Stimulate the Economy! Yes, the Arts DO That!

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, designed for
Kansas City by Moshe Safdie, is part of our vibrant
nonprofit arts scene. 

Two hundred seventy-three million dollars.

Eight thousand, three hundred and forty-six full-time jobs.

Nine million dollars of revenue to local governments.

Even to the One Percent, that isn't exactly chump change (though the Kansas-based Koch Brothers have spent far more this year on their political agenda).

To the rest of us, those numbers look dowright impressive.

According to an article published in today's Kansas City Star, a pair of studies by Americans for the Arts has calculated that my home town benefited to the tune of those impressive numbers in 2010, thanks to the economic engine that is the nonprofit arts community in our town. 


The Arts and Economic Prosperity IV Report seeks to measure the "quantifiable economic impact of nonprofit arts and culture organizations and their audiences." The Local Arts Index is new this year, and was designed "as a tool to better understand the characteristics of the cultural life of individual communities." 

Some other towns realized even more benefit, some less. But these reports tell--yet again--a story that should be clear to anyone who's been paying attention: far from being a "frill," the arts are economically important. 

Artists are often urban pioneers, spearheading renewal in run-down neighborhoods--just as they have done in the Kansas City Crossroads, and are attempting to do in our West Bottoms and on Troost Avenue. Arts and culture are an important factor in determining a city's "livability." They foster and enhance an environment where innovation, renewal, and growth builds a more vibrant tomorrow.

Yet still it's hard to get many people to see this value. Perhaps reports like the ones reported on today will begin to open a few more eyes.

PHOTO CREDITS: The beautiful image of the Kauffman Center is from a photo gallery of images posted on the Inhabitat website (I highly recommend you go look at them, and get to know the Inhabitat site; they have many wonderful things!).  I took the Crossroads photo, myself.

Kansas Arts Awareness Day

Wichita Group's Initiative Deserves Attention

A group based at Wichita State University, led by Sahar Eshghi and Robert Eastman, sponsored a day of activities and advocacy to support the Kansas Arts Commission today.

The KAC was de-funded this year in a misguided effort by the Brownback Administration to cut "wasteful" spending from the state budget.

I couldn't find a web page (or you'd have seen a link already) for this group. On their Facebook page they state their objective: "Kansas is currently the only state in the nation without a viable Arts Commission. By raising awareness on campus and generating support, we can lobby the State Legislature to reinstate funding to our Arts Commission."


Unfortunately, of course, the state legislature already has tried to reinstate funding. In a move that attracted nationwide attention, Brownback vetoed their effort. But that doesn't mean we can't continue to try getting through to the Brownback gang.


I could not make it to Wichita to participate in the event, but I'd like to express my wholehearted support for this initiative. The Brownbackward de-funding action has actually cost Kansas money, and has yanked support from a vital part of the state's economic engine. 


As Eshghi and Eastman put it, "For every public dollar invested in the Kansas arts, $9 are generated. It has been proven that communities who support the arts not only enhance their quality of life, but also invest in their economic well-being."

This is not a new topic for me--I protested in this blog space in February when Brownback first insisted on this ideologically-oriented misstep. Ignoring the financial realities and brushing aside the popular outrage, the governor has kept his eyes on the national stage.

He is particularly courting the most right-wing, all-government-is-bad-government, arts-are-frills-for-liberals fringe. He's already planning to run for president in 2016; our state is just a stepping-stone, and our Arts Commission was just an ideological talking point, as far as he was concerned.

It was a bad idea for Kansas when he cooked it up, a bad idea for Kansas when he vetoed the funding attempt, and it continues to be a bad idea for Kansas now.