How Art Connects Communities
The Knight Foundation and Gallup polling teamed up recently to conduct an extraordinary long-term study called “The Soul of the Community.” The goal was to get a handle on what quality makes a particular community an attractive place to live or a location that people would like to relocate to.
The study interviewed 43,000 people across 26 communities over a period of three years. The answers that came out of this longitudinal study may surprise you. It was not economic climate, access to good schools or jobs that came in at №1.
The most important factor for making a community attractive is its art and culture.
The conclusion is that art binds communities and helps bring them together. It does that by generating “social capital” and “builds community character.” Art is the vehicle that tells the story of a community and lets the rest of the world know “who we are.” It’s a nexus point of community pride.
The Knight Foundation was keenly interested in determining the value of art to a community because this philanthropic organization is a major supplier of funding for the arts. Over the past 10 years, its Knight Arts Program has disbursed more than $270 million to art institutions and individual artists.
The Knight-Gallup report went on to say that “other factors” above and beyond “basic needs” should be a prime consideration when strategizing a city or neighborhood’s plan for economic growth and development. As it turns out, so-called “soft needs” bear more influence over a citizen’s sense of attachment to his or her community than basic or practical needs, like good-paying jobs and great schools.
It’s also interesting to note that most community residents viewed the artists themselves not as “elites” or “eccentric creatives” but as those who are contributing to the local culture and often “putting our town on the map.”
Art also has a binding effect on communities in that it offers people who are not professional artists opportunities to enrich their lives. For example, a community that offers art classes, pottery workshops, writing groups, story-telling clubs, photography classes and more fills a fundamental need. It provides citizens something meaningful to do between their non-working hours.
It’s clear that art binds communities in multiple ways and on different levels.