Friends of mine were at a conference recently where they bumped into the view that the arts were not valuable for "the economy" in Prince George. What's needed is money spent in support of resources development, real jobs. I don't disagree, we need jobs, but we need the arts in this community.
In BC., the arts generates almost 18% of employment. More importantly, humans do not live by bread alone. Life is not the grim process of going to a resource job, grimly putting in your 9 hours and then doing it all over again or shouldn't be. The arts bring meaning to our lives, they bring joy and beauty and they are not luxuries, they are what makes life worthwhile. They expand our children's' minds, they cause us to think beyond ourselves, to wonder. A resource job may keep food on the table, but it is not food for the mind or the imagination. The arts are.
So I ask that this community see the point of contributing tax dollars to the arts, to keep this community vibrant. And if that is not enough, consider: the arts will keep this community alive.
What does Prince George needs more of? Doctors entrepreneurs, engineers, business people, the skilled groups that directly contribute to or support all those resource jobs. What those young professionals come for is not a job, they come for a community, a community with those unnecessary arts. Give them a community they want to raise their families in, with those arts, and they will come. They won't flock to a gritty, dirty, industrial town.
Second, consider the paths of two similar American industrial towns (a lot like PG). Detroit and Pittsburgh boomed in the industrial decades. But times changed, industry changed and economic times got shaky. Choices on what the city wanted to be had to be made. Pittsburgh reinvented itself. It sought out new industries. But it also made itself a place with a thriving arts scene. Suddenly young professionals wanted to live in Pittsburgh and raise families.
Detroit, well Detroit tried to keep on doing what it has always done, no change, no community building. And few want to live in Detroit.
So, what future does Prince George seek? Pittsburgh of the North or Detroit? That is the difference support for the arts makes.
The arts are a sound economic investment in Prince George.
Annie Booth
Prince George
