Saturday, April 02, 2011
Taking Note: The Young, the Restless, and the Arts
Art Works: "What draws young talent to a town or city? Going one step further, what attracts them to a particular zone or neighborhood? The answers, if known, would excite many a corporate recruiter. True, we may never map the entire network of factors affecting personal choices about where to live, just as we may not agree on a definition for “young talent.” Yet two recent studies bring us closer to understanding how young Americans value their communities. The findings suggest new lines of inquiry for arts and cultural research.
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3 comments:
Being from a major city/cultural area, I have always found the presence of this "young and restless" demographic to be both exciting and curious. Living in New York isn't the cheapest, to be sure, and yet so many young people flock to there because the opportunities available make it worth the cost. It is telling that CMU Drama chooses to take its graduating classes to New York and LA for Showcase, since that is where they will naturally want to go in search of artistic success. In my opinion, the two are definitely linked.
"Future studies could examine its role in Americans’ decisions about where to live. If the values of “social offerings,” “aesthetics,” and “openness” are indeed the three top drivers of community attachment, as the Knight/Gallup study would indicate, then perhaps the “Young and Restless” individuals were motivated by similar factors."
I don't really understand what the discovery here is. Of course I am going to consider these things when I am searching for somewhere to live. In the arts, it is increasingly common for students to choose where they want to live before finding the job, so obviously a large part of this decision is going to be based on the city itself, and an arts student will probably care about the artistic offerings in their community. For our community, I don't think this research is really all that radical.
http://www.nea.gov/research/artistsinworkforce_execsum.pdf
While I am a fan of data analysis, I think it's a pretty logical for young artists who need an entry level positions to flock to where there is a high density of arts related not-for-profit companies. According to the study above, that is simply in urban areas an you can even track which industry within the arts you would like to work within and see where they cluster. I think it's good to see how these various
By the way who'd a thunk sante fe would have highest percentage of the work force in the arts?
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