Arts drive US cities' redevelopment

Houston's $92m Hobby Center opened last Friday

By David Schepp BBC News Online's North America business reporter

Visitors to Houston's city centre in recent months may have been struck by the numerous massive construction projects underway in one of America's biggest cities.

The reintroduction of the arts and culture in a city gives it a reason for being...

Urs Gauchat, New Jersey Institute of Technology

One of those included the recently opened Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, still undergoing finishing touches, which local officials hope will be as successful as similar projects in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey.

US cities in recent years have been competing against one another to provide citizens and visitors alike with the best in municipal facilities.

From baseball parks to museums to convention centres, municipalities have undertaken a building boom not seen since the 1950s.

Place of last resort

Newark provides perhaps the most startling example of the "build it and they will come" ethos that has transformed its city centre from a riot-torn spectacle into a study of the positive economic impact the arts can have.

After its completion in 1997, the $187m New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) spurred unprecedented development in downtown Newark, leading to a host of new restaurants and shops, as well as a new sports arena.

Newark's success with NJPAC moved arts from a quaint component of the city's economy to a dynamic engine that propelled growth in areas long besieged by poverty and decay.

It has also provided a blueprint for how mouldering second-tier cities can rejuvenate themselves despite having the odds stacked against them.

The arts are an effective economic-revitalisation strategy for beaten-down communities, says Urs Gauchat, dean of the school of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Boosting profits

The need by people for areas with a high-density of stimuli is driving renewed interest in US cities, he says.

"The reintroduction of the arts and culture in a city gives it a reason for being... [It] really makes the difference between people being in a city as a choice rather than a last resort," Mr Gauchat told BBC News Online

Houston, like many US cities, has struggled in recent years as residents and businesses have fled for the suburbs in search of better, cheaper housing and car-friendly business parks.

Houston hopes its $92m (£63m) investment in the Hobby Center will cement the city's reputation as an arts haven and resurrect night-time commerce downtown.

Unique to cultural centres are their ability to boost profits for businesses within the immediate community, says Randy Cohen, head of research at Americans for the Arts, a not-for-profit organisation.

Trips to arts centres tend to include expenditures at restaurants and bars - before and after shows. And car parks that empty at the end of the workday continue to generate income into the evening hours.

"Fifty dollars in tickets can be actually be part of a $200 evening," he says.

"There are few other industries that can boast that kind of related spending."

Local impact

In addition, Mr Cohen says, arts centres keep giving, making economic contributions throughout the year, unlike sports arenas, which sometimes lay fallow for part of the year.

For example, Newark's NJPAC has events scheduled for 300 days a year, as where nearby Yankees Stadium in the Bronx is used exclusively for the New York Yankees ball games, played only in spring and summer months.

Mr Cohen says the money spent by sports fans at ball games and other sporting events has a more limited impact on the local economy.

With arts organisations, aside from the price of tickets, the money goes to local merchants.

"With most sports examples," Mr Cohen told BBC News Online, "those dollars are going to national concessionaires, team owners, that kind of thing."

There are those who would argue that sports arenas contribute just as much to communities, since they generally draw tens of thousands of visitors at a time.

But what is clear is cities continue to bet big on the arts - and consumers are following through by voting with their wallets.