The NEA wants to help Richmond!

On January 21st, 2010, NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman spoke before the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. He spoke about the NEA's goal of building "complete communities using the arts as a fulcrum." Below are some important excerpts from his talk, especially relevant given all of Richmond's recent arts and culture district buzz (our previous post here and Style's recent report here)...

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Artists are entrepreneurs, small business owners all, great placemakers and community builders. Bring artists into the center of town and that town changes profoundly. We know now that people do not migrate to businesses, it is the other way around. Businesses look for a skilled, motivated, educated workforce, and will move to where that is. And what does that workforce look for? In survey after survey, the answer is education and culture.

People follow other people. To turn upside down one of my favorite lines, from the movie Field of Dreams, "If you come, they will build it."

When artists do come and form clusters and build cultural institutions, what happens? Everything good. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the work of Richard Florida about the importance of the "Creative Class" in our fast-changing economy.

For now, my reference point is recent work by Mark Stern, Susan Seifert, and Jeremy Nowak based on a ten-year study at the University of Pennsylvania of the catalytic role of the arts in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Three general conclusions stand out:

1. The arts are a force for social cohesion and civic engagement. In communities with a strong cultural presence, people are much more likely to engage in civic activities beyond the arts. Community participation increases measurably and the result is more stable neighborhoods.

2. The arts make a major difference in child welfare. To quote, "Low income block groups with high cultural participation were more than twice as likely to have very low truancy and delinquency rates."

3. Art is a poverty fighter. In the cycle I have already described, artists form clusters, cultural institutions are built, people gravitate to them, and the businesses follow. The businesses hire and the virtuous cycle continues. And arts jobs leverage other jobs. Buy a ticket and see a play. You see the actors on a stage. But behind those actors are administrators, designers, ushers, stagehands, costume makers, and just outside the building are parking lot attendants, cooks, and waiters.

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First, the direct funding. This is the 25th anniversary of the NEA Mayors' Institute on City Design, and we are marking that anniversary with a new initiative: MICD 25.

As you all hopefully know, MICD is the NEA's partnership with the US Conference of Mayors and the American Architectural Foundation (thank you, Ron Bogle).

Since 1986, MICD has helped transform communities through smart, innovative design by preparing mayors to be the chief designers of their cities. MICD organizes sessions where mayors engage leading design experts to find solutions to the most critical urban design challenges facing their cities.

Building on this quarter century of momentum, through MICD 25, we will make up to 15 grants ranging from $25,000 to a quarter of a million dollars in recognition of the role that smart design, arts, artists, and arts organizations can play in building dynamic places where people want to live and work.

These grants will be available to any city that has had a mayor go through MICD over the past 25 years - some 600 cities - whether that specific mayor is still in office or not.

And we will be looking for cities that have partnerships among arts organizations and artists, design professionals and design centers, developers, business owners, community organizations, and private foundations.

We are looking to fund planning projects, including the planning of arts districts, the mapping of cultural assets along with their development potential, and the creation of innovative plans to maximize the creative sector.

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Our intention is ambitious, but simple. We will start in a few selected communities where we can make a real difference, and find ways that federal agencies, in conjunction with significant private sector commitment, can build complete communities using the arts as a fulcrum.

Some examples: Affordable artists housing might involve HUD. A city that wants to expand a limited tourist streetcar line into a real mode of public transportation connecting the arts district to the rest of the city might get a hearing at the Department of Transportation. The Department of Education might encourage arts charter schools that can transform a neighborhood. The Small Business Administration might support the entrepreneurs known as artists. And so on.

We need to hear from you and hear the needs of your cities. And the agencies will make determinations within their own guidelines and policies. It is my firm conviction that there is a current or incipient arts resource in every federal agency and that a focused, collaborative effort can produce meaningful results.

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Read the complete speech here, and check out guidelines for the grant program and application here. Thanks to B'more Art for drawing our attention to the information.