Study: Creativity fuels North of Boston economic engine

By Christine Gillette
Staff writer, The Salem News

Ask the average person North of Boston which sector of the economy employs nearly 6,000 and posts more than $1 billion in sales, and they probably won't say the arts.

But according to a new study, Essex County's "creative economy" -- arts and cultural nonprofits, combined with such for-profit ventures as advertising and Web design -- packs a $1.26 billion punch.

Ventures in the creative sector number 930 for-profit and nonprofit total, 358 on the North Shore, 163 combined for the Cape Ann and Newburyport areas, and 399 elsewhere in Essex County. They post $1.2 billion in sales and employ 5,934 people.

"That's a significant, quantifiable part of our economy," said Dan Griffin, vice president of marketing for The Eagle-Tribune Publishing Co., which conducted the study, "The Creative Economy North of Boston," at the request of a task force of business, cultural and other leaders from around Essex County.

The study was presented Tuesday to the 20-member Creative Economy Task Force, which formed last fall to quantify creative ventures' role in the regional economy and find ways to promote them and use them to build other sectors.

"This is a great catalytic agent," said Christine B. Sullivan, executive director of the Enterprise Center at Salem State College and cofounder of the task force.

"It is going to form the framework of our planning and how we go forward," said David Ives, chief executive officer of NIIS/Apex Holdings Corp. and Enterprise Center board chairman.

"I think the key thing this group has to do is let the rest of the more established industries know about (this)," David King, director of public affairs for North Shore Medical Center.

While the "creative economy" sounds like a new concept, it has been discussed in depth in recent years, boosted by books like Charles Landry's "The Creative City" and Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class." A 2000 study commissioned by the New England Council found the creative economy supported more than 240,000 jobs in the region, nearly equal to the computer industry at the time.

The 2004 study produced for the Essex County task force used more than a dozen sources, including tax and business filings, databases, business loans, government reports, business publications and telephone directories. The study broke the creative economy into categories: advertising, performing arts, architecture, education, museums and cultural sites, history-related ventures, new media (such as Internet-related businesses), publishing, radio and television.

The creative economy has some major players -- such as Mullen in advertising and Infogrames in games and hobbies. But the study found most of the impact comes from the little guys.

"Our area contains a creative economy that is very, very small-business oriented,' said Griffin. "Those businesses unite to form a very significant bit of our economy."

The creative economy's share of business on the North of Boston outpaces that for the United States as a whole: Nationally, 1.4 percent of all jobs and 1.3 percent of businesses are in the "creative economy." North of Boston, 1.9 percent of workers and 1.6 percent of businesses fall in that category.

Not in the study are performing arts venues based at educational institutions such as Salem State College, tourism and part-time employment by creative economy entities, according to Griffin and Forbes Durey, Eagle-Tribune Publishing's director of research.

Categories such as museums and other venues that draw visitors from outside the region provide some representation of how the creative economy influences tourism, said Patricia H. Zaido, executive director of The Salem Partnership and one of the task force's founders.

Even without specific figures for tourism, the study gives specifics for what many have suspected for some time.

"I think it's something we've intuitively known, but it's good to have data and statistical numbers to work from," said Julie McConchie, executive director of the North of Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau in Peabody.

"It's really putting ideas people have into fact," said Rinus Oosthoek of the Beverly Main Streets program.

Driving the creative economy North of Boston are consumer expenditures, Griffin said. The growing number of educated and affluent residents of Essex County spend $55.6 million on arts and theater concerts. For many of those people, he said, they could go anywhere in the world to seek entertainment, but are finding "significant opportunities" within 10 to 15 miles."

The study quantifying the creative economy is just the first step for the task force.

"It's not so much what we do next, it's what we do with it. It's happening now," said Mark Meche, principal of Winter Street Architects and board president of The Salem Partnership.

Landry, who speaks around the world on the creative economy, will come to the North Shore in April to meet with the task force and other community leaders about the impact of the sector on the economy as a whole, and how to further develop it.

In addition, the task force is working to bring wireless Internet access to downtown Salem with the help of Eastern Bank. The proposal is scheduled to go before the Salem Redevelopment Authority next month.

Rerinted with permission from The Salem News. Copyright 2003 Eagle-Tribune Publishing. All Rights Reserved.