PRESENTATION TO CULTURE MONTREAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Transcription

1 PRESENTATION TO CULTURE MONTREAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY By Robin Keegan March 17, 2005 (Check against delivery) 1

2 Thank you for inviting me here today. I must say it is quite an honor to address this unique group of cultural, public and civic leaders, all of whom are invested in Montreal s future as a cultural city. I would like to quickly apologize for my lack of French speaking skills. While I come from another of North America s great French cities, New Orleans, and have studied French for many years, I am afraid to admit that while I have some proficiency in ordering French cuisine, I am not able to carry on a conversation about the intricacies of arts and a city s economy. I will brush up on it so maybe for the 2007 Summit I will be ready. Today I was asked to speak about New York City as a creative city, to share its best practices and lessons that can be learned from this powerhouse of creative energy. The invitation came after the release of my latest report, Creative New York, which was released in December and focuses on the state of New York s creative sector. New York is full of great examples of arts being used as a catalytic and sustainable driver of economic and community development. I want to share some of these today. It is no surprise to this audience that the arts have long been a tool for revitalizing neighborhoods, sparking economic growth and transforming the lives of people living in cities with a strong arts and cultural presence. As cities face an increasingly competitive global marketplace and continued decline in traditional industries, it is critical that they find new ways to compete. Cities across North America and the world are therefore looking to their artistic and cultural assets to revitalize downtowns and neighborhoods, to develop new talent, and to provide new directions in business development and economic growth. This is a timely discussion. It is my hope that this can be the beginning of an important cross city dialogue between Montreal and New York City as both cities are at a new stage of thinking about their future as creative cities. New York has a lot to learn from Montreal and this dynamic and unique organization, Culture Montreal. We have no analogous civic body in New York and I look forward to sharing this model with my colleagues in New York, as well as in throughout the U.S. I would also like to commend the government of Montreal, the province and the federal government for their commitment to the cultural city. I know from my colleagues in Toronto where I have spent some time looking at these issues that New York and the United States do not benefit from such a commitment and I wish to take this home as well. 2

3 Montreal and New York, while different in scale, have much in common. There are three main similarities that the two cities share that enhance their positions as cultural centers. First, both island cities. This geographic makeup gives both cities a real sense of independence. This position set off from their mainlands even if just by rivers in both cases has ennobled each to capitalize on the fact that it is ok to be different. In fact, it is from this difference that they have both developed their extremely unique creative communities. Both are tolerant cities. In an increasingly global economy, this openness to diversity is critical to a city s continued relevance in the world. New York and Montreal both have also been successful in incorporating the diverse mix of cultures to create a more vibrant city. Both cities are already cultural cities and centers in their own right of many creative industries design, media and architecture to name a few. Cities like New York and Montreal, however, cannot simply rest on their existing reputations as cultural centers assuming that they always will be in that position. Like any asset, the cultural economy requires nurturing in the face of real pressures. It is clear that Montreal s creative community is facing many of the same pressures as New York s. I will come back to these pressures. First I want to talk about the work I have been doing in New York over the last several years to understand its creative sector and address many of the issues facing the sector as New York strives to retain its status as a global creative center. The impact of creative businesses and workers on our communities, preserving our heritage, providing job opportunities and developing strong local and export economies is hard to underestimate but difficult to quantify. This is the work I have been involved in at the Center for an Urban Future, an independent and non-partisan policy think tank that issues studies on economic development and job creation strategies in New York City, where I am currently a research fellow. In 2002, I co-authored our study, The Creative Engine, which examined the interplay of arts and economic development in seven neighborhoods across the city from the South Bronx and Long Island City Queens, to Brooklyn s Ft. Greene and St. George in Staten Island. What we found was that while the catalytic role of the arts on a neighborhood s transformation was desired, it was rarely incorporated into larger neighborhood and citywide economic development strategies. Part of the reason is that while the arts are well revered by leaders throughout New York, their importance to the economy was ill understood. So in order to offer more insight into this issue, we set out to research the city s creative sector from a different angle. We knew as we worked on The Creative Engine that our definition of what the creative economy looked like in New York was too limited. We were primarily focused on the role of nonprofits arts and cultural entities on their neighborhood s redevelopment goals. But we were missing an entire swath of the creative sector the forprofit enterprises, from advertising and film to publishing and design and the creative workforce, the true generator of any creative economy. 3

4 With generous support from the Rockefeller Foundation and our partners at Mt. Auburn Associates, an economic development consulting firm based in Massachusetts, we set out to define New York s creative sector. Obviously this is no small task, but after two years of intensive definitional work, data gathering, and interviews with everyone from the head of major creative firms to freelance graphic designers, we emerged with the report that brought me here today, Creative New York. The report illustrates the importance of creative people and businesses to our overall economy first and foremost by expanding the definition of the city s creative sector to include both the nonprofit and for profit entities in nine industries from advertising and architecture to visual and performing arts. The report posits that these industries, the city s creative core, are a critical part of the city s overall economy. And while the businesses in these industries operate quite differently than other businesses in more traditional industries, they face many of the same issues to warrant collective attention as an economic sector. The report also outlines a series of recommendations of how to support the city s creative sector s businesses and workers to ensure that New York remains a competitive global creative center. We focused our research on a narrow definition of creativity in order to capture what we call the city s creative core. The core consists of those nine industries: Advertising, Film and video, Broadcasting, Publishing, Architecture, Design, Music, Visual arts and Performing Arts, in which the creative element is central to both the cultural and economic values of what is produced. These include businesses and individuals involved in all stages of the creative process conception, production and the initial presentation of the product. What we found: The city is home to more than 300,000 creative workers from graphic designers, painters and dancers to architects, furniture designers and filmmakers. These workers are fueling the city s creative businesses, both forprofit and nonprofit entities. This is good news for the creative capital of the world. Creative workers comprised more than 8 percent of the city s total workforce in 2002 and has been one of the more dependable growth areas for the city s economy. Between 1998 and 2002, employment in New York s creative core grew by 13 percent (adding 32,000 jobs) while the city s overall job totals increased by 6 percent during this period. The creative sector the mix of forprofit and nonprofit creative industries is our competitive advantage. With the exception of financial services, this sector is one of the largest of our economy. 4

5 These creative industries are not only important to our local economy, they are important to our export economy. Every day, New York exports its talent to the scores of national and international tourists who travel to take in our cultural offerings. Additionally, our products from locally developed plays and video games to our musicians, dancers, and designers are part of a global marketplace. For example, plays produced in New York City, and not just those developed for Broadway, are programming theaters across the country. Take the Public Theater, the acclaimed institution founded by Joseph Papp in TK to showcase theater about New York City. This theater has become the R&D laboratory for American theater. In fact in the spring of 2004 alone, two of the major plays on theater row in San Francisco were plays created on the stage of the public theater. Additionally, New York s universities are educating the cutting edge creative talent that is shaping everything from fashion to gaming in the US and internationally. New York s creative core is bolstered by an unmatched support infrastructure. This includes internationally-acclaimed educational institutions from The Juilliard School and NYU s Tisch School of the Arts to the Pratt Institute and the School of American Ballet as well as a large community of arts-friendly philanthropic foundations and patrons, prominent trade organizations and a local government that provides a significant level of attention and support. The city also boasts more than 15 unions and 50 locals that serve creative workers. New York s singular mix of both non-profit and for-profit creative activity contributes enormously to the city s success as a creative center. This blend creates an environment in which individuals can sustain a creative lifestyle, providing both opportunities to make money and reach a broad audience as well as opportunities to experiment, innovate and even fail. New York also benefits from a tremendous pool of talented and skilled workers and the presence of strong creative clusters throughout city s five boroughs. 5

6 We also found that the creative sector has a unique set of characteristics that are important to understand. A quick review includes: These firms and workers often do not operate like traditional businesses. A large percentage of the workforce is self-employed. In NYC, more than 28 percent of the creative workforce are independent workers. This is just a fact of the creative industries, but means that they have very unstable work lives. Few have stable health insurance and other work supports even when employed full time. Different supports are necessary in order to stabilize this workforce. The creative sector is a very entrepreneurial sector, but few of these entrepreneurs, whether an emerging fashion designer or a filmmaker, have the business skills necessary to make sure there businesses grow. And despite a very robust higher education infrastructure and the availability of entrepreneur training classes throughout the city, this results in a lot of recreating the wheel and wasted time that could be spent developing new products. But like all sectors, these creative businesses and workers depend on a set of factors similar to develop strong businesses and impact the overall economy. These include: Affordable Workspace Access to a strong labor pool Access to markets and customers Proximity to producers and suppliers Networks and interaction with creative community Work Supports: health care insurance and life insurance. Issues and Challenges While the city s labor pool is one of it s major strengths, we found that the creative sector these businesses and workers face a number of challenges from the high cost of appropriate work space to a general lack of business skills among individual creative entrepreneurs and a widespread lack of benefits such as health insurance for creative workers, that impede their ability to succeed and impact the economy. The important point to realize is that while New York City is often revered as the creative capital of the world, this is not guaranteed and is certainly not enough to sustain a creative economy. A major concern is that New York s slipping market share in major industries from advertising to music and film combined with internal pressures on visual and performing artists threatens to undermine New York s prominence in this sector. Furthermore, New York s longtime preeminence in the creative industries has greater competition from a growing number of cities, both domestically and abroad, that are developing comprehensive economic development strategies to attract and support creative workers. Even small towns like Paducah, Kentucky are developing tax incentives and affordable housing to retain and attract creative talent. And whose talent do they want most? New York s. This is not bad news for these other cities. In fact, it is good. It simply means that New York needs to be aware of the consequences of these changes. 6

7 Moreover, the diversity of the businesses in New York s creative core, while a strength for innovation, leads to considerable fragmentation and a lack of recognition of shared goals and challenges, which makes it difficult for the creative community to organize effectively for change. Finally, a strong commitment by the public sector is offset by a lack of understanding of the needs of the creative sector. Public decisions are often incongruous with public statements supporting these industries. In general, New York s city builders the planners, architects, developers as well as the business, government and economic development leaders involved in the process have a great respect for the arts and culture. They have been involved in supporting and developing many of the most important cultural developments in the city. In fact, the City of New York has been a long-term supporter of the arts and one of the most important supporters of the arts in the country. For fiscal year 2006, the Department of Cultural Affairs budget is $131 million. This is larger than the state budget for the arts which is only $44 million. Impressively, it is also more than the federal allocation to the National Endowment of the Arts which was only $121 million for the entire country in fiscal year DCA also has a four-year capital budget of over $803 million which will support 169 cultural organizations building plans. Yet there is a disconnect that occurs between city policy particularly manifested in economic development and planning decisions and the goals of sustaining and investing in the city s creative assets. This lack of integration of the needs of the city s creative sector and its planning policies is having severe impacts on the city s creative economy. Because of this disconnect, we are experiencing some dangerous trends that threaten to undermine the vital asset the city s arts and cultural community, particularly its artists, designers, craftspeople, filmmakers and others, are to not only to their neighborhoods but to the city s overall economy. As in Montreal, New York s creative community is too often the victim of their own success. One of the main pressures on the creative sector in New York is the escalating price of real estate. This is forcing the cycle of the pioneering artist on intact creative business districts as well as individual artists. Montreal s creative community faces a similar pressure in its Plateau district where artists have concentrated and developed a strong cultural presence. 7

8 For one, city builders do not always grasp the full extent of the contribution that arts and cultural entities and the people that develop arts and cultural products visual artists, graphic and fashion designers, filmmakers, playwrights, and the list goes on -- have on the neighborhoods in which they are located. The influx of artists to a neighborhood has obviously long been a trend that serves as a catalyst for new development. The result is not a new story artists move in, developers come to a newly softened market, artists move out just a few examples are SoHo, Chelsea, DUMBO, the South Bronx, and Williamsburg. But the true impact on the neighborhood where artists live and are then displaced is not well understood. Contrary to common wisdom, creative businesses and workers in New York cannot simply colonize another cheap space when they are priced out of an area. Much of this is the result of the myth of the pioneering artist, a myth that in my estimation has run its course, in no small part because it has been proven again and again to be untenable for the artist. The continual loss of work space is time consuming and costly, and significantly impacts the production of creative products. If they are to succeed, creative businesses require proximity to one another, access to their markets and audiences, and most of all, space that is appropriate to their work. These needs present real restrictions on where creative businesses and their employees can work. Best Practices The good news is that, in addition to presenting major challenges, New York has also developed a number of best practices that offer ways to address the many challenges the creative sector faces. I will highlight a few that address the creative sector s role in community development, as well as its needs to foster businesses and market access. Community Development: The Point Community Development Corporation - Founded in 1994, The Point Community Development Corporation, in the South Bronx, was originally conceived as a collaboration to stimulate homegrown culture and enterprise and to lead residents, especially children and teenagers, to invest in their own assets. - Offers free and low-cost instruction in photography, dance, music and theater to residents and performances and exhibitions, such as the South Bronx Film & Video Festival. - It has become a center for local entrepreneurs to develop businesses that serve local, citywide, and even international markets. It s marketplace houses, among others, Pat s Kitchen, a soul food café and catering company, and BronxGear, a silk-painting and design business operated by young members of the community, and TatsCru, an internationally renowned graffiti arts company that is visited by graffiti arts connossieurs from as far away as Japan and whose clients include Sony, Coca Cola and other major corporations. 8

9 Industry Clusters: Alliance for Resident Theaters/New York, or A.R.T./New York, shared office space for theater companies and other arts organizations. - Since 2000, A.R.T./New York has created two centers for workspace for New York's off-broadway theatre community. - It s two spaces, South Oxford Space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and spaces at 520, Eighth Avenue, Manhattan, house over 50 companies that were formerly working out of their homes or in inadequate space. - The co-location of these companies has spurred new productions, shared talent and problem solving that has strengthened the product each company and organization is able to develop. Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center (GMDC): - Nonprofit industrial developer in city with 4 buildings in Brooklyn s Greenpoint & Willliamsburg neighborhoods, one of which is a 400,000 square foot industrial waterfront property, that houses more than 72 small businesses and artists tenants including woodworkers, antique restoration, lighting, jewelry design, fine art, apparel, interior designers. Businesses in this building alone employ 500 people, mostly from surrounding communities. Market Access: Brooklyn Designs: - Brooklyn Designs is a program of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. It is a tradeshow for Brooklyn s growing furniture and homewares design community that was begun in Since then it has grown from 30 to 50 designers and the audience grew from 3,000 to 5,000 attendees in its first two years. - The strategy is notable because it took into account the local assets of Brooklyn. Design is a growing industry in Brooklyn. In fact, so much so that just two weeks ago an article in the LA Times proclaimed Brooklyn the it place for design in the US. BK Designs was developed to cultivate this local niche economy and to use the cachet of Brooklyn to grow market demand. So what needs to happen to retain New York City as a competitive creative center and what can other cities learn from the example of New York. Our recommendations for Creative New York include: - Recognize this as an economic sector and incorporate the creative sector s needs into the city s overall economic development strategy by establishing an industry desk at the city s Economic Development Corporation, the city s economic development agency. - Coordinate existing resources and support infrastructure to better support creative industries. Develop a Creative New York organization modeled after Creative London, the coordinating body responsible for developing programs to support the creative industries that is part of London s economic development agency. - Expand cluster-based development, a proven tool in supporting creative businesses using GMDC and A.R.T./New York s shared office and workspace models, to address the affordable workspace needs of the sector. 9

10 - Increase market access through market development programs like Brooklyn Designs. - Coordinate business services providers to enhance existing business skills training programs for creative entrepreneurs. - Mitigate high costs of real estate both workspace and housing and doing business in NYC in order to encourage entrepreneurs to be able to grow and sustain businesses here and for the creative workforce to remain in New York City and continue to contribute to this vital sector. Some final points for Montreal and New York to consider as they move forward: The lesson here is that cities planning for arts and cultural development, no matter what their goal, need to tap their local assets to keep producing businesses with an authentic offering that is based in its local area s flavor and speaks to a local market. Plans should also be people-centered. Since economies are increasingly dependent on the individual and their knowledge and talent, this is the great thing about the creative industries. They depend on an individual s creative inspiration and a skilled group of individuals to bring these ideas to the fore, all of which infuse their own ideas and creativity into the product as it goes forward. But it also means that it is more difficult to provide services and there is a greater need for a special set of tools to support workers in this sector. Another thing that cities must consider is that in searching for a cultural identity, a city must realize that one cultural project or one cultural building cannot alone spark a creative revival. It must be developed as part of an intentional strategy to support the cultural fabric and people working in these industries. Finally, cities must remember the importance of the actual city as the laboratory for creative people. These industries depend on clusters and depend on the vital energy that cities give off as of right. Montreal is good in this area. In fact, the well-known Montrealbased designer YSO (ee-so) has commented that it is easier to start a brand in Montreal than it would be in New York or Paris. Cities must remember that these businesses must not be pitted against forces of real estate that keep them from being able to tap this energy and innovate and create new products, and importantly to risk failure locally. Otherwise they will have to go somewhere else to do this. So why is this important? People often say that New York will always have talented people and a vibrant cultural life, so what s the worry? In today s globalized economy, it is dangerous to assume that this will always be the case. If creative businesses and artists cannot afford to compete here, they will have little choice but to take their talent, and our economic assets, to another city. We can t afford to let them. 10

11 To support the city s cultural economy, city planners, economic development and cultural leaders will need to realize that a healthy cultural community is not one that just invests in the creation of venues for exhibition and presentation of culture. The key to developing a cultural neighborhood or city is to include a balance of production space and performance space as well as amenities based on local talents and assets. City builders should work with neighborhoods and local artists to develop projects that mitigate the negative impacts of certain development which is destroying our vibrant local creative economies. My advice to everyone concerned about urban revitalization and developing a creative city is to develop projects that serve the needs of the community. Embrace the creative talent and provide them with the resources to stay where they re needed and wanted and where they re inspired to be part of the community they help create. I want to end by thanking you again for allowing me this opportunity to speak with you today about these issues that are so important to our cities. I would also like to echo my hope that this begins a continued dialogue between Montreal and New York on each cities strategies to transform their cities based on their local creative assets. 11