|
Article Excerpt
It could be a market niche, "Pittsboro, the antidote to the hectic
life." ... Someone needs to write a scenario to see what Pittsboro could be like in ten years if we use art, or if we have pawn shops and fast food. It's a crossroads community: it could be a disaster or a diamond. Art is the difference. --Artist, Chatham County, North Carolina
As rural economies restructure, will creative economy strategies that nurture the arts and heritage resources be appropriate for the transition? Creative economy strategies often build on existing assets and are relatively economically and environmentally sustainable when compared with large-scale industry. Arts-based projects also recognize the value of art in our society and can be an important source of pride in rural communities. However, the benefits and challenges of initiating a creative economy in a rural setting, and its links to the concept of sustainability, are not well understood.
In this article I seek to determine the unique characteristics of creative economy strategies in Chatham County, North Carolina and, in a context of rural gentrification, examine links between the creative economy and sustainability. I address quantitative trends and describe creative projects in the county, then turn to qualitative research on the challenges and benefits of creative economy in a rural setting and a critical examination of sustainability, exclusion, and discourse. Although creative strategies appear to contribute more effectively to economic goals than to environmental and social justice goals, as is often the case in urban locales, conditions specific to a rural setting affect the outcome. These conditions include ideas about landscape and community change, few formal resources for artists, the nature of rural gentrification, social isolation, and debates over art and development.
Economic development strategies based on the arts are part of a larger shift in economic theory that prioritizes knowledge, ideas, and creativity (Castells 1996; Venturelli 2001). Arts advocates, academics, and governments treat cultural or creative industries as a fundamental part of modern, particularly urban, economies (Mount Auburn Associates 2000; Scott 2000; Psilos and Rapp 2001; O'Connor and others 2003). Richard Florida argued that arts activity will help encourage a socially tolerant atmosphere and a revitalized downtown, which in turn will attract knowledge-based workers, or the creative class (2002). Arts projects are often put forth as examples of sustainable development because they improve community collaboration, learning outcomes for children, and civic participation, bridge ethnic and class divides, and contribute to environmental sustainability through connections with nature and "clean" industry (Darlow 1996; Matarasso 1997; Adams and Goldbard 2001; Reardon 2005).
Much of the literature on creative economies has focused on urban settings, yet many artists choose to live in rural locations near metropolitan areas because of affordable living costs, access to markets, and the attractiveness of a rural landscape (Bunting and Mitchell 2001; Mitchell, Bunting, and Piccioni 2004). Based on evidence from case studies in rural Minnesota, Ann Markusen finds that artistst centers, artist live/work spaces, and performing arts facilities are attracting extralocal spending and new residents (Markusen 2007). And David McGranahan and Timothy Wojan apply quantitative analyses based on Florida's model to find that natural amenities in U.S. rural areas are the strongest lure for creative class workers (McGranahan and Wojan 2007). Rural examples of successful arts-based strategies--such as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Massachusetts; Asheville, North Carolina and its surrounding counties; and the Rockingham Arts and Museum Project in Bellows Falls, Vermont--share key characteristics, such as long-term backing by energetic leaders and multiple organizations, locations with established tourism ties, access to larger populations, and a historic downtown building stock (Zukin 1995; R. Phillips 2004; Handmade in America 2007). It is also important to consider sustainability in a rural community as different from that in an urban setting. A rural landscape is a place of imagination and idealized lifestyles, resulting in complex layers of urban-to-rural migration, class conflict, and land-use change (Cloke and Thrift 1987; M. Phillips 1993; Halfacree 2006). Rural gentrification can stimulate rural economies and environmental preservation in a simultaneous, if contested, process (Ghose 2004); and rural environmental justice movements, particularly in the U.S. South, have linked social justice and environmental aims under a concept of "just sustainability" (Bullard 2000; Agyeman, Bullard, and Evans 2003).
Examining creative projects in terms of sustainable development offers insight into the complexities of rural and creative economies. Sustainable development is most often defined as "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs," from the 1984 U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development meetings (WCED 1987, 43), further refined by the 1995 U.N. World Summit on Social Development's "Copenhagen Declaration" to include "economic development, social development and environmental protection" (United Nations 1995). Many authors have explored contradictions in the combination of "sustainable" and "development" (O'Riordan 1985; Sneddon 2000); others argue that sustainability discourse is used in a superficial manner to make development projects appear more palatable (Wilbanks 1994; Gunder 2006). The search for alternative development strategies is taking place in the context of neoliberal restructuring, in which cities and regions have had to become increasingly entrepreneurial (Harvey 1989; Jessop 1997). Place-marketing competition, which includes creative city development, can lead to increased surveillance and elite-controlled spaces (Zukin 1995; Peck and Tickell 2002), and creative strategies often neither address social inequality nor benefit local residents (Waterman 1998; Eisinger 2000). Malcolm Miles and Jamie Peck both contend that, although in theory creative economy rhetoric promotes social tolerance and environmental preservation, its implementation facilitates status quo urban development and elite-centered policies (Miles 1998; Peck 2005).
The relationship between creativity and the economy is complex and problematic, for the value of the creative process cannot be explained in economic terms and cannot be directly induced by policy (Grant 1991; Caves 2000; Leslie and Rantisi 2006). The concept of "cultural economy" has been the subject of lively debate in recent geographical literature that, according to Chris Gibson and Lily Kong (2005), has focused both on the economic geography of creative activities and on a more poststructural understanding of culture and the economy as mutually constitutive ideas (Bridge and Smith 2003; Castree 2004; Amin and Thrift 2007). David Throsby suggested that we add "cultural capital" to traditional economic categories of physical, human, and natural capital, as a way of measuring items and activities that have cultural value in that they contribute to "shared elements of human experience," such as a historic building, a novel or a poem, a work of art or a piece of music (1999, 6). Cultural capital, which Throsby also suggests using to evaluate "culturally sustainable development" (2005, 13), is a particularly useful concept for rural settings, for it not only relates to economic value and tangible products but also encompasses subjective qualities such as place, well-being, and aesthetic values.
LINKING ARTISTS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND SUSTAINABILITY
This study derives from interviews and participant observation conducted in the winter and spring of 2005 in Chatham County, North Carolina. While studying economic and community development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I worked with a local nonprofit organization assessing the economic impact of the arts in the state. Because many arts-based policy ideas come from macrolevel economic data, I sought to discover and address the practical obstacles in implementing arts-development projects on the ground. I chose Chatham County, south of Chapel Hill, as a research site because it has a well-established artist community and arts activities with economic development implications, yet official economic policies do not center on the arts.(1) In addition, the...
|
