ServerIt’s easy to get caught up in the world of the startup and startup founders. It’s easy too to focus on the “who” that is your startup, but the “what?” that is your community? A really good entrepreneur will be able to look at the “who” and the “where” and the “why”.
If there’s one thing that can help entrepreneurs focus more on their community, it’s the importance of arts. The arts are an important foundation of the city of San Francisco. And this is why Cuomo has announced the formation of the ‘New York Council for the Arts’, an organization dedicated to the revival and expansion of the arts in New York City.
The new council will be made up of the heads of some of the largest arts organizations in the city, who will report directly to Cuomo. The goal is to elevate the importance of the arts in New York City and create a platform for artists and arts organizations to share the wealth of the arts in the city. Cuomo has already signed off on the formation of a number of new arts organizations in the city, including The Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Hall and the Brooklyn Museum.
The press release that Cuomo sent out yesterday on the Council’s re-organization is good for an overview on some of the initiatives that are happening in the arts in NYC. There’s no specific mention of the new council members, but they’re made up of a lot of high profile, well-known NYC personalities.
One of the things that is interesting is that Cuomo is making a major statement about the importance of the arts in the city of NYC. He is not only signing off on the formation of new arts organizations, but is also saying that the arts are a big part of the city. It is interesting because this is a change that has happened in the past few years as the city has been getting more and more out of the arts.
The arts have been a big part of American cities for over a hundred years. From the New York State Theatre to the New York City Ballet, from Little Theatre Group to The New York Times, from the Metropolitan Opera to the New York Shakespeare Festival, the arts have formed a major part of American life. We are still not seeing the arts on a national level in the same way that they used to.
In 2008, the United States had 9,000 theatres and 9,000 art galleries. Today, that number is down to 6,000 and 4,500, respectively. The total American arts investment is now around $2.2 billion, but that number is still down from its peak in the early 1990s.
It’s not just the arts, of course. A major part of our economy is finance, which is also affected by arts. We are seeing a decline in the availability of credit in our nation. We are also seeing a number of economic downturns brought about by a lack of art investment. And we are seeing a decline in economic growth as well.
And this is the economic cycle that has been plaguing New York City since the turn of the century. That same period saw the rise of “creative industries” like film, fashion, music, and even “cultural industries” like advertising and publishing.
This is where technology gets to play a major role. In the early 1990s, the NYC arts scene enjoyed tremendous growth. Then the dot-com bubble burst leaving many of these creative industries in the dust. At the time, city arts councils were created across the country to fill the void, and in New York they were made up of artists, writers, and cultural leaders.
