Arts Build Communities develops measure of creative sector

Just as there are multiple ways to define art, there are several ways to measure the creative economy.

As part of its forthcoming New Jersey Creative Vitality Index, Arts Build Communities has developed a set of measures for the creative economy as a way to gauge the vitality of the creative sector.  The ABC measures are influenced by those used by Americans for the Arts and the New England Foundation for the Arts, two of the premiere arts advocacy organizations in the United States.  But ABC uses a narrower definition of the creative sector than these other organizations do.

Another difference: the ABC measures offer a different way of looking at the creative economy. While other organizations focus on creative industry subsectors -- such as visual arts or architecture -- ABC draws attention to economic functions -- such as manufacturing and distribution. The creative economy matrix can help policy makers and leaders better decide where and how to invest limited resources.

For example, leaders of an industrial city who want to participate more in the creative economy, but are limited by competition from nearby arts destinations, could focus on attracting manufacturers of supplies and creative products.  Thinking in terms of economic functions, rather than just "the arts," can help leaders be more creative about how to participate in the creative economy.

Note: Every measure of the creative economy, including those of Arts Build Communities, underestimates its true size.  The numbers that everyone uses are drawn from government or business sources, and they don't count the thousands of people in New Jersey who are part-time artists, or participate in the arts as a hobby.  No measure fully counts all of the creative people who work outside of businesses that are part of the creative sector.  (People in 'creative occupations' -- such as a graphic designer in a bank -- are a fraction of creative people in our economy.

In the end, those of us who try to measure the creative economy are like scientists trying to measure climate change.  The world is too big and dynamic to try to see everything at once.  (Imagine trying to count the number of waves in the ocean.)  We focus our lenses differently, and together we can tell a complete story about what is happening.

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