A guide for measuring the creative sector

A new report from PDI's Arts Build Communities initiatives provides guidelines for measuring the creative sector.  The report, designed to support the New Jersey Creative Vitality Index, includes a definition of the creative industry in the United States (the organizations and businesses that focus on developing, creating or distributing products designed mostly for their aesthetics.)

The ABC report can help analysts and policy makers in several ways:

• By taking a narrower definition of the creative sector than is found in other places, it reduces the "noise" of the economy's impact on other, unrelated industries.  For example, some definitions of the creative sector include gypsum manufacturers.  While gypsum is used to create plaster, it also is used to create drywall.  A sharp decline or increase in building construction could impact gypsum manufacturing -- but this would not tell you much about the state of the creative economy. The report identifies dozens of creative sector industry.
• The guide offers a matrix of the creative economy that organizes it by economic function (manufacturing, distribution, development, etc...) and subsector (architecture, visual arts, performing arts, etc...)  This can help planners and policy makers see new opportunities for some communities to participate in the creative sector.  Not every town or city can be an arts destination.  But those that aren't can provide housing for artists, warehouse space, or manufacturing locations for businesses that want to connect to the creative economy.
• The guide also relies on reliable data that is freely available and updated regularly by the U.S. Census Bureau. 

See Defining and Measuring the Creative Economy


Learn more about Arts Build Communities

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

Arts Build Communities and the Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program offer several courses to help you excel in the creative economy.  These include:

*Cultural Community Development Studio

*Cultural Economic Development Studio

*Cultural Heritage Tourism Basics

*Programming Cultural Uses

*Valuing the Arts in Economic Development

For more on these and other courses, please visit the Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program.

Measuring the experience economy

There are many ways to gauge the growth of the experience economy in your area.

The easiest, though not the most current or comprehensive, way is through the U.S. Department of Commerce's County Business Patterns database.  Here you can get information on business activity at the federal, state, county and even zip code level. (But not the town/city level, which is odd.)  Depending on what level you're looking at, you can find out the number of establishments, annual payroll and employment. (CBP covers private-sector businesses and nonprofit organizations, but not many government agencies.) County Business Patterns is updated annually, but it is usually two years out of date.  But that's generally ok for planning and policy research, because it is better to make long-term decisions based on long-term trends.

Many experience economy businesses can be found under NAICS code 71 (Arts Entertainment and Recreation Industry). It's not a complete list (Retail stores fall under NAICS codes 44 and 45), but Code 71 establishments are representative of the kinds of businesses that exist to offer an educational, artistic or entertainment experience: Museums, amusement parks, historic sites, etc.

The Economic Census offers information on receipts, so you can gauge the financial health of an industry. (Receipts might be a better measure than employees for many industries because technology could reduce the need for some workers.)  Unfortunately, the Economic Census is every five years, and detailed data isn't available for a long time.  The last census was 2007, and as of March 2010, there is limited data at the state level. (Alaska information is there, but New Jersey numbers won't be available until August.)

Still, you can find some comparative statistics on experience economy businesses for the United States as a whole.

For more current information, check with organizations that focus on tourism, historic preservation, arts or entertainment at the state,county or city level.  They probably will not have the type of comprehensive information you would find in CBP or the Economic Census, but they are more likely to have their ear to the ground.

The most expensive way to measure the experience economy is to inventory and survey experience economy businesses.  This will help give you the most current information, as well as insights that a statistical table can't.

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

For more information:  The Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program offers various Deep Learning courses and Learning Labs.  Upcoming courses and Learning Labs (as of March 2010) include Cultural Economic Development Studio, Programming Cultural Uses and Cultural Heritage Tourism Basics.

You can buy anything on the Internet except an experience

According to Retail Traffic Magazine (by way of Planetizen), both foot traffic and sales are up at the largest mall in the United States. In these difficult times, the success of the Mall of America can offer some insights into the future of retail-based economic development.


The Mall of America shows the growing strength of the experience economy. A key to its success has been adding more rides to the large amusement park at the center of its complex. In the experience economy, consumers are willing to pay more for a good or service if they have a positive experience with the business. (That experience could be fun, pretty, stimulating, ego-boosting, etc.) Joseph Pine and James Gilmour, who coined the term in The Experience Economy, were writing about the importance of businesses spending time on enhancing consumer experiences, even if those actions didn’t immediately ring up sales. (For example: a salesperson acting like your personal shopper in a store.)

Today, you can buy almost anything (that’s legal to buy), except for an experience.

For our field, participating in the experience economy means making our built environments more interesting, exciting, safe, surprising, or whatever the communities we serve enjoy. The ‘experience’ starts when the consumer feels he or she is in the place. If that person gets lost, it is going to affect his or her willingness to spend time and money – or to come back. In the experience economy, streetscaping, public art and architectural design are not just decorative; they are critical parts of the economic development infrastructure. Events are not public relations gimmicks; they are important marketing tools.

Enhancing the public environment can especially help businesses that serve low and moderate-income communities. Because many of these businesses make their profits on volume, rather than per-capita sales, and they tend to be in older, smaller spaces, they tend to use more floor space for retailing or service activity. In other words, stores that cater to wealthier people, or that have higher profit margins, can afford to have more floor space available for experiences. (That’s why the places that sell coffee for $4 a cup have more chairs and nicer art than the places that sell it for $1 a cup.) While all retail districts can benefit from enhanced physical design, businesses in lower income communities tend to have less capacity to do it on their own.

Many traditional downtowns and some cities, like Las Vegas, are succeeding through experience economy strategies. Urban design in highway commercial areas tends to ignore attractive site design (A key exception are upscale lifestyle centers, which are essentially lifestyle-themed open-air malls.) The oversight might be a costly mistake. Fifty years ago, traditional downtowns began to be threatened by malls. Thirty years ago, malls began to be threatened by big box stores. Today, those stores, and many highway retail uses, are threatened by the Internet. Internet shopping is growing rapidly; two-thirds of all Internet users in the United States made an online purchase in 2009, said Internet Retailer.

Of course, enhancing the visual environment is not enough. Consumers want to go where they feel welcome and safe. Circulation planning and the management of retail districts are key. Also, in age when anyone can have a public voice through the Internet, a key part of any experience economy strategy is keeping up-to-date with the changing pulse of stakeholders. In business, they call in market research. We can think of it as needs assessment or public engagement.

In many cities and communities, there are still elected officials and public administrators, as well as members of the public, who think that decisions on where and how long to shop depend solely on price and convenience. Hopefully, this essay has given you some talking points.

For more resources:

Check out the Urban Land Institute or the American Planning Association for resources on urban design.

The Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program offers a number of courses on economic development, branding and other issues raised in this essay. Please visit http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/bocep to learn more.

Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

Developing high quality verbal images

Verbal images -- examples, metaphors, analogies and stories -- help audiences better understand complex matters and feel more comfortable about change.  Here's how to make them work better for your goals:

*Use verbal images that your audiences will easily understand.  What sounds better to you? "Trapped between Scylla and Charybidis" or "Caught between a rock and hard place."  They say the same thing.

*Be aware of your audience's emotional response to the verbal image.  A New York City-base planner was working on a .development plan for a suburban Long Island town.  In his initial presentation, he used examples of good planning from the New York City borough of Brooklyn.  Bad mistake.  A number of the town's residents moved out of places like Brooklyn.  You can imagine what they thought of a planner who they thought was trying to bring Brooklyn into their town.

*Use imagery that elicits strong, but not extreme, emotions.  I was talking with a planner in Montana about how I could both support the concept of the American Institute of Certified Planners' Certification Maintenance program while opposing its design.  I said "you can support economic development, but that is not a blanket endorsement of eminent domain."  I picked this image because of the strong emotions elicited by the words "eminent domain" (especially in Western states).  The planner said that analogy helped him see the issue in a new light.

*Use images that connect to what concerns your audiences.  Parents are concerned about the safety of their children.  If you're trying to promote the development of sidewalks, you would have more success getting audiences to envision the dangers to children walking on streets.

*Unless you feel there is no better image, avoid images that elicit extreme emotional responses.  Words like "steal," "rape," "Nazi," "Hitler," are more likely to cause your audience to roll their eyes than raise their eyebrows.

*Use images of experiences that you might have in common with your audiences.  No matter how different we are, we all have experiences of growing up, being nervous, shopping, having friends.  These kinds of images will help you connect with your audience.

*Stories -- also known as visions, scenarios or simulations -- are excellent tools for helping audiences feel comfortable about pursuing change.  They help audiences understand and visualize complex and abstract information.  My favorite stories make the audience members the main characters in the world that the plan envisions.  ("Imagine you are walking down _________.  You see _______.  You hear _____."

-- Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

Learn more:

Become a more effective communicator through Professional's Writing Studio.  This Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program course runs from March 10 to April 17, 2010.  (Missed this course?  Get updates on this and other courses.  Go to the Professional Development Institute website to sign up for updates. 

If you have a professional development tip you'd like to share, please send your tip to Leo.  Please also give us your full name, title and affiliation, so we can give you proper credit.