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.
Creative economy assets also help a community to adapt and persevere when confronted with cyclical fluctuations in available skilled labor, investment capital, and business migration. The enduring strength and resilience of any creative economy, therefore, is closely tethered to the quality, breadth, and skillful integration of a continually evolving mix of creative assets that, taken all together, can support the growth of creative enterprises and the lifelong training of creative workers.
The value of this support system is far greater than the number of people it employs or the income it produces. For example, formal and informal forums for associating, networking, and sharing ideas help stimulate and spread positive images about a particular community. Public and private schools and personal instruction help develop the next generation of creative people and enterprises as well as better informed consumers of creative products. Planned events—festivals, fairs, exhibits, and shows—operate as marketplaces for creative goods. Some creative and cultural goods are place-based, tied to specific locations. Finally, creative enterprises always need resources, whether financial, technical, or business.
Another, more practical example of an asset would be the graphic arts programs at Stanly Community College or South Piedmont Community College which provides education and training of the regional workforce in graphic design. However, the small firm that does graphic design is considered a creative enterprise. Thus, the community college graphic design program supports the graphic design firm by being a training resource for the company’s workforce.
Art galleries, like Falling Rivers Gallery in downtown Albemarle or the Olde Mill Art Gallery in Wadesboro, are assets, too, because they make it possible for individual artists to showcase and sell their work.
In Anson and Stanly Counties creative assets fall into five broad categories:
1. Organizations—Formal support networks and groups such as guilds, councils, associations, and arts centers as well as informal clubs, networks, and organizations.
2. Education and Training—Programs and instruction aimed at developing or enhancing creative talent variously offered by public and private arts and craft schools, private teachers, and within educational institutions and supporting industries.
3. Events and Performances—Activities such as scheduled theatre, festivals, shows, celebrations, exhibits, gallery openings, and readings, open as well as ticketed, that showcase the creative economy.
4. Places and Spaces—Locations such as museums, historic sites, gardens, arts districts, neighborhoods, exhibition halls, film and music studios, incubators, and shared space in which creative assets and enterprises can be created, housed, and displayed.
5. Resources—Support such as sources of funding, incentive programs, and information and/or assistance provided by government agencies, non-profit or for-profit organizations, and private foundations.
What assets would you consider part of the creative economy in Anson County? What about Stanly County?
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