The Impact of the Arts on Downtown Redevelopment for a Traditional 

City 

Executive Summary 

Joanna Ganning, PhD 

Assistant Professor, Department of City & Metropolitan Planning 

Executive Director, Metropolitan Research Center 

University of Utah 

joanna.ganning@utah.edu 

801-587-8129

This project was supported in part or in whole by an award from the Research: Art Works

program at the National Endowment for the Arts: Grant# 13-3800-7002. 

The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent 

the views of the Office of Research & Analysis or the National Endowment for the Arts. The 

NEA does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information included in this report 

and is not responsible for any consequence of its use. 
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Abstract

While the relationship between the arts and economic redevelopment has been studied 

extensively in world-class cities, it remains understudied in weaker market or slow-growth cities. 

With tight municipal budgets, weak market cities cannot afford not to understand both the 

benefits of the arts for downtown redevelopment, and the impact of redevelopment on the arts. 

This research project uses block-level data on employment, population, and investments for a 

United States declining city’s downtown (St. Louis) to study a series of inter-related questions 

about the relationship between redevelopment and arts-based employment. Those analyses are 

presented in two manuscripts presented herein.

The first paper investigates two questions. First, is there evidence that the arts anchor 

redevelopment in a weak market city? Second, does redevelopment pressure then force out the 

arts or simply make use of excess real estate capacity, leaving the arts in place and building 

around them a wealthier market with stronger demand? Using multiple spatial and non-spatial 

quantitative methods, the paper finds that the arts have neither anchored redevelopment nor been 

driven out of the downtown by redevelopment. In fact, up to a point, increasing redevelopment 

also increases arts-based employment changes at the block level. This finding seems to provide 

evidence for a competing hypothesis: that in weak market cities, excess, pre-existing real estate 

allows a place for redevelopment to occur without forcing out the arts. Since effectively no 

cultural planning had been done for downtown St. Louis, this case study provides a “no 

treatment” or control case against which future studies can compare the effects of planning 

interventions. As a control case, the St. Louis data suggests that arts-based employment can 

complement and grow in a weak market city’s downtown. 
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While the first paper finds that block-level redevelopment is associated with arts-based 

employment growth, the second paper investigates the downtown’s changing economy and 

demography and changes in the character of arts-based employment. This analysis rests on the 

construction of a typology of arts-based employment for blocks in 2000 and 2010, followed by 

quantitative analysis (using regression and ANOVA techniques) of the change in type between 

years. While most blocks were characterized by small-scale, diverse arts employment in both 

2000 and 2010, arts-based employment shifted to a downtown with more artists employed in 

white collar firms and fewer in firms with small-scale arts employment. Consistent with the first 

paper, the results also find that block-level disinvestment is associated with a downgrading of 

arts-based employment in those blocks. This change in the character of the downtown arts is not 

adequately addressed in current planning, sounding an alarm to increase cultural planning for 

downtowns.

Taken together, these papers find that block-level redevelopment in a weak market 

downtown encourages arts-based employment growth (though significantly not the number of 

arts-based business storefronts), but that arts-based employment does concentrate more in white 

collar firms as each block changes. Overall, these findings suggest that the arts can be part of 

downtown redevelopment without the threat of encroachment seen in places like SoHo, but that 

cultural planning should be engaged in to ensure that the arts community’s voice is reflected in 

the process of redevelopment. 
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Executive Summary

Introduction

The idea that arts and artists play a critical role in transforming blighted neighborhoods 

into hip enclaves is well established in the literature (e.g., Currid 2009; Lloyd 2002). Reduced to 

its simplest, artists seek out low-rent areas, bringing with them a creative vibrancy and 

authenticity that attracts new businesses and residents. While this process is well understood for 

globally recognized art capitals like New York City, the role of the arts in the redevelopment of 

shrinking, weak market cities is less understood. 

The fundamental differences in character between world-class cities like New York City 

and shrinking cities like St. Louis dictate a different intersection of arts and downtown 

redevelopment. As Molotch and Treskon (2009) showed in New York, after helping to make 

SoHo attractive to investors, artists and arts-based businesses found themselves priced out, and 

consequently relocated to Chelsea, a lower-rent neighborhood (this process is called the “SoHo

effect”). However, it is unclear whether redevelopment pressures price the arts out of downtowns 

in a weak market context, and if so, at what magnitude of redevelopment? On its face, the rising 

rents of downtown suggest that arts-based businesses requiring low overhead might struggle in 

an environment of rapid redevelopment. However, this hypothesis may be ill-suited to shrinking 

cities, which often suffer from excess, vacant downtown real estate to which artists and their 

businesses could move. In this case, downtowns like St. Louis’ might provide an ideal scenario 

for arts-based employment growth; a balance can be struck between proximity to density and 

prosperity while also maintaining affordable rents.

This project analyzes the relationship between the arts and redevelopment in downtown 

St. Louis between 2000 and 2010. St. Louis was chosen as the case study for several reasons. 
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First, St. Louis offered unparalleled data access through proprietary data sets to which I had 

license to use for research, and through professional networks, which granted me access to other 

non-public data. Second, St. Louis lost a larger percentage of its population between 1950 and 

2010 than nearly any other city in the U.S.i, making it in some ways the poster child for 

shrinking cities, though it bears noting that findings are not necessarily generalizable and should 

be ground tested in other settings. 

Research Questions

This research project investigates these themes of downtown arts in shrinking cities by 

studying the following questions in the context of downtown St. Louis between 2000 and 2010:

1. Does arts-based employment anchor downtown redevelopment?

2. Does downtown redevelopment force arts-based jobs to leave the downtown?

3. Did downtown redevelopment change the character of arts-based employment?

Data

Arts-based employment was estimated at the Census block level for 2000 and 2010 for 

downtown St. Louis using business-level employment data purchased from InfoGroup and 

heavily processed by the PI. Arts-based employment was estimated from this database by 

identifying industries which employ artistic occupations (as defined by Markusen and Schrock 

2006), then using national, industry-level data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment 

and Wages from Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey to estimate the proportion of 

total employment at those firms that might be employed within the arts occupations. The number 

of arts-based businesses was estimated using a tiered system, with a bifurcated third tier: 

Tier 1: Business employs artists and makes a product with direct artistic value

Tier 2: Business likely employs artists, but end product is not directly artistic
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Tier 3S: Business supplies artists’ inputs

Tier 3V: Business provides a publication opportunity, venue, or forum for artists’ work

Other data used includes data from the U.S. Census Bureau on population change, and 

data on investments made in the downtown between 2000 and 2010, obtained through local 

professional networks. 

Results

Question 1: 1.Does arts-based employment anchor downtown redevelopment?

In short, there was no evidence that arts-based employment anchored the location of 

downtown redevelopment. Through an analysis of tabular data, no statistically significant 

correlation was found between block level redevelopment (calculated as an index of population 

change, investments, and total employment change), and either arts stability (the percent of artsbased businesses open in 2000 and still open in 2010) or the number of arts-based businesses 

open in 2000. The same metrics were tested for spatial relationships; none were found. 

Question 2: Does downtown redevelopment force arts-based jobs to leave the downtown?

In short, there is no evidence that downtown redevelopment forced the arts out of the 

downtown, as the SoHo effect might suggest. This question was tested by testing the statistical 

correlations between block-level redevelopment and the numeric change in arts businesses, and

the change in arts-based employment. These associations were again tested in both tabular and 

spatial data. No statistically significant correlation was found between block-level 

redevelopment and change in the number of arts store fronts. In contrast, the relationship 

between redevelopment and arts employment change is statistically significant. While 

disinvestment is related to losses in arts employment, positive redevelopment benefits arts 

employment, with decreasing (though still positive) returns on arts-based employment only in 
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the midst of extremely high redevelopment. Since this measure deals with employment rather 

than businesses, it stands to reason that either employment grew in existing arts businesses, or 

that firms that closed were replaced by larger businesses or were replaced by other arts 

businesses with a higher percentage of artist employment. 

Question 3: Did downtown redevelopment change the character of arts-based employment?

In short, yes. While most blocks were characterized by small-scale, diverse arts 

employment in both 2000 and 2010, arts-based employment shifted to a downtown with more 

artists employed in white collar firms and fewer in firms with small-scale arts employment. 

This question was investigated by categorizing all downtown blocks (for 2000 and 2010 

as separate observations) according to a typology of arts-based employment. This typology was 

constructed by dividing observations into 12 groups according to the size of arts-based 

employment by industrial composition per block. A cross-tabulation of blocks by arts-based type 

in 2000 and 2010 provides information describing how the character of arts employment 

changed over the decade as blocks experienced demographic and economic change and massive 

financial investments. These results indicate that while some blocks lost white-collar arts 

employment positions between 2000 and 2010, more blocks were characterized by similarly 

classified gains. Also, while a larger number of blocks saw diverse, small-scale arts employment 

appear over the decade, these new positions were outnumbered by increases in arts-based 

employment at white collar firms. Overall, there was a decline in blocks classified as having 

small-scale, diverse arts-based employment; in 2010, 64 blocks were characterized as having 

small-scale arts-based employment, compared to 74 blocks in 2000. These changes are

associated with block-level changes in redevelopment, measured in various ways.
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Conclusion

These analyses find that block-level redevelopment in a weak market downtown is not 

anchored by arts-based businesses, but does encourage arts-based employment growth (though 

significantly not the number of arts-based business storefronts). Amid a downtown changed by 

large-scale redevelopment, arts-based employment does concentrate more in white collar firms 

as the downtown changes. Changes in the character of arts-based development are driven by 

different combinations of population change, employment change, economic restructuring, and 

investments. 

Overall, these findings suggest that the arts can be part of downtown redevelopment 

without the threat of encroachment seen in places like SoHo, but that cultural planning should be 

engaged in to ensure that the arts community’s voice is reflected in the process of 

redevelopment. The work presented here represents St. Louis—a weak market city that has not 

engaged in serious cultural planning for its downtown. As such, this case study provides a “no 

treatment” or a control case against which the effectiveness of planning interventions can be 

gauged when applied in other shrinking cities in the U.S. 

Other further work remains to be done. The work presented here captures only arts-based 

employment, though many artists are self-employed or hold day jobs in non-artistic occupations. 

Future research might implement data collection methods that would allow analysis 

incorporating this reality. Additional work that might gauge residential relocation of artists 

would also add a layer of understanding to the present research. In the future, qualitative research 

could allow scholars to better understand the tensions that arise in shrinking cities as downtowns 

evolve from manufacturing economies to “Creative Class” or New Economy futures.