Thank you to the many people who have been blog contributors to, and readers of ArtsBlog over the years. ArtsBlog has long been a space where we uplifted stories from the field that demonstrated how the arts strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically; where trends and issues and controversies were called out; and advocacy tools were provided to help you make the case for more arts funding and favorable arts policies.

As part of Americans for the Arts’ recent Strategic Realignment Process, we were asked to evaluate our storytelling communications platforms and evolve the way we share content. As a result, we launched the Designing Our Destiny portal to explore new ways of telling stories and sharing information, one that is consistent with our longtime practice of, “No numbers without a story, and no stories without a number.”

As we put our energy into developing this platform and reevaluate our communications strategies, we have put ArtsBlog on hold. That is, you can read past blog posts, but we are not posting new ones. You can look to the Designing Our Destiny portal and our news items feed on the Americans for the Arts website for stories you would have seen in ArtsBlog in the past.

ArtsBlog will remain online through this year as we determine the best way to archive this valuable resource and the knowledge you’ve shared here.

As ever, we are grateful for your participation in ArtsBlog and thank you for your work in advancing the arts. It is important, and you are important for doing it.

The Arts in Neighborhood Choice

To better understand the impact of local arts and cultural events on Americans’ choices about where to live, researchers at the National Endowment for the Arts worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to ask a series of questions as part of the 2015 American Housing Survey (AHS). The AHS is a HUD-sponsored national household survey that the U.S. Census Bureau (Census) administers every two years. The questions were designed to measure the value that U.S. residents place on living convenient to arts and cultural events, householder satisfaction with access to such events, and householder perceptions of the social and economic impacts of these events on their neighborhoods.

To better understand the impact of local arts and cultural events on Americans’ choices about where to live, researchers at the National Endowment for the Arts worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to ask a series of questions as part of the 2015 American Housing Survey (AHS). The AHS is a HUD-sponsored national household survey that the U.S. Census Bureau (Census) administers every two years. The questions were designed to measure the value that U.S. residents place on living convenient to arts and cultural events, householder satisfaction with access to such events, and householder perceptions of the social and economic impacts of these events on their neighborhoods.

For the purpose of the survey, examples of arts and cultural events included musical, theatrical, and dance performances, literary events, film screenings, museum and gallery exhibits, and crafts and performing arts festivals.

Key Findings:

  1. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. householders (representing 50.7 million households) rated living convenient to arts and cultural events “important” (27 percent) or “very important” (11 percent).
  2. Householders who affirmed the importance of living convenient to arts and cultural events were more likely to be paying a premium for their housing than those who did not affirm this importance.
  3. Fifteen percent of U.S. householders (representing 20.4 million households) reported that convenient access to arts and cultural events played a role in their choice of neighborhood.
  4. Eighty-eight percent of householders who valued living convenient to arts and cultural events were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their own access to these events from where they currently live.
  5. Of householders who affirmed the importance of living convenient to arts and cultural events, a large majority agreed that such events provide social and/or economic benefits to their neighborhoods.
  6. Mapping nonprofit, tax-exempt arts organizations to the 2015 AHS dataset revealed that the share of U.S. householders who rate access to arts and cultural events
    as a factor in neighborhood choice was increased as the distance to nonprofit arts organizations was reduced.

     

Report
Sanrkar, Mousumi
87
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Publisher Reference: 
National Endowment for the Arts
Research Abstract
Categories: 
Community Development
Housing
Is this an Americans for the Arts Publications: 
No
Image Thumbnail of Pub Cover: 
February 2019