Value Added? At What Cost?

Even if life isn't "all about the benjamins," tough economic times remind us that money is a scarce resource, and that communities - like households - should prioritize their expenses. When Mary Giunca wrote today about the effort to beautify a new Business 40 with the aid of counsel from the arts and design community, an online reader posted this response: "No one will argue that beautifying our roadways is nice, but at what cost? We need to be careful how much this could end up costing because it is always easy to spend other peoples' money."

One of the attractions of the Business 40 project to those like myself interested in investing in public art and design is that monies for this project will be spent on beautification of the roadway no matter what. If they are not spent in small part on the advice of an artist or a designer, something else will be coded as "beautification" and the money will be spent. Failure to spend it on this kind of enhancement will not save taxpayers money - it will just be spent on something else to meet the federally mandated expenditure. But why would you pay money for outside advice on how to spend money? What is the "value added" of hiring design and aesthetic expertise like this for our city?

Last fall the City-County Planning Board celebrated its 50th anniversary and invited Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute to speak. As reported in a story about the visit by Giunca, McMahon said that Winston-Salem had made a good start in downtown revitalization, but "the city must continue to distinguish itself from other places, push for new construction that adds local character and be creative in telling the area's stories. The choice is not schlock or nothing, which in the South is what we've always thought it was." Later Giunca notes, "Another critical part of McMahon's message was the importance of seeing the connection between development, good planning, an attractive community and sound economic policies.... The more Winston-Salem comes to look like every place in America, the less people want to visit, he said."

Seattle is asking for design advice at the cost of $60,000 for a $75-100 million dollar bridge project (see the blog entry at right "I'll have what they're having"). You might call that a ball-park figure for nationally recognized expertise on distinctive place-making. The cost of not being distinct is lost business - a high "lost opportunity cost" indeed.

At a 2003 Philadelphia conference sponsored by the Social Impact of the Arts Project, Lynne Sagalyn, a city planner, spoke on "the arts as an urban development strategy." While she focused mainly on cities creating arts districts, she notes: "Arts-based strategies are different from other types of economic development in several ways. Arts-based development must be based on local cultural resources. The current wisdom is that successful local economic development cannot be based on imported cultural resources....Arts-based development is not tied directly to increasing the city's tax base. Tax increases are dependent on multiplier effects--i.e., the number of patrons who eat in restaurants or shop, ride in cabs or park in lots.."

So does that make an aesthetic improvement just too wishy-washy to measure? Actually, no. Giunca quotes McMahon's telling of the experience of one small town's "multiplier effect" with art on its streets. "Gettysburg, PA, had a problem with tourists coming to the Civil War battlefields and then leaving without ever visiting the city's downtown. Gettysburg researched the history of the battle, which had come into downtown, McMahon said. It painted a mural and installed a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln that tourists often pose with. Three years later, sales taxes and other forms of revenue had increased 20 percent in downtown."

The Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania raised $100,000 to cover the costs of the Gettusburg statue of Abraham Lincoln (no federal monies for that investment), and the statue was placed in 1990 near the Wills House on Lincoln Square. In sculptor Seward Johnson, Jr.'s statue Abraham Lincoln stands with his hat pointed toward the Wills house (where he spent the night in town in November 1863): a contemporary American with a map is with him. Johnson is known for his realistic portrayals, and attempted to transport the figures in time beyond time. I can report I stood next to Abe in 2001, pleased that, absent his hat, we were about the same height. I can also report that, without knowing I was supposed to, Abe got me to look around downtown, to spy an ice cream and soda shop, and to buy my souvenirs in town rather than at the battleground. I could point him out to the kids and talk about that town as a memorable place. Would that just the casual driver discover a "memorable place" thanks to a drive through our downtown boulevard, Business 40.