Economic benefits from the arts-public events

David Riley of the Friends of India Point Park in Providence Rhode Island writes:

Hello park/public space advocates,

I'd greatly appreciate any info you can send on three topics of great interest to our efforts:

1. The economic benefits of public events in parks & public spaces. I know of two cities that have conducted studies of the impact of specific events. Would love to know more, esp re mid-sized cities.

2. Waterfront districts built into zoning ordinances that provide particular environmental and public space protections for these areas.

3. The benefits of parks re stormwater runoff, particularly the savings in public costs of sewage management, etc.

My response:

Parks aren't my area specifically but the way one would approach this question should be universal. (I presume that the urban.parks list, PPS, the Trust for Public Lands website particularly the reports and the section on City Parks, and the City Parks Forum initiative of the American Planning Association offer a lot.)

1. Events impact. Even though the data might be suspect, I think it's worth using numbers being bandied about wrt "The Gates" project in Central Park, with a return of 8-10 times the investment. (Be prepared for skepticism in Providence though.)

The question about economic return is problematic. It really depends on where the event visitors come from. If they are all local, you are merely capturing entertainment dollars that would be spent in your region anyway, and there is no overall increase for the region, although your city might capture economic activity at the expense of the suburbs, etc.. If you are getting out-of-area visitors, then there is greater benefit.

E.g., one of the articles I read on "The Gates" said that over 150,000 out-of-area tourists visited New York City in large part to see the installation in Central Park. If so, you can definitely take credit for that kind of patronage in terms of its economic impact.

See Lee Rosenbaum "'The Gates' Receipts? Not Even Ballpark Figures." In the Fray column. Wall Street Journal, 3/1/05, P. D9. (This article makes an extremely important point, that the normal weekend patronage in February in Central Park is 130,000, while the first weekend of "The Gates" brought 800,000 visitors to Central Park) and Daniel Henninger's column in the Wall Street Journal, "Better than a Happening. Christo's Gates Get Wrapped in Big Flap." For another opinion, see "'The Gates' were not great" in the Christian Science Monitor. Click to buy "The Gates" merchandise.

2. Another issue and maybe even more important based on the other post you sent, is utilizing events in your park as a way to rebuild its use (if that's necessary) and more importantly and constituency to support improvement, utilization, appreciation, etc.

But you have to be focused about it. Some of the best examples as we all know are in NYC--the Central Park Conservancy and its equivalent for Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the Prospect Park Alliance. Another related organization that I find particularly impressive is BRIC--Brooklyn Information and Culture organization, an "all-focused-on-Brooklyn" group that among other things, has the "Celebrate Brooklyn" arts festival which serves as a superb identity development promotion program. See this description of the organization for more info.

I came across BRIC while attending a concert at the Band Shell in Prospect Park. They have a whole lot of activities, memberships, membership benefits, etc. Probably you need to link benefits + advocacy-policy initiatives to help forge the changes and commitment you desire.

3. I don't know about park-waterfront zoning overlays, but as you might know, waterfronts are the big deal these days in urban revitalization planning and development. Wallace Roberts & Todd is a planning firm in Philadelphia that is especially well-known for efforts in this area and they would be worth checking in with. (Let us know if you find out some good stuff. I am always curious to learn new best practices examples.)

Another firm that I learned about at last year's APA meeting is Goody Clancy, which was the planning firm that did the "UrbanRiver Visions" planning for the Chicopee River in Massachusetts. They have an impressive b ig foldout of the charrette results that I use as an example in DC as a model for communicating visions.

Richmond's Canal Walk and their reutilization of their canals is quite fascinating (for more photos check this out). I went on a tour there (again during APA) but I don't know if anything is written out there although it would be likely. It's not entertainment glitz like in San Antonio.

DC has the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative. Finally, David Barth at Glatting Jackson does a lot of great work in park planning. He has combined the old "City Beautiful" movement and New Urbanism into what he calls "City Revival." His presentation at last year's APA meeting was fabulous. He hasn't published anything yet, unfortunately.

Brad Buschur quibbled with one of my comments:

Be prepared for skepticism in Providence???? Have you heard of waterfire? Providence might very well be a leader in creating spaces that bring suburbanites to the city. To realize this the city daylighted two rivers and built a mall in the heart of downtown