Super-sizing the arts By Bruce Eaton Put yourselves in these shoes for a moment. You’re twenty-eight years old, energetic, educated, and creative. You’re willing to take risks: no standard-issue job for you just because it holds out a promise of security and a chance to spend evenings in front of the television or computer. You want to generate ideas in your work and absorb ideas in your play. You don’t feel compelled to live in the same place where you grew up or went to school–you’ll pack up and move anywhere if it can offer you what you’re looking for. Now answer this question. Which of the following characteristics might most attract you to a city? •Lots of local government. When you think about entrenched bureaucrats—like Al Qaeda in the hills of Afghanistan—clashing with legislators and cannibalizing IDAs, it’s kind of like a real-life Dungeons and Dragons. Cool! •A casino. You work hard...got to have some place to blow your money. •High taxes. You’d be thrilled to foot the soaring bill for premium health care plans for public employees and elected officials while you struggle to pay your own insurance costs out of pocket. •Leadership that passes the buck. You’ve studied Zen, so you appreciate the mindset that whether it’s building a bridge or just a waterfront restaurant, nothing has to happen too quickly. It can be a bridge to the twenty-second century. •Lots of barriers to doing business. Needless regulations and non-responsive government make starting a business a kind of extreme sport—like trying to mountain bike up a giant marshmallow. Raise your blood pressure to the limit out of sheer frustration. Fun? Wow! •Suburbs with new developments and golf courses. Can’t find them anywhere else in the country, nosirree Bob. •Professional sports franchises. Every empty seat at HSBC is a welcome mat for all the people around the country who make hockey somewhere around the thirtieth most-watched spectator sport in the country. •A thriving, hip cultural community that offers a multitude of ways to experience and participate in the arts. The answer is (hopefully) obvious: creative people value the arts and—given the choice—will gravitate toward cities or regions where the arts are a priority, not an afterthought. That’s nice, you might say, the arts are certainly laudable but we have so many other pressing needs in our region and ever-dwindling resources. Why should public dollars to the arts be increased, let alone maintained, at a time like this? The answer is simple: CREATIVE PEOPLE CREATE JOBS. Whether in technology or service, restaurants or retail, new ideas that generate excitement, results, and, ultimately, dollars and more jobs, do not come from narrow-minded, short-sighted, risk-averse people. Creative people start businesses. Creative people rebuild neighborhoods (creating more jobs)—turning rundown homes and industrial spaces into prime property. Think what several thousand young homeowners with money could for to the city housing stock (and tax base). Creative people can jolt a city out of its collective lethargy and send a business-as-usual good ol’ boy network scurrying for cover. The issue of support for the arts was addressed in a recent Buffalo News cover story, "Right-sizing The Arts" (2/26/04). What first leapt out is that at a time when the city of Buffalo is desperately casting about for magic-bullet economic solutions from casinos to fishing stores, it has eliminated all funding for the arts (roughly $400,000—a mere pittance, really). Forget trying to attract gamblers and fishermen. Tourism is fine but it’s even better when people put their big money down and decide to live here. Western New York should be scrambling to attract creative young people no matter what their chosen field. Properly allocated, money spent on the arts can be a powerful seed for economic growth. Ask the nearest political leader: why do people from all over the world move to New York City and endure high taxes, a stratospheric cost-of-living, and everyday hassles that would wilt most Western New Yorkers? Because whether it’s fashion, advertising, music, theater, publishing, or art, New York City is the creative center of the world. Heck, even the financial world is creative. Take away the museums, restaurants, galleries, Broadway, shops, and clubs and what have you got? A bunch of tall buildings and a lady with a torch. What was Seattle before a bunch of young creative technology types moved in? A city with a reputation for rain instead of snow. And don’t overlook the fact that one of those creative minds figured out that coffee could be more than a tasteless brown liquid. How did Austin, Texas go from being just another university town to a booming city? A reputation for a thriving artistic community, internationally promoted by the annual South by Southwest music festival. When budget time rolls around, the arts are an easy target. Instead of tackling tough issues–getting rid of dead-weight personnel in the schools or city hall, eliminating labor inefficiencies, or reducing health insurance costs–it’s easier cut the funding, let’s say, for CEPA Gallery. In the political scheme of things, it’s of little consequence if Director Lawrence Brose has to lay off sixty percent of his staff. No one is going to be out in front city hall making noise, or waving signs in front of a television camera. But there’s one big problem: by crossing out the arts, we’re crossing out a real reason for someone to live in Buffalo. Instead of focusing on "rightsizing" the arts, we should be SUPER-SIZING the arts. We waste millions of dollars in failed economic grants and industrial development initiatives. Instead of dreaming about our industrial past, we should be reaching out to the future. That future is in young, educated, ambitious people who gravitate towards a city or region because it’s perceived as a hip place to live, a city where things are happening besides stealth demolitions. The great advantage is that by embracing the arts, Buffalo doesn’t have to start from scratch, trying to re-invent itself as something it can never be (theme park destination, anyone?), but building on an already strong foundation and identity. The Albright-Knox, Hallwalls, Soundlab, Big Orbit, and CEPA (along with many other organizations) have put Buffalo squarely on the national radar as an arts community. Add our architectural heritage and wide range of outdoor recreation and we’ve really got something that can attract younger people if it’s nurtured and developed, not sliced and discarded. To imply that arts organizations need to get their fiscal act together in order to survive, as was suggested throughout the News article, is looking at the situation through the absolute wrong end of the telescope. Contrary to any misconception, most local arts organizations are run with an efficiency that one only wishes that state and local government could even vaguely approximate. In the twelve years that I have produced jazz concerts in Western New York for non-profit arts facilities—and in numerous conversations with my counterparts—I have been party and witness to a relentless focus on controlling costs, far more so than I ever experienced while working among the financial wizards of Wall Street. It’s ironic that many of the same leaders who talk tough to cultural organizations strongly support public dollars propping up our professional sports teams and would never even think of criticizing those organizations for handing out multi-million dollar contracts to marginal (and in some cases, long gone) players. Right-sizing the arts can only occur once we realize that our cultural resources are perhaps our most underrated economic asset. If we super-size the arts, Buffalo can not only survive, but even prosper. Bruce Eaton is a frequent contributor to Buffalo Spree. Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top