The Greater Milwaukee Committee recently released a study (conducted by the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee) of our region’s cultural institutions. Called a "Cultural Asset Inventory of the Milwaukee 7 Region," it gives us many reasons to be proud of Milwaukee.
Our region has more than 250 arts and culture organizations that together reach an annual audience of 4.5 million people. Two-thirds of the organizations have received national recognition. It’s a great, and to many non-Milwaukeeans, surprising inventory of cultural strength.
But the study foretold a crisis. Audiences are shrinking. Governments have reduced their support. Most arts and culture organizations are barely breaking even. Few have the resources to market aggressively or take creative risks. The current economy is certainly going to do no favors for cultural institutions.
The advantages of a robust cultural and arts community should by now be well known: Creative people prefer to live in creative communities. Employment and wages in the “creative economy” are growing faster than in any other sector. Attracting the creative class, so the logic goes, brings economic growth.
Perhaps just as importantly, a vibrant and distinct cultural community provides identity and purpose to a community. One trip to any of the faceless and placeless sprawling exurbs that have sprung up over the last two decades is proof of the importance of a vibrant cultural community.
How is life different in Aurora, Colo., from Overland Park, Kan., or Huntsville, Ala.? Are the Red Lobsters any different? Or the multiplexes? Or the smooth jazz radio stations? The truth is that, for much of the U.S., "culture" is a mass, homogenized thing, with little distinctiveness from place to place.
That’s not true in Milwaukee, and we should all take steps to ensure that our regional cultural assets remain strong. It’s not about taglines or slogans like "A great place by a great lake" or the "Fresh Coast." It’s about recognizing what makes us – well, us.
The truth of the matter is, without our cultural institutions, we might as well be anyplace, USA. What makes Milwaukee a special place is the collection of cultural activities unique to here and nowhere else. It’s big things that everybody knows about, like Summerfest, and small things that more people should know about, like Ten Chimneys or the Ko-Thi dance company.
There is a lot of discussion about what Milwaukee can do to attract companies and top talent to the region. While I think there are any number of reasons why companies and people should find our region very attractive, if the arts and culture sector starts to shrink, you can start subtracting some of our most attractive assets. As Milwaukee business leaders, we can’t let that happen.
John Mose is senior vice president and director at CKPR Milwaukee.
