Building On Your Community's Creative Assets

The foundation of any economy is built upon the embedded assets that support businesses and workers.  In fact, a community’s creative economy assets are the support infrastructure that helps develop and nurture an overall environment in which creative businesses and skilled labor markets succeed and flourish. 

These creative assets may include local and regional organizations, institutions, and physical spaces, as well as formal events and informal social networks.  The presence of a robust support infrastructure often is a key factor determining why established businesses choose to locate in the local area, why entrepreneurial small ventures start up and eventually succeed, and why people with desirable talents and skills choose to live and work in a particular community. 

What is the "Creative Economy"?

The creativity expressed by the people, places, and institutions of a particular region provides real value at two distinct levels.  It can provide intrinsic value in the way creative arts and design help establish a cohesive identity for the community and contribute directly to the community’s overall quality of life.  Creativity also provides extrinsic value through its direct and indirect contributions to regional economies.

In that latter sense, the creative sector within a larger economy primarily is concerned with firms and workers that produce and/or distribute products and services for which the aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional engagement of the consumer represents the chief component of value for those goods and services in the marketplace.