Lively Discussion at Public Meeting Helps Identify and Refine Strategic Priorities For Strengthening Anson-Stanly Creative Economy

Strengthening the Regional Creativity Economy of Anson and Stanly Counties

An Open Community Forum ~ Dennis Vineyards and Winery, Albemarle, NC

Thursday, April 14, 2011 ~ 6:30 pm until 8:45 pm

Finding new, collaborative ways to encourage and market Anson and Stanly Counties’ artist venues, grassroots festivals, and natural environment will be essential for strengthening and growing the two-county region’s shared creativity economy.

Anson and Stanly Counties also should place a high priority upon tracking their college-bound youth after high school in order to encourage them to return home and work for local employers during the summer months. 

Positive experiences with summer employment—building resumes and extending their personal networks—may help persuade students to resettle back in Anson and Stanly Counties following their graduation from college.  The overarching goal would be to mitigate the loss of talent and expertise, often referred to as “the brain drain,” that many rural places experience as their young people move away.

These recommendations comprise the top tier of a set of strategic priorities that emerged from

an evening of lively discussion and balloting among more than 100 Anson and Stanly County residents who gathered at Dennis Vineyards and Winery in Albemarle on Thursday, April 14. 

February 15—Refining the Preliminary Recommendations

On February 15, a small group of local residents from Anson and Stanly Counties met at Piney Point Golf Club in Norwood to revisit the draft strategic recommendations from the January 14 public meeting.  

From that list, they sought to identify some initial strategic activities that might be launched right away and yield early accomplishments to build momentum for the overall effort to strengthen the regional creative economy.

After much discussion, the working group ranked the following action strategies as their highest priority recommendations.  These draft action strategies will be presented to the public meeting on April 14 for further consideration.

Learning from Other Communities

It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from what others are doing to build up and profit from their creative economies, both here in NC and elsewhere. We can learn from places including:

• Paducah, Kentucky—which began its artist relocation program in 2000. The city has persuaded more than 50 working artists to relocate from elsewhere to live and work in the downtown arts district.

PROFILE—The Creative Economy in Anson and Stanly Counties

THE CREATIVE ECONOMY

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.

CREATIVE ECONOMY ASSETS—A SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

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.

Project Context and Significance

At the public meeting on January 14, Diane Cherry of the Institute for Emerging Issues described both the context and significance of the ongoing project to strengthen the regional creative economy of Anson and Stanly Counties.

Project context

• There are three distinct partners in this project—the Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI), a public policy organization at N.C. State University; Regional Technology Strategies (RTS), a non-profit economic development organization in Carrboro; and North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension. Each brings a unique perspective and skill to the project. (Of course, the citizens of Anson and Stanly Counties also are a partner—in fact, the most important partner.)

• IEI has experience with running a statewide program on creativity and facilitating community conversation around building a creative culture. RTS has developed and mapped the creative assets for states such as Kentucky, Arkansas and North Dakota.  Finally, Cooperative Extension has experience working with residents in counties all across North Carolina on issues within their communities.

• This project is funded by the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center and both the community-based process and results will be used to help train other counties in North Carolina. Cooperative Extension has an important role in serving as the trainer for others.

Why should a community undertake a discussion on creativity?

Preliminary Recommendations—January 14

In the January 14 public meeting, local residents developed a set of very preliminary recommendations for strengthening the regional creative economy in Anson and Stanly Counties.  

They expected a working group to take these recommendations and further refine them for presentation to a second public meeting on April 14.

The preliminary recommendations included:

Creative Assets—Strengths, Opportunities, and Gaps

In discussing the region’s creative economy assets, participants at the January 14 meeting closely examined a document prepared by RTS entitled the Community Assets Summary. This chart set forth a concise overview of the more in-depth regional asset mapping that RTS has conducted over the past several months. 

In looking over the RTS asset summary chart, meeting attendees sought to determine whether the mapping exercise had fully described the region’s assets. They discussed:  

1) The region’s chief competitive advantages and emerging opportunities, regarding its creative economy; and 2) Any existing gaps in the overall support structure needed to develop the regional creative economy.

One factor with which participants wrangled throughout their working group deliberations was the distinction between creative economy assets and creative enterprises. Many attendees presumed the two are, for all practical purposes, identical. However, creative economy assets are better described as the support system that makes it possible for creative enterprises and the creative workforce to thrive.

For example, a graphic arts program at Stanly Community College or South Piedmont Community College is an asset. A small firm that does graphic design is a creative enterprise. Morrow Mountain is an asset. A small trail outfitter business is a creative enterprise. 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.

Strengthening the Regional Creative Economy of Anson and Stanly Counties—First Public Meeting

More than 60 local community leaders, artists, business owners, and journalists gathered at the Lockhart-Taylor Center of South Piedmont Community College in Wadesboro on January 14 to discuss the creative assets that Anson and Stanly counties, working together, can develop to strengthen the two-county region’s creative economy.

This ongoing creative economy project is funded by a grant from the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center. It is part of a pilot project that will yield a creative economy asset mapping tool kit and training opportunities for Cooperative Extension agents across North Carolina. Key partners in implementing the project are the Institute for Emerging Issues, N.C. Cooperative Extension, and Regional Technology Strategies, Inc. (RTS).

Participants at the January 14 meeting listened to several short presentations about the challenges and potential benefits involved with developing the regional creative economy. They also met in small group sessions to assess the region’s creative economy assets, strengths, and opportunities.