{"id":587,"date":"2024-01-23T13:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T13:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/?p=587"},"modified":"2023-11-13T03:37:35","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T03:37:35","slug":"artists-dont-need-vanity-led-arts-organizations-to-make-your-city-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/2024\/01\/23\/artists-dont-need-vanity-led-arts-organizations-to-make-your-city-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists Don\u2019t Need Vanity-Led Arts Organizations to Make Your City Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nonprofit arts organizations that refuse to tend to the un-served among us just bolster the elitism epithets, deservedly so. But artists can make the kind of magic that makes lives better for everyone, especially those who need help.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: Manhattan Plaza<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had a set-to recently with an arts administrator who didn\u2019t believe that Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Needs<\/a> was applicable to the arts. I won\u2019t quote this administrator, but I\u2019ll give you the gist. They mentioned that they didn\u2019t understand why those at the bottom of the pyramid couldn\u2019t self-actualize with the arts, even though that sentiment goes against accepted sociology and psychological data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maslow\u2019s theory was elegantly simple: human beings are motivated by a hierarchy of needs, the most basic of which must, more or less, be met before higher needs can be tackled successfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice, like Elizabeth K\u00fcbler-Ross\u2019 famed stages of grief<\/a>, hierarchical needs don\u2019t happen in a particular order. People from many cultures (India, for example), can be hungry and happy simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, the dismissal of the neediest of the hierarchies\u2014the physiological and survival needs of food, water, warmth, and a place to sleep, for example\u2014by this arts administrator was callous and missed the mark. As we all know, it is not that arts organizations produce art that elicits support, it is when nonprofit arts organizations produce impact that they become fundable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only people who will support a nonprofit arts organization that does no service to its community except produce art (they don\u2019t, after all, create <\/em>art) are those who want to see it. If there are lesser efforts to engage in education models, that would be highly fundable if only the organizations collected real data that showed the participants increased their education. Just showing up is not enough. Not even 80% of life, despite what a famous, now-discredited, comedy director<\/a> once said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It got me to thinking about what makes a region great. The greatest place would have enough jobs and money for all its people but still be affordable for those who can make it better. People would want to come there, regardless of ethnicity, age, or orientation. They\u2019d turn their region not into a melting pot, where a lot of disparate things become one blob; but into a stewpot, where a lot of disparate things make other disparate things better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists are those people who can make cities better. As urban theorist Richard Florida said, \u201cMetropolitan regions with high concentrations of artists exhibit a higher level of economic development.\u201d As nonprofit arts organizations close around the country\u2014it seems as though the numbers are increasing, not decreasing\u2014certain cities are going to have to face a future without a substantial number of artists living in them. But the most innovative ones will take a different tack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Lancaster, California<\/a>, a former train stop in the high desert region just north of Los Angeles that had become a highly-populated exurb, the downtown was in trouble. They put together a plan to revitalize the crumbling, continuingly vacant downtown with artists at the hub of the solution. Artists want <\/em>to create art, make their cities special, and be recognized\u2014as they are in other parts of the world\u2014as catalysts for positive change in society, not just as painters of pretty pictures, happy little dancers, or guitar-playing buskers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Arbor Lofts, City of Lancaster, California (photo by Bridgette Meinhold)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Arbor Lofts has a strict admission policy for renters. They must be visual artists and must use their apartment as their residence. They are provided a modern place to live with extra amenities such as 220V balcony outlets for kilns and other high-energy tools. And their rent is commensurate with their income with some apartments renting to those who make no more than 30% of the area\u2019s annual median income, which is already comparatively low (August 2023: $64,242 \u2013 30% of which is 19,273).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result? $130 million in private investment in downtown Lancaster; 1,100 temporary construction jobs; 50 new businesses and all their new jobs. Sales tax has doubled, and property values rose 10% in the first 3 years of the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lancaster should expand this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manhattan Plaza, a set of two luxury high-rises that were built during a city-wide bankruptcy scare in 1977, became a haven for artists. The owners, seeing a debacle in the making of trying to sell high-cost apartments back in the 1970s, turned to the city for ideas. The city used the Mitchell Lama<\/a> program, created in 1955, to turn the buildings\u20191,900 apartments into a mix of middle-income apartments, Section 8 apartments, and some inexpensive senior apartments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manhattan Plaza has allowed at least some lucky artists to remain in the theater district instead of moving out to the furthest sections of Queens, Brooklyn, or New Jersey in order to further their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York should expand this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as we bandy the ideas behind nonprofit arts organizations being essential (they\u2019re not), we can still make room for the fact that artists can create a burgeoning, ever-improving great city process by, well, creating art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s say your city were one in which the downtown has been mostly vacated, like Lancaster. People are living outside of town and shopping in malls. They\u2019ve just spent the last few years pent up, either by disease, fear, or by choosing to work from home. What would happen if your city were to take its most vacant areas and plan a city of art, starting with housing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen if 1,000 units were built to accommodate artists: visual, dancers, singers, actors, directors, technicians, musicians \u2013 all of it? Base the rent on their actual income, but require them to work with the current local businesses to increase their viability, attraction, and revenues (they\u2019d want to, anyway).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen to your city when every storefront becomes an artistic opportunity, every empty space becomes a potential performance area, and every school receives visits from teaching artists who work through the local districts rather than through an arts organization?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about nonprofit arts organizations who never charge for admission because they\u2019re producing hyper-local work with local artists on the streets of your city in order to uplift the poorest and most underserved among us, bringing social service agencies along to help needy people get the services they deserve? Wouldn\u2019t they finally become fundable? Relevant? Indispensable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists aren\u2019t the problem. They\u2019re the solution. Give them affordable housing and watch your city grow and become a magnet for equity, revenues, and most importantly, livability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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