The artistic dividend: Urban artistic specialization and economic development implications

Over the past two decades, urban and regional policymakers have increasingly looked to the arts and culture as an economic panacea, especially for the older urban core. The arts’ regional economic contribution is generally measured by totaling the revenue of larger arts organizations, associated expenditures by patrons, and multiplier effects. This approach underestimates the contributions of creative artists to a regional economy, because of high rates of self-employment and direct export activity, because artists ’ work enhances the design, production and marketing of products and services in other sectors, and because artists induce innovation on the part of suppliers. Artists create import-substituting entertainment options for regional consumers and spend large shares of their own incomes on local arts output. We take a labor-centered view of the arts economy, hypothesizing that many artists choose a locale in which to work, often without regard to particular employers but in response to a nurturing artistic and patron community, amenities, and affordable cost of living. Because evidence on such economic impact