Kossack bonddad made a nice, reserved, point earlier about investing in our future now, while we can.
I'd like to add a point I believe is crucial to our success, is very much in line with the Obama message, harkening back to successful precedents set by the likes of the Kennedys and FDR:
Creative Vision.
Creative vision is the kind of thing that can help us "think outside that box" that might otherwise limit us to looking only at taking the baby step of improving the average miles per gallon, when what we really need to do is take a genuine leap towards making total electric cars become truly viable.
But in this instance, I'm not just speaking about creative vision in this broader sense. I am talking specifically about Creativity in the artistic sense, and not overlooking the value it offers us today, and tomorrow.
JFK and FDR both understood something that has been proven and reproven throughout history: Great civilizations thrive and augment their greatness, and their longevity, by never forgetting the intrinsic value of the arts.
The arts expand our understanding of the world, enhance our ability to solve problems, raise our quality of life.
They also generate revenue, long, steady streams of it.
Ok, it's not always going to be the short-term high-margin kind as referenced in some of the case studies here, from the Project for Public Spaces. But with or without the short-term kind of success, it almost always offers the kind of returns that stick around -- for centuries. Take a look at the numbers of folks that annually visit and spend tourist dollars to travel to the likes of Rome, Paris, London etc. New York has taken this clue. Now it's time to take this opportunity to spread it around and let some other places throughout the States get in on the act, or enhance what they already have to start with; and in the process attract more and more folks into visiting us (and spending their yen and euros), not just in NY or San Francisco etc, but many other places throughout the U.S.
It is not uncommon around the country to see percent-for-art programs, wherein all capital spending on public construction projects is subject to setting aside a tiny % of the overall budget for the inclusion of public art in that project -- such as a large sculpture, or a mural or mosaic, or even a work of video art displayed on a monitor or projected on a wall, etc. Sometimes some of the funds also go to providing performances as well, such as music or theater events that are related in some way (like having a theme of water when the building project is a water treatment plant) or merely celebrate the ground-breaking or grand-opening of a project (such as an orchestra or jazz concert). Such events of "fine art" also then generate added need for publicity, signage, and other such promotional activity, which then creates some ripple effect out to the more "commercial arts" industries of graphic design and advertising etc.
Not only does this retain/increase the arts' proper place within the public trust, raise our overall quality of life, expand educational opportunities via the arts within the public environs, and earn income in the long-run, it puts artists to work in the meantime as well. And in times like this, artists often suffer more than most, because as other companies and individuals struggle, their spending on artistic expenditures are often the first to be reduced or cut altogether. And speaking from personal experience, artists have families to feed, and bills and debts to pay like everyone else. And one less artist losing work is one less defaulted credit card or mortgage, and one less coffee shop or other local service losing some portion of their business. And this particular aspect of the ripple effect works whether one is an artist or a banker or an autoworker or whatever.
Besides, it's no accident that in really tough economic times, many of those whom have the means to do so have historically invested in more of two things: gold, and art.
So, my question is this: How do we insist that Obama's public works project going forward includes a percent-for-art clause?