Do note however, that before every major
depression, we've had a wild orgy
of land speculation.
of land speculation.
What do we have now?
Harry
November 11, 2002
You like stories Harry, let me tell you one. I've told it before but the point is still there and no one seems to believe it so here goes.
You like stories Harry, let me tell you one. I've told it before but the point is still there and no one seems to believe it so here goes.
I had fish tanks, lots of them.
But all fresh water and so I decided to get some of the beauties of the
sea. I had a 125 gallon tank that was the size of a casket and
that was exactly what it turned out to be for my expensive sea going salt water
fish. I bought the salt, the alkaline gravel the rocks and
filled it with water and let it sit for a couple of days with the filters and
ozonizer on. About a thousand dollars in equipment at the time
1978. Then I bought the fish and they started at 50 dollars a
piece. I let them get used to the temperature and then set
them free in my miniature sea and they sat for a couple of minutes and then
turned belly up and died. I went to the fish store and
was told to do a couple of more things and then bought a couple of hundred
dollars more of fish and went through the same routine and they died again at
which point I emptied the salt water out of the tank, throughly cleaned it and
made it a tank for African Cichlids a high alkaline fresh water fish that cost
between 10 and 15 dollars per up to the most expensive which was at the low end
of the Salt Water costs and I had the tank for several years of pleasure until
they went through several cycles and ate each other in spite of my keeping them
well fed.
So I got rid of the ozonizer, used the rest of the
couple of hundred pounds of salt for me to enjoy salt baths and
waited. A month later my hand broke out in a little innocous sore
which grew but didn't hurt. I went to the dermatologist and he said
that I had contracted Mic-bacterium Marinum or Salt Water Tuberculosis from
cleaning that tank without a glove. Who would have thought,
the tank was brand new and it is hard to catch that. Well it cost me
a couple years of expensive Tuberculine drugs plus the very unpleasant side
effects while I was teaching. I was lucky
however. A friend of mine who worked in the fish store got
cancer and they found that standing too close to the ozonizer stimulated cancer
in humans and he died. I threw the thing away never having used it
for more than a few days. I found out what killed the
fish. Trace minerals. The arrogance of
the chemical business which manufactured the sea salt put everything that was in
sea water except for the tiny trace minerals. Of course the
big stuff would have killed them too if it was missing but who would have
believed that the trace minerals were necessary for life in
ocean? It's the little things.
Consider the care and feeding of our children
in school in this little section from: STRONG ARTS, STRONG
SCHOOLS
The Promising Potential and Shortsighted Disregard of the Arts in American Schooling CHARLES FOWLER Oxford Pr.
The Promising Potential and Shortsighted Disregard of the Arts in American Schooling CHARLES FOWLER Oxford Pr.
We do not need more and better arts education to develop more and better artists any more than we need mathematics in the core curriculum primarily to develop mathematicians. Rather, we need more and better arts education to produce better-educated human beings, citizens who will value and evolve a worthy American civilization. Better-educated human beings: That is the justification for making the arts an essential part of general or basic education. That is why the arts are a common heritage to be shared by all. And that is why the schools have an obligation to pass on that heritage to the next generation. Access to that heritage is a right of citizenship.
If we do that then we will think differently
about the humanity of all of those folks left behind by our theories or who do
not want to live in the kind of world we posit as an ideal. It
is in the identity that we all gain our sense of what it means to be a human
being. But it also happens to be good economics as the
following article makes the point. I will send it whole and if it
doesn't work will break it up. If you want to read the whole
thing (75 pages) then it is available at:http://www.nycfuture.org/content/reports/report_view.cfm?repkey=90
The Center for an Urban Future
website.
I will say that there is one point that they
miss here and that is that greater control and organization does not make
greater product. Not in the arts and not in most creative
ventures. But that discussion is
another post. Simply put, this article quantifies what should be
quantified and recognized and makes a decent set of proposals although they are
a little too confining for artists and not confining enough for the current fad
in economics which idealizes a machine economy. Something
that was worked with at the Bauhaus early last century and then discarded
as they realized that a machine is an inferior human being.
This article also points out how biased and inadaquate the alleged Wall Street
Journal is as anything other than a rag to push speculation and destroy
companies and communities across the US.
Regards
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
The Creative Engine
By Neil Scott Kleiman and the CUF Reporting Team. Edited by Kristal Brent Zook.
Introduction: It Don't Mean a Thing if You Ain't Got That Swing...
Across the country from Philadelphia to Seattle, mayors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in arts and culture to help grow their economies and bring that elusive sense of “soul” to their cities. But as the rest of the nation implements major cultural development strategies and business investments alike, New York has never developed a coordinated cultural development strategy. It’s not that culture is any less important here; all agree that there are few economic sectors more vital to generating growth in the city.
By Neil Scott Kleiman and the CUF Reporting Team. Edited by Kristal Brent Zook.
Introduction: It Don't Mean a Thing if You Ain't Got That Swing...
Across the country from Philadelphia to Seattle, mayors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in arts and culture to help grow their economies and bring that elusive sense of “soul” to their cities. But as the rest of the nation implements major cultural development strategies and business investments alike, New York has never developed a coordinated cultural development strategy. It’s not that culture is any less important here; all agree that there are few economic sectors more vital to generating growth in the city.
What’s different about New York is that arts and
culture isn’t easily confined to one downtown or midtown location; the
proliferation of cultural activity throughout the five boroughs would likely
doom to irrelevance any grand master plan from City Hall, the preferred approach
in other cities. But government and business leaders here can learn from how the
arts and culture sector has developed in neighborhoods around the city and help
lay the groundwork for even more cultural-based economic development in the
future.
We need to take a much closer look at this
scattered and complex industry, particularly in neighborhoods where arts and
culture-related growth has taken root. Since one of the city's biggest economic
development priorities in recent years has been developing alternative business
districts to better compete with Jersey City and other suburbs, New York must do
a better job of understanding how, when, where and why cultural economic
development occurs—and how its power can be harnessed in positive, balanced ways
to benefit neighborhoods.
The Bloomberg administration and outside experts
realize that neighborhoods across the city—-north of midtown and in the other
boroughs—-have a lot of room for economic growth. This report shows that the way
to expand neighborhoods outside of central Manhattan is not just through the
creation of more office space, but with development from the ground up, often
with arts and culture as a base.
This report further illustrates how arts and
culture has been a primary component of growth that already has occurred in
neighborhoods from Harlem to Jamaica and across the city over the past decade.
The issues we raise are important for both arts and culture organizations, some
of which are really struggling, and for the city and its neighborhoods, many of
which could reap great benefits from the type of arts and culture-fueled growth
that a few communities already have experienced. Nurturing the cultural sector
means focusing on the thousands of smaller organizations that feed cultural
economic development at the neighborhood level, as well as on major institutions
like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lincoln Center. This cultural sector
takes root fairly quickly at the neighborhood level, but has definite needs
including space, organizational stability and coordinated marketing and
planning.
This report focuses on cultural and economic
development that happens over time, at the neighborhood level. We found that
balanced cultural development occurs organically within vibrant and diverse
“creative economies.” In this report, we refer often to this concept of creative
economies-—a phrase used as early as 1982 by Bernard Jacobs, president of the
Shubert Organization of theaters and producers, to refer to what he saw as a
relatively independent Broadway economy that was often unaffected by national
economic trends. Keeping in mind the subsequent work of influential scholars
such as Richard Florida, who helped popularize the idea, we use the phrase here
to refer to creative-based economic clusters that attract dynamic and diverse
pools of workers, who in turn attract an even wider spectrum of mixed industries
and business.
It is critical that we understand the
creative economy as an economic sector, equal to financial services,
telecommunications, or manufacturing. Solely in terms of direct
employment, the field is a major growth sector that warrants similar assistance
and economic-development thinking like any other. With an astonishing 52
percent growth rate over the past nine years (based on a full impact employment
analysis in this report), New York’s cultural industry is responsible for more
than 150.000 jobs. There have been a number of major impact studies. Yet the
city has never conducted an overall, neighborhood-by-neighborhood assessment of
cultural development that looks at the potential of arts and culture to
stimulate economic growth. This report, two years in the making, attempts to do
just that.
But the creative economy brings benefits that go
far beyond direct employment. Among its greatest strengths is the ability to
attract other businesses and jump-start neighborhood development. Arts and
culture do this by giving local economies their “soul.” And this is everything,
given that “knowledge workers”—-an influential group that runs from playwrights
and museum curators to software designers and financial analysts—-demand vibrant
and dynamic settings in which they can work, live and create.
“I’ve been to Irvine and I have to say, there is
nothing there,” says Joel Kotkin, author of The New Geography and senior fellow
with both the Center for an Urban Future and the Davenport Institute for Public
Policy at Pepperdine University. “This is why they and Silicon Valley are having
a tough time right now. They’re areas I typically call Nerdistans-—they only
thrive on technical know-how. New York has culture and a mix of industries that
the new economy thrives on.”
The new economic reality is that the most dynamic
companies are increasingly making decisions to relocate based not on tax breaks
and cheap labor, but on quality of life, as well as creative pools of talented
and mobile workers. And those workers who truly feed the creative economy seek
out areas with culture, entertainment and foot traffic at any time, day or
night. The creative economy abhors empty skyscrapers, desolate pavements at
sundown, and sterile office parks in the suburbs. Rather, it calls for funky
residential units in close proximity to offices and artisan workspaces. “People
are less attracted to the sterile and more toward what is authentic and
original,” notes Richard Florida in his latest book, The Rise of the Creative
Class.
Outside New York, the power of the creative economy
has shifted most economic development planning. Phil Psilos, director of
economic and technology policy at the National Governors Association, works
nationally to develop economic growth strategies for the nation’s fifty state
governors. “There is an understanding now,” he notes, “that you must have an
ability to build a cultural component into development to retain talented and
mobile workers. [Culture] is the key to economic development now. Look at any
trend analysis and data. Investment follows human capital…and human capital, to
a surprisingly large extent, follows the arts.”
If the argument for nurturing creative economies
should have an audience anywhere, it should be here in New York, where brilliant
writers, visual artists and stage performers have contributed as much as the
giants of industry and trade to give the city its unique swagger. Given that
legacy, and the enormous economic potential of the creative economy, we feel
that it is critically important to tackle this issue head-on. But while everyone
agrees that arts and culture is a pillar of our economy—-in fact, few other
industries have stimulated as much economic improvement throughout the five
boroughs—-the vast majority of us haven’t the slightest clue how to define the
sector. Culture is not just Broadway and Museum Mile, in other words, but
thousands of commercial artists, galleries, botanic gardens and zoos citywide.
Government isn’t much help in quantifying arts and
culture. Although the Department of Labor tracks industries such as health care
and food manufacturing, there is no similar mechanism for understanding the role
played by freelance new media graphic artists, for example. Nor does the
industry itself keep a tally of its own nonprofit or commercial ventures,
individual artists, or the myriad subdivisions that range from performance to
visual arts to media. Industries such as telecommunications, manufacturing, and
biotechnology all have trade associations, representatives and analysts who can
provide overall insights into their fields and lobby for their interests. But
the arts as a sector is famously balkanized and categorized into many different
fields.
So how can we nurture growth in a sector if we
can’t even describe what it is?
Efforts elsewhere provide some ideas on how we
might define the creative economy. For example, England and Australia have
reorganized entire economic strategies around this vital clustered sector.
Closer to home, two separate studies-—one in Portland, Oregon, and one combining
six states in New England-—have undertaken massive projects in the past three
years to define and respond to the needs of their own unique creative economies
(See “Creative Thinking”).
But let’s not forget: New York was once a pioneer
in this field, too.
In 1983 and again in 1993, the Alliance for the
Arts and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were the original
inspiration for many such efforts with their detailed studies of arts and
culture as a sector. Their research enumerated and described in detail the
economic effects in terms of dollars and jobs of arts and culture in the two
states, and specifically in New York City in 1993. It showed that arts and
culture was a primary engine of growth even through the difficult recession of
the late 1980s and early 1990s. The study’s data offered only a snapshot of one
segment of the creative economy; it doesn’t take into account relevant sectors
such as publishing, photography or architecture. The 1993 study did show
remarkable growth. And as many analysts foresee continued slow or flat
employment growth for financial services, they predict the creative economy will
continue growing, almost across the board.
The 1993 report influenced increased arts funding
at the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Alliance is currently working with
department officials to build a database of cultural organizations in the city.
The Bloomberg administration is making concrete steps forward, but the city has
yet to articulate an overall culturally-based economic development strategy.
Everyone from World Trade Center developer Larry
Silverstein to Governor George Pataki has been talking lately about the
connection between arts and economic growth. But such big talk is not yet linked
to an overall strategy. The time is now to replace vague rhetoric with a clear
and organized plan of action. We’ve identified three key groups that need to
come together immediately to offer a comprehensive plan for cultural and
economic development: city government, funders, and development organizations.
City Hall shouldn’t dictate the plan, but it can do
a great deal to assist development that is already budding at the neighborhood
level. And action need not entail additional funds. New York has a rich array of
programs to support economic development that must be better targeted to assist
cultural and neighborhood development.
It is clear that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a deep
appreciation for the arts; he has generously donated to arts and culture from
his own personal funds over the past ten years. “There is no doubt,” one City
Hall insider says, “that this administration sees culture as a priority.”
Indeed, the administration charged the city’s Economic Development Corporation
and the Department of Cultural Affairs to work together and seriously look at
economic programs to assist the arts. But this commitment to arts and culture is
not complimented by coordinated city policy. Government support for discrete
pieces of the creative economy resides in many different city agencies, notably
the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Economic Development Corporation and the
Department of City Planning, but nowhere is there an overall strategy for
supporting and maximizing the effectiveness of all the separate programs and
initiatives. Nor are there liaisons between government agencies charged with
collaborating goals and keeping a grasp of their peers’ efforts. Equally
surprising is the lack of focus on the creative economy among the city’s
blizzard of programs available to assist businesses. The city offers a valuable
array of incentives-—from small business loans, to abatements for moving
expenses, to job training for entry level and tech-oriented jobs-—but has yet to
directly connect such incentives to the arts.
The second group that should better coordinate its
efforts is the philanthropic community. Foundations, corporations and
individuals contribute approximately $700 million, including $500 million from
foundation and corporate funds, in support to the arts and culture each year.
This is well over triple the city’s annual expense budget for the entire
Department of Cultural Affairs. But while these efforts provide critical
assistance to many, they are rarely coordinated with government or other
intermediaries, and almost never focus on local assistance at the neighborhood
level. Moreover, few gift-givers think about cultural development from an
economic perspective. With a few notable exceptions—-such as the Robert Sterling
Clark Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Independence Community
Foundation-—these entities tend to classify culture and community development as
separate in their grant portfolios.
The third, and in some ways, most ripe group of key
players is the vast array of economic and community development organizations
scattered throughout the city. Of the more than 150 such organizations in New
York, we’ve identified six that have devised innovative and exciting models for
incorporating cultural assets into growth strategies (see “Connecting the
Dots"). But of this vast network of chambers of commerce, business improvement
districts and development corporations, many have yet to embrace the arts and
culture as a tool for economic development. “We all know this is important,”
explains Brad Lander, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee in
Brooklyn. “But for many community development corporations, there’s no obvious
sense of how to do it. It’s as though arts and community development folks speak
different language[s].”
Embracing the idea of the creative economy as our
anchor, this report focuses on cultural development as it plays out at the
neighborhood level. The good news is that we found many, many examples of such
development throughout the five boroughs.
We identified seven New York City neighborhoods
that are ripe with strong cultural development. Some locales are not surprising,
such as Fort Greene, Long Island City, Lower Manhattan and Harlem. Other
communities, such as Staten Island, Jamaica and the South Bronx, are far less
obvious. And while everyone is aware of headline-grabbing initiatives-—the
recent temporary move of the Museum of Modern Art to Queens for example-—we
found that the majority of activity has been happening in small, powerful ways:
with significantly less attention from the media. It is this phenomenon that has
positioned many neighborhoods to be major areas of growth in a new, more
decentralized New York economy.
Such efforts are outlined in our neighborhood
profiles in this publication. These include sections on The Alliance for
Downtown New York, which has worked hard to foster nascent cultural communities
in Lower Manhattan; the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, whose 35-year
track record has proved astonishingly successful at fostering ties between major
cultural organizations and the local business sector; Long Island City, where a
growing cultural community has been increasingly working with merchants to build
a true mixed-use business district; Fort Greene is home to an array of cultural
activity and the BAM LDC which is implementing the city’s most ambitious plan
for a cultural district; Staten Island, an example of civic activism and
preservation efforts, coupled with artists’ entrepreneurial efforts; Harlem,
where the vast array of possibilities for collaboration exist among cultural and
business networks; and the South Bronx, where The Point CDC is nurturing local
commercial arts ventures and helping to put the neighborhood on the map as a
cultural destination.
We argue that these efforts, both large and small,
clearly prove the potential for culture-related economic development in
neighborhoods throughout New York. The problem is that most of these standout
efforts, strategies and programs are working in utter isolation from one
another.
As the city and local players move toward more
advanced cultural development, it is important to keep in mind the obstacles of
this complicated and complex area.
One major issue is the sheer size of the creative economy: New York is home to some 2,095 arts organizations, 150,000 artists and over 2,000 commercial arts businesses and professionals-—most of whom are working toward divergent and unrelated ends.
One major issue is the sheer size of the creative economy: New York is home to some 2,095 arts organizations, 150,000 artists and over 2,000 commercial arts businesses and professionals-—most of whom are working toward divergent and unrelated ends.
But the single biggest issue in development efforts
is space. The problem of gentrification and displacement was a major area of
concern in five of the seven neighborhoods we assessed, and issues surrounding
displacement have threatened to impede the progress of cultural development.
There are ways to achieve balanced growth without community tensions and without
losing the rich cultural fabrics that made the neighborhoods special to begin
with. The first step is to face the issue of displacement head-on and to come up
with collective solutions to the problem as it plays out in New York City (see
“Elephant in the Room").
Space is also one of the biggest issues with
cultural groups and artists themselves. Simply put, artists cannot work without
affordable studios, residential spaces and offices. There is no issue more
central to their ongoing growth. In our survey, we highlight eight innovative
programs looking to address this critical need (see “No Place Like Home”).
We describe local examples of neighborhood
development in the heart of this report in order to highlight one central
argument: the five boroughs of New York City have a huge, untapped potential for
arts and culture-based economic development. Mayor Bloomberg has promised to
focus on economic growth and rebuilding in New York City. Well, now is the time
to move beyond isolated examples and toward a coherent, collective plan for
action—-a plan that leverages a combined effort inclusive of government and
philanthropic players, businesses, community and cultural leaders and artists
themselves. New York is considered the arts capital of the world. If we can fuse
our unique creative vibrancy with smart, balanced growth, we just may be able to
keep it that way.
A Snapshot Of New York’s Creative Economy
New York’s creative economy encompasses a massive nonprofit sector and thousands of arts related businesses. The sector boasts tremendous breadth, ranging from the $130 million budget of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to small dance groups in the Bronx, 600 commercial galleries and 36 commercial theaters, and some 150,000 individual artists. But it also embraces the ancillary sectors of television, advertising, technology and fashion that are directly dependent on creative inspiration. Hence, the creative economy is a jobs engine in a number of ways. First, it’s a direct employer at museums or photographic shoots. Second, it attracts cafes, bookstores, and other retail establishments that contribute to a vibrant and creative environment, which in turn draws other business sectors including finance and high-tech.
To get a sense of the current strength of the
creative economy, we commissioned the Alliance for the Arts to estimate
employment updates from the 1993 Port Authority study. The updates are only a
slice of the creative economy, not including many vital sectors such as printing
and publishing, architectural services and the more than 150,000 working artists
in the city. Borrowing categories from that study, we present the following
analysis of a portion of New York’s creative economy. The chart presented here
takes one economic indicator-—jobs generated by various cultural sectors in New
York City-—and updates it to reflect gains between 1992 and 2001. The chart
includes not just full and part-time jobs in the cultural sector, but also jobs
in other sectors such as retail and business services, which are supported by
the economic activity of those cultural organizations. That is to say, it
includes not just employees of art galleries, but the printers of their
catalogues and the caterers of their events as well.
KEY FINDINGS: Taking Arts to Heart
The Creative Engine is the first comprehensive assessment of arts and economic development in New York City’s five boroughs.
Despite a lot of rhetoric about the importance of
the creative economy, such a study has never before been done. Even after two
years of research, it is clear to us that more exploration of this multi-faceted
and dynamic sector is still needed. As a preliminary step, however, we present
several key findings that emerged from our close look at seven New York City
neighborhoods.
Arts and Culture is a Major Jobs
Engine. There are over 150,000 jobs in the creative economy, a number
that has grown an estimated 52 percent over the past nine years. It’s probably
the second most important part of the city’s economy behind the financial
sector-—but arguably has more potential for growth than Wall Street. The sector
could also play a pivotal role boosting neighborhood development. In our
analysis of seven city neighborhoods, we found that arts and culture were seen
as the crucial lure for retail, street life, and other amenities that draw
businesses to the area.
Cultural Development Has Exploded in Neighborhoods Outside of Central Manhattan.
As the Bloomberg administration searches for alternative business districts throughout the city, at least seven neighborhoods are experiencing renewed growth based in large part on arts and culture assets. These are not the traditional creative hubs like SoHo, the East Village or Midtown; rather, the creative economy is spurring overall economic growth in the South Bronx, Fort Greene, Jamaica, Long Island City, Harlem, Lower Manhattan and St. George in Staten Island.
Economic Development Intermediaries are Key to Cultural Development, but the Majority Are Not Plugged In.
In our survey of over 150 economic and community development organizations, only six were involved in efforts that directly linked the arts with business to foster economically beneficial environments for long-term growth. The vast majority of business intermediaries, while interested in working with the creative sector, had yet to make definitive moves in that direction.
New York Has Pioneered Standout Solutions to the City’s Space Crunch-—One of the Sector’s Top Concerns.
In our two-year survey of various space programs offering affordable and collaborative working environments for artists and cultural organizations, we found eight standout initiatives. A number of these are national models.
Issues of Gentrification and Displacement are One of the Biggest Barriers to Cultural Development at the Neighborhood Level.
In five of the seven neighborhoods we studied (the exceptions being Lower Manhattan and Jamaica), issues around the displacement of community residents, local merchants, manufacturers and artists were found to be a major barrier, slowing specific development projects and creating resentment at the local level. These issues play out in particularly unique ways in New York City. Cultural development here is not about regenerating abandoned downtown hubs, as is often the case elsewhere, but about better integrating the creative sector into already dense residential and business communities.
Key Ingredients for Successful Cultural Development Are Most Often Found at the Neighborhood Level.
We found the most encouraging indicators for innovative development strategies at the local level. Successful strategies of sustainable cultural development include: tackling issues of displacement head-on; cultivating leadership with vision and patience; nurturing and sustaining cultural growth that isn’t exclusively dictated through planning but happens organically; and mixing different creative industries including nonprofits, commercial arts enterprises and traditional businesses.
Funders Rarely Make the Connection Between Arts and Culture and Local Economic Development.
New York City government is the largest public funder of the arts; individuals and foundations contribute approximately $700 million per year. But few of these funders d i rect their dollars toward culturally-based economic development. Promisingly, some, including the city, are beginning to make the connection.
New York Lacks a Clear Understanding of the Impact and Potential of the Creative Economy.
While a number of overall arts economic impact studies have been done, New York has yet to produce a comprehensive analysis of the creative economy and the jobs it produces, how those jobs fuel other industries, and exactly what incentives and economic assistance tools are most beneficial to it.
Both New England and Portland, Oregon Provide Helpful Models.
Like New York, both New England and Portland have begun to realize the vast importance of the creative economy. Unlike New York, however, they have already completed significant research and established action plans involving the business, philanthropic and cultural communities to thoroughly understand the creative economy and provide it with targeted support.
