Thursday, May 20, 2010

Rating your community's arts ecology


The report was published in 2007, and its focus is Philadelphia, but it's still worth a read: the Rand Corporation's Arts and Culture in the Metropolis: Strategies for Sustainability.


Here's its most intriguing take-away: the arts ecology of a community (or possibly region?) can be defined by looking at what exists in 5 areas:
1) Grant funding available for the arts
2) Technical assistance being provided to the arts field

3) Quantity: how much is presented/performed/exhibited

4) How much promotion for the arts exists in the community (region?)
and
5) How much the arts are included as part of how the community (region?) defines itself in terms of economic development
So: how does Iowa's northwest quadrant look in this regard, with its growing arts impact coming out of Spencer, Okoboji, Orange City, Sioux City, and more? How about the famed Cedar Rapids-Iowa City cultural corridor? Or our capital city? What's the arts ecology in these and other areas, and where do we want it to be?

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