Wednesday, August 29, 2012
City of Chicago Unveils Cultural Plan
WTTW: After months – some might say years – of anticipation, the city of Chicago unveiled a draft of its official cultural plan last week. The plan – 64 pages in total, with over a hundred small and large scale ideas to strengthen the city’s arts scene – is the first since Mayor Harold Washington was in office back in 1986.
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4 comments:
The city of Chicago seems to be making some great claims and promises. The health insurance clause is especially interesting for self employed artists. I love that the city is thinking of the artists entire life with housing, health insurance and work. The vague wording of the creative buisness clause however worries me because it will be a loophole for the city to get away with refusing benefits. I also really like the adding art as a core subject in school initiative but with funding in such short supply I will be surprised if that clause actually is implemented. I am very happy with the city of Chicago for even bringing up the subject of arts funding in these times of austerity.
Currently there's a movement to rejuvenate and attract businesses to Pittsburgh's Garfield neighborhood. Research into Berkeley, CA found that if you can attract and keep 6% of the working artists to a city, the better it is for the city. It sounds like Chicago is proposing a similar artist-friendly initiative. I don't doubt Chicago has its fair share of artists but this may an indication that local governments are starting to see economic impact that a healthy arts community can bring to an area.
What would be great if this triggered a bottom-up movement of support for the arts at a federal level. The arts are such an important part to local and smaller communities. It is easy for elected officials to loose sight of how important art is to their constituents. Why so easy? Perhaps because these citizens dont realize it themselves. If individuals can see what good the arts can do for a community, perhaps they would let their vote for something as grandiose as president be decided on how nice it is to walk in their neighborhood park. There could be connection, but there's not at the moment.
I think that it is great even in this time of cultural recession that people in communities are still voicing their desire for arts educations. It is great when you can see the wider community showing that they understand the importance of the arts. I would be interested to find out more about how they plan to give vacated houses over to artists and intern what the artists plan on doing with them. I want to believe the best in people but I also know that if the organization is not carful that plan could go horribly wrong. I will be interested to see how it turns out.
I do hope that this doesn't remain as just a plan, but that some of the more needed elements of the plan are implemented. I also hope that this wasn't done due to the fact that election time is nearing and that there is a need to look proactive. I do love the initiative however, and the clause about adding art as a core in schools, as Luke also mentioned, would be fantastic if it was implemented, because it has been proven over and over in studies that children who engage in an artistic area are more likely to succeed at the other academic areas because their capacity for learning has been expanded. It really is time that cultural interests aren't simply seen as "extra curricular activities", but as core learning necessities.
I would love to see what other ideas Chicago listed in the cultural plan, it will be interesting to see what happens from here and which projects are actually funded. Good going Chicago!!!
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