Arts a revenue generator for Chicago, report says 

By Patrick Butler 

The arts industry contributes $1.1 billion annually to the city’s economy. Non-profit cultural organizations create 30,000 jobs for Chicagoans and provide $628.7 million in household income. Even partly supported by taxpayers, the arts return $103 million in taxes to the city, county, and state governments, according to a report recently released by Americans for the Arts.

Although the study focused on non-profits, even in places such as the West Loop, which counts mostly commercial art galleries, “there tends to be a kind of groundswell where people want to live there, work there,” said Julie Adrianopouli of the Illinois Arts Alliance, one of the agencies that helped with the survey. “Certainly arts organizations in general tend to attract people to those areas.”

“It’s concrete proof that the arts are more than a life-enhancement,” said Lois Weisberg, the City’s cultural affairs commissioner, at a June 6 news conference at the Chicago Cultural Center, where the study was unveiled. “They’re a renewable energy source that fuels the Chicago economy.  

“While the arts are wonderful in themselves, they have a powerful impact on the economy,” Weisberg said, adding that “public support for the arts is not a luxury, but an investment that pays big dividends.”

Also on hand were Americans for the Arts president Robert Lynch, Jonathan Fanton of the MacArthur Foundation, Mesirow Financial economist Diane Swonk, Illinois Arts Alliance director Ra Joy, Carl Smith of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Dorothy Coyle of the Chicago Office of Tourism, and Paul O’Connor of World Business Chicago.

Nationally, the non-profit arts industry pumped $166.2 billion into the economy, supported 5.7 million full-time jobs, generated $104.2 billion in household income, and brought in $29.6 billion in taxes, according to the Arts and Economic Prosperity study.

Spending by arts organizations and their audiences grew 24% between 2000 and 2005, from $133 billion to $166.2 billion, according to the study, which surveyed 6,080 theaters, museums, dance companies, and advocacy groups and 94,478 individuals in 156 U.S. communities.

That is proof the arts have rebounded from the post-9/11 slump, said Americans for the Arts’ Randy Cohen.

Here in Chicago, the survey compiled data from 115 cultural organizations and surveyed 925 individuals. Local groups included the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center, 801 W. Adams St.; Urban Gateways, 200 W. Jackson St.; and Redmoon Theater, 1438 W. Kinzie Ave. Those attending arts venues spent an average of $38.12 any time they went to an arts-related event. That does not count the price of admission to the play or exhibit but does include food, transportation, parking, souvenirs, and even baby-sitters, according to the report, which called the non-profit arts industry “the cornerstone of tourism.”

“Support for the arts isn’t a black hole,” Cohen said. “Arts organizations are businesses that pay people. They purchase supplies and services. They pay utility bills.”

Calling the study a “myth breaker,” Lynch noted arts spending tends to stay in a community rather than circulate to other neighborhoods and said many jobs created by local arts organizations “can’t be shipped overseas.”

According to Americans for the Arts, all these figures mean “leaders who care about community and economic development can feel good about choosing an interest in the arts.”

Cohen, the Americans for the Arts policy and research guru, conceded the study—his group’s third and most extensive—did not compare the economic benefits of arts funding versus putting that money into other types of programs.

The report, available at www.americansforthearts.org, even includes an economic prosperity calculator enabling communities to determine the arts’ financial impact locally in terms of jobs created, taxes collected, and even the estimated windfall from meals, hotel rooms, and the gasoline purchase dollars people spent to get there.

At the national level, Americans for the Arts is lobbying the new Democrat-controlled Congress for close to a 40% hike in National Endowments for the Arts to reverse the cutbacks made by Republicans during their 12-year control of Congress.

At the state level, the Illinois Arts Foundation has been working to get the state-funded Illinois Arts Council’s budget increased from $20 million to $24 million.

Earlier this year, Americans for the Arts issued another report warning that many of the country’s 100,000 arts organizations are—or soon will be—“at risk” because of a drop in individual, foundation, and corporate contributions.