OPINION: City Officials Must do More to Boost New York’s Creative Class

Over the past six years, New York City has gone all in on the tech sector. Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched more than a dozen initiatives to nurture the tech ecosystem, from the innovative plan to build an applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, to the establishment of incubators and coworking spaces. Mayor Bill de Blasio has added several important initiatives to the city’s tech playbook, including new efforts to improve broadband service and help more New Yorkers develop tech skills.

All of this is smart economic development policy. The tech sector grew faster than any other part of the city’s economy over the past decade, adding tens of thousands of jobs and crucially providing a new growth engine for a city economy that had long been over-reliant on Wall Street.

But as important as it is to cultivate the city’s burgeoning tech sector, economic development officials would be wise to pay similar attention to the city’s creative sector.

Spanning fields from advertising and architecture to film and the visual arts—the creative sector employs roughly 300,000 New Yorkers, 7 percent of all jobs in the city. And while tech has grown more rapidly in recent years, the creative sector arguably provides New York with its greatest competitive advantage.

In 2013, the city was home to 8.6 percent of all creative sector jobs in the nation, up from 7.1 percent in 2003. Of the city’s 20 largest industries, none comprise a larger share of the nation’s total jobs, including information, which accounts for 6.1 percent of national jobs in that sector, educational services (5.5 percent), real estate (5.4 percent) and finance and insurance (5.2 percent).

Just as the Bay Area has long been the nation’s leading hotbed of tech activity, New York has been the country’s clear creative capital. Between 2003 and 2013, New York’s share of national jobs increased significantly in all ten industries that make up the creative sector, including especially large jumps in film and television (11 percent to 15 percent), advertising (9 percent to 12 percent) and architecture (4.5 percent to 7.3 percent). This is even clearer when looking at specific occupations: the city is home to 28 percent of the country’s fashion designers, 14 percent of producers and directors, 12 percent of print and media editors and 12 percent of art directors.

And while traditional economic engines like finance and legal services have stagnated in recent years, creative industries have been among the fastest growing segments of the city’s economy. Employment in film and television production soared by 53 percent over the past decade, while architecture (33 percent), performing arts (26 percent), advertising (24 percent), visual arts (24 percent) and applied design (17 percent) all outpaced the city’s overall employment growth (12 percent) during this time. 

Despite all the momentum, the continued growth of New York’s creative sector is by no means assured. Just as a number of upstart cities are trying to lure tech startups and talent away from Silicon Valley, New York’s advantage in the creative industries is being threatened as cities from Shanghai and Berlin to Portland and Detroit aggressively cultivate their creative economies.

The new competition comes at a time when the city’s artists, dancers, musicians and other creative workers are facing more intense challenges than ever before. New York has never been the cheapest place for artists to live and work. But in recent years, the city’s skyrocketing rents have reached a new danger level. Legendary musicians and writers like Patti Smith, David Byrne and Moby have all warned of an affordability crisis for New York’s working artists. When P.S. 109 in East Harlem was redeveloped into affordable artist housings, more than 53,000 people applied for 89 affordable rental units.

And it’s not just living spaces. Brooklyn’s Galapagos Art Space is moving to Detroit while several other arts spaces have shut down. The Center for an Urban Future recently identified 24 music venues, 310 fine art galleries, and 22 performing arts theaters that have closed their doors in recent years.

This is problematic because artists provide the key foundation for the success of the city’s broader creative economy. They help make the city more dynamic, spawn creative amenities (from galleries to craft fairs) and serve as magnets for other creative people and businesses.

Meanwhile, many of the city’s small and mid-sized arts organizations are facing mounting financial pressures. This is troubling since it is these cultural nonprofits that provide key opportunities for local artists to perform or display their work, and help set New York apart from other cities that may attract tourists with top-flight museums and gilded performance halls but struggle to appeal to creative workers who want a greater variety of arts offerings. 

To his credit, de Blasio has already announced new initiatives to create housing units and workspaces for artists and support the fashion industry. But in the months ahead, even more will be needed to shore up the city’s critical creative sector. 

Jonathan Bowles is executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, an independent think tank focused on growing New York’s economy and expanding economic opportunity.