As I mentioned, I was off early this week at Madison, Wisconsin’s ArtGrowth Summit, one of many such meetings of arts, business, and civic leaders taking place around the country. And yet, preparing myself for the Richard Florida-speak of luring creative workers with creative amenities, I was pleasantly surprised by a more balanced reaction to the Creative Class frenzy that has gripped us all for the past year.
Specifically, our new Madison mayor offered some thoughts you rarely hear from public officials, covered in this local news story:
Cieslewicz allowed that attracting educated, creative people to a city is good policy. But he disparaged the “class” concept as condescending, saying it seems to “relegate the street people with purple hair to bit players in a play performed by the creative class.’ “
Art is about three things, said Cieslewicz: creativity, honesty and taking risks, he said.
A fundamental role of the arts is to “shape our ideas of who we are and to help us govern ourselves,” he said. “Politics without art is dull and uninformed. Arts without politics is without a point.”
That’s my mayor. Pretty cool (pending the proof of his commitment in his upcoming city budget).
