non-profit cultural organizations do not have the financial resources to implement new strategies without outside assistance.

• Any solution must recognize that no one sector – cultural, philanthropic, corporate or public – can succeed without the other.

• Strong, credible, committed leadership is the linchpin for success.

She suggested a task force made up of Flinn and the other foundations to unite in advancing Valley arts and culture planning and action.

"The leadership is here," Millinger said. "All we’re lacking is the will to act."

Metro Denver in 2001 measured a $1.1 billion annual economic impact from arts and culture. The industry attracts more attendees than the state’s well-known sports teams and ski resorts, and is the sixth-largest employer, data indicate.

"It’s a tremendous factor economically," said Jim Copenhaver, a consultant for non-profit arts groups in Colorado and a part-time Phoenix resident.

"There’s something going on in Denver that we ought to look at very hard here," he said of a seven-county sales tax of 1 cent on every $10 of spending that generates about $35 million a year for more than 300 Denver metro-area arts, culture and scientific organizations.

Four Arizona philanthropic organizations involved in arts funding – the Flinn, Margaret T. Morris and J.W. Kieckhefer foundations and Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust – invited representatives from the three cities to Phoenix for ideas to elevate regional appreciation, planning and funding for the arts.

Schorgl’s Cleveland group was formed after a study showed a lack of reliable financial support and communitywide planning on the arts. It now serves as an advocate for the arts, helping to improve business practices, marketing and public-private relationships.

He likened the group to a chamber of commerce for the arts.

"This was not a plan for the arts and cultural community, it was a community plan with arts and culture at the center of it," Schorgl said.

Metropolitan Atlanta faces many of the same explosive growth issues as Phoenix, said John Ahmann, senior vice president of public policy for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. He said that mobility, public education, the environment, arts and culture are key quality-of-life elements that the chamber is addressing regionally.

Atlanta wants to be a global innovation capital. It realizes that requires attracting and keeping innovation leaders and their employees, he said, noting an established link between economic growth and arts and culture.

The chamber convened the Atlanta Regional Arts Task Force in 2001 to develop a plan to advance the arts. Emerging from that is the formation of a 20-person arts and culture leadership alliance board that will implement plans.

Unlike sports, the arts are not considered as integral to the Phoenix-area community and economy as they should be, Carol Kratz, program officer for the Piper Trust, said before Thursday’s event.

The arts can play a vital role in attracting an educated workforce for Phoenix’s emerging biosciences and other knowledge-based industries, she added.

"We haven’t really thought of them like that in this region," Kratz said.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/03213cities21.html