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Please read this. The arts are a vital American industry employing lots of hard working Americans. They are a bigger contributor than say, the agriculture sector. And they are harder hit by COVID than perhaps any other sector. Why are arts workers second class citizens? https://twitter.com/kambri/status/1334557913734582280
It is time that creative industries were seen as the driver of growth & job creation that they & the other industries they support (like travel, tourism, restaurants & media) are. No other country in the world is as short-sighted as we are in this area and we're making worse now.
New York City and New York State should be leading this. If current leadership does not realize it, successors can be found who will. Because creative industries don't just help drive American prosperity, the workers in those industries vote as do the millions who support them.
p.s. A final note to my friends in the arts sector. Arts education and culture that elevates us all are vitally important to any society. But they will never win a political argument for meaningful support for the creative sector.
What will win support is a focus on jobs, tax revenue, percentage of GDP, how creative industries support secondary industries, how they drive future growth. Why? Because these are the issues on which political fortunes rise and fall, they matter to the pols.
That's why I refer to the creative sector. That's why I define it as all performing arts forms, media, related tech sectors (like gaming). And that's why I link it to travel, tourism, restaurants, etc. Now we're talking about more than 10% of the economy...more in cities.
Is this too $ oriented, too political, too gross? Sorry. It's the way of the world and these sectors matter enough to me to focus on what's effective rather than what feels good or noble. Just one guy's opinion, of course.
