Reports by the Regional Technology Strategies and its partner in the Alliance for Creative Advantage, Mt. Auburn Associates, have found that rural areas in at least some states boast a booming creative economy, contrary to many urbanites' expectations.
Dan Broun reports for the Daily Yonder that “creativity” is defined as “a select group of businesses that produce and distribute goods and services and for which the aesthetic, intellectual and emotional engagement of the consumer adds value to products in the marketplace.” The study in Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming and North Carolina indicated that creative enterprises are vital to helping rural regions develop effective economies.
Creative economies are often under-reported since they can be difficult to quantify and analyze. “Much of the wealth that the creative economy produces falls just under the radar screen of conventional economy analyses,” Broun writes. Microenterprises, proprietorships without employees, part-time businesses and supplementary sources of income are often the structures that house creative economies in rural areas.
When someone goes to the trouble and expense to count them, though, creative enterprises such as arts and crafts take on more significance than many observers might expect. In Arkansas, the study found that without artists and design workers, the estimated employment would have increased by only 15 percent between 1990 and 2000 instead of the 24 percent growth that actually occurred.
The research may refute or at least downplay notion that the “creative class” exists only metropolitan areas, with high concentrations of advanced-degree holders. To stimulate creative growth, RTS wants rural areas to recognize arts and creativity as an economic-development engine. Broun says chambers of commerce, tourism promotion agencies and city officials are in positions to publicize the success of rural creativity and its contribution to the economy. (Read more)
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