Des Moines Business Record
02-25-07
Now Showing - Des Moines' Creative Class
By Sarah Bzdega
sarahbzdega@bpcdm.com
The Principal Riverwalk, the Des Moines Music Commission, burgeoning theater
companies and extended bike trails, among many other projects, are a strong
signal that Des Moines is on the upswing.
All you have to do is look around, said Anita Walker, director of the Iowa
Department of Cultural Affairs and the Iowa Arts Council until this year. "You can
almost palpably feel the changes here in the last five years."
Many of these changes have been a part of Iowa and Des Moines' efforts to
cultivate a "creative economy" and are signs that the capital city could compete
nationally for creative talent.
The percent of people in creative occupations in Des Moines is higher than in
most U.S. cities, with 33.3 percent of its work force in such jobs in 2005, which is
up 1.3 percent from 2000. This makes Greater Des Moines eighth among
metropolitan areas with populations between 250,000 and 500,000 and 32nd
overall.
"I've seen Des Moines really start to go through a renaissance," said author and
economist Richard Florida, in a recent interview from his New York office, "from
being a quiet little government city to really starting to have a lively downtown.
These rankings are based on Florida's ideas, which he outlines in his book "The
Rise of the Creative Class." Although those studying the creative economy may
have varying definitions of the creative class, Florida claims it has two major
components. The super-creative core is made up of computer and mathematical
occupations; architecture and engineering occupations; life, physical and social
science occupations; education, training and library occupations; and arts,
design, entertainment, sports and media occupations. Creative professionals
encompass management occupations; business and financial operations
occupations; legal occupations; health-care practitioners and technical
occupations; and high-end sales and sales management professions.
"I want to show that [the creative economy] happens in a place like Des Moines
as well as a place like Austin," the No. 1 city overall in the creative economy
rankings, Florida said.
But even though Des Moines has the base to be a major competitor in the
creative economy, it faces several challenges to maintain this ranking, which
include improving its image in the rest of the country, promoting more diversity
and financially supporting more grassroots and entrepreneurial ventures.
Starting point
Des Moines may rank high on the creativity index, but Iowa is a different
scenario.
The state was 40th on the overall state creativity ranking, according to the
February 2003 issue of Creative Intelligence, a joint publication of Catalytix Inc.
and the Richard Florida Creativity Group.
Although cities like Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City are competitive with
the rest of the nation, said David Swenson, an economist at Iowa State
University who has done research on the subject, the state in general tends to
lose scientists, engineers and other technical talent while importing people for
production, food services and construction jobs.
The super-creative core of occupations (based on Florida's definition) make up
10.8 percent of Iowa's total work force, compared with 12 percent for entire
nation, according to a report published by Swenson and Liesl Eathington in
February 2003 for the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. Creative professionals
made up 16.2 percent of Iowa's work force, compared with 17.3 percent in the
United States.
These figures show that Iowa has a way to go to become competitive in the
creative economy, the report said.
But the results may be improving, as made evident by the fact that Iowa's
creative occupations grew more than 10 percentage points faster than the
national rate between 1990 and 2000.
Iowa's leadership has been interested in the concept of a creative economy,
especially since the early 21st century, when the state's economy was struggling,
said Walker. At that point, leaders were willing to look for new direction.
Around 2003, several proponents of the creative economy, including Florida and
Kirk Watson, the former mayor of Austin, Texas, came to speak in Iowa. They
became the catalyst for several initiatives that followed, Walker said, including
the Iowa Great Places initiative and the Greater Des Moines Partnership's vision
for Project Destiny.
"A number of people really challenged us to see ourselves differently five, six,
seven years ago," said Susan Ramsey, who is in charge of marketing and
communications for the Partnership. "In many ways, it empowered us to look
forward at what we have and how we can build on that to make ourselves
stronger. "
Iowa's creative class has already been an important part of its economy.
According to Swenson's 2003 report, jobs in creative industries (those that
employ large fractions of the creative work force, invest heavily in research and
development or create and distribute technologically sophisticated or artistic
goods and services) tend to pay 60 percent more per worker than all other
businesses. In addition, Iowa's creative work force converts $8.57 billion of its
take-home compensation into spending in Iowa's economy, which in turns
supports 45,812 jobs.
"I think we're in a good spot," said Principal Financial Group Inc.'s Chairman and
CEO, J. Barry Griswell, "because we get the fact that it has to happen and needs
to happen."
Attracting talent
Businesses like Principal are receptive to the concept of a creative class,
especially the idea that they can attract talented individuals through quality-of-life
amenities.
Griswell experienced the impact of art and culture on employees firsthand when
he took a tour of Principal's extensive art collection a few years after joining the
company. The person who was conducting the tour told Griswell that one of the
main reasons she joined the company was that when she came to the interview,
she recognized the art and knew Principal was a progressive company.
Since becoming CEO, Griswell has made the arts a priority and is currently
serving as chairman-elect and vice chairman of the Business Committee for the
Arts Inc., a national organization that promotes the support of the arts by
businesses. In his role with that organization, he has traveled to several cities
throughout the nation to look at their arts programs.
"Those communities that really get it, that understand the importance of the arts,"
Griswell said, "I think they're going to be cities that really flourish in the years to
come. ... I believe Des Moines is on the verge of becoming one of those creative
class kinds of cities."
Although Iowa does not boast mountains or oceanfront property, many believe it
offers a strong quality-of-life component that is invaluable to creative
professionals today, which includes short commute times, bike trails, an
emerging arts and culture scene and affordable housing.
"People are not just looking for a job," Walker said. "They're looking for a place to
live."
When Florida visited Iowa in early 2003, he urged leaders to focus on attracting
talented individuals rather than on bringing new businesses to the state. In a
subsequent interview, he cited as an example of this approach a marketing
campaign conducted by Washington, D.C., that included an advertisement that
showed someone reading Aristotle. This signified that the city wanted smart,
capable and thoughtful people.
The Greater Des Moines Partnership has taken this approach with its "Do More"
campaign. Martha Willits, president and CEO of the Partnership, said its
message is "Join us. We have it. You can, too."
To send this message, the Partnership also is using up-to-date technology to
reach young professionals, such as blast e-mails, videos on YouTube and
blogging.
Companies like Meredith Corp. try to educate potential employees on what Des
Moines has to offer by comparing the cost of living to other hip cities and pointing
out quality-of-life amenities such as the East Village retail district, Gray's Lake
and the metropolitan area's strong school systems.
"So many people don't know how to identify Iowa, to be honest with you," said
Denise Rock, associate director of human resources in Meredith's publishing
division. "It's a discovery, and usually a pleasant one. If we can get them here for
an interview, it's always a pleasant experience for them."
Florida also stresses that bringing talented people to fill jobs is only half the
picture. The city should also support entrepreneurial ventures. During his
research, he found that some regions have focused on developing a technology
corridor, or becoming the next Silicon Valley, but in reality, Silicon Valley became
successful because it attracted people who were able to start their own
companies.
Walker believes there is a gap in programs in Iowa that fund start-up companies.
Most programs, she said, focus on big companies that will bring a lot of jobs,
while start-ups often need only about $10,000 to get going.
As a result, the Partnership has been working with several organizations,
including Iowa State University and Des Moines Area Community College, to
start a business accelerator program, called Business Innovation Zone, designed
to help start-ups get technical support and capital.
Because Iowa historically has been strong in agriculture, insurance and
manufacturing, Willits said, the state has to push itself to support more than
these industries.
The other area that has continually pushed Des Moines lower on the creative
scale is Iowa's homogeneous. Iowa is ranked 47th for diversity according to the
2003 issue of Creative Intelligence.
The key to turning this around, said Florida, is to make the town more welcoming
by providing services to help newcomers, such as low- and high-skilled
immigrants, and being open to all kinds of diversity, including gays and single
young professionals. If people are going to be creative in their lives, Florida said,
they need to feel as though they can express themselves.
In addition to more diversity, Iowa also needs to allow people to make a decent
living, Swenson said.
Iowa's average earnings per job in 2000 was 73.4 percent of the U.S. average,
according to Swenson's 2003 report, and the average earnings per job for people
in the performing arts were less than 30 percent of the national average.
A follow-up report Swenson conducted a year later found that although many
states aggressively sought information technology jobs during the 1990s, and
Iowa even had strong gains in this area, the average pay per job in Iowa was
much lower than in Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota and Illinois.
Vibrant core
Though states are courting technology-talented people, many of these individuals
want to live in cities with what Florida calls the "Bohemian Factor," a strong group
of artistically creative people, which includes authors, artists, photographers,
dancers and performers.
It's more than just having a strong symphony, opera and ballet, he said, "It's
about funding real working artists."
This group of the super-creative core not only helps create the vibrant, culturally
rich communities people are looking for, but also can bring a lot of revenue to an
area, Florida said, which could be an even smarter approach than building
another technology park.
To show the value of this group, Thatcher Williams, founder of the local theater
company, Theater ... For a Change, points to a survey by the National
Endowment for the Arts, which found that people who participate in the arts, even
if only reading literature, are twice as likely to volunteer in their communities as
those who don't.
The emergence of smaller theater companies is one sign of Des Moines' growing
creative core. Williams compares the city to the theater transformation
Minneapolis underwent 30 to 40 years ago when it started to find its cultural
stride.
Many of these companies have seen a consistent or increasing audience base
despite more companies coming on the scene. William's group has grown from
an average of 25 audience members per show to 40 in three years.
"It's healthy to see more theater," said Ron Lambert, co-founder of the
progressive theater group StageWest. "The more theater there is, the more
people are used to going to theater, so they go to more theater. It enhances the
whole scene."
But one thing most actors and artists still struggle with in Des Moines is making
enough money to turn their avocation into a full-time profession. Though many
artists are able to make it with persistence, Williams said that for an actor to be
successful, he or she has to be willing to do a variety of work, such as
commercials or directing films and plays. Williams predicts it could be another 10
years before Des Moines is capable of supporting a full-time acting company.
Most actors now receive stipends.
Lambert agrees and said a lot of StageWest's money goes toward renting a
space at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines. He said it comes down to
lowering the quality of the performance and cutting advertising or paying actors.
"It's very difficult to be a full-time actor just as it is to be a painter, musician, artist
in a medium-sized city," he said. "They have to have full-time day jobs or at least
part-time."
Business vs. state funding
To support a rich arts and culture community, many people say that the
government should put its money where people's efforts are. Although Iowa is
interested in supporting a creative economy, it ranks 44th in the nation for per
capita spending on the arts.
"If the state is going to aspire to be seen as a destination for the creative class,"
Walker said, "it can't be ranking at the bottom in its financial support for arts and
culture."
Though the Legislature has been enthusiastic about supporting some tangible
initiatives through the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs and the Iowa Arts
Council, Walker said that has not translated into dollars. The department now
receives a lot of applications from organizations around the state looking for
money through new programs, but there's not nearly enough money to support
them all, she said.
Lambert believes that some people are misinformed about the importance of
supporting a progressive cultural community.
"I think there probably are a lot of state leaders who look at theater as 'Let's put
on "Oklahoma!" in a high school gymnasium and serve apple pie at
intermission,'" he said, "but that's not all there is. We like to do a bit more
progressive work.
"We see ourselves as an important player in the growth of Des Moines and
downtown living." He added that the type of people the city is seeking to attract
come from larger cities and expect to find a theater company like StageWest.
So far, most of the funding for Iowa arts organizations has been private.
"Probably for too long [the government] saw these kinds of things as frosting on
the cake, so they let them be underfunded and unbalanced in this way," Willits
said.
Griswell said that when David Rockefeller founded the Business Committee for
the Arts in the 1960s, it was unfashionable for businesses to support the arts, but
today it is widely accepted.
Although there is no local chapter of BCA in Iowa, Bravo Greater Des Moines
has, in large part, served that purpose. The organization consists of 15 arts and
cultural groups that collaborate on marketing and fund raising. But without a
consistent base of support, Griswell believes these organizations will continue to
struggle to find funding.
"I think it's critical to have some kind of financial support for arts that's broader
than just business or just the local art fund raising that they do," he said.
If approved in a special 2007 election, the Destiny sales tax proposal would
provide one-third of the funds raised from a 1 percent local option sales tax to
these arts and cultural programs, along with other regional quality-of-life
amenities.
"We've always been good on the bricks-and-mortar side," said Willits, "I think
adding this broadens our base so we're able to meet what is a serious challenge
of a work force for the future."
Walker believes that with all the excitement generated by some of these
initiatives that help Des Moines and Iowa be a contender in the creative
economy, it is time to fully support them.
Florida believes in the city's potential as well. "Particularly the size of community
you are," he said, "[Des Moines] is well positioned to compete in this creative
economy."
"This is the kind of people that we want on our community: creative, talented, risk
taking, tolerant, energetic," ISU's Swenson said. "Put all that together and it
creates a culture that's a nice petri dish of new ideas and innovation."