Author: Sanrkar, Mousumi

Publication Year: 2015

Media Type: Report

Summary:

To better understand the impact of local arts and cultural events on Americans’ choices about where to live, researchers at the National Endowment for the Arts worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to ask a series of questions as part of the 2015 American Housing Survey (AHS). The AHS is a HUD-sponsored national household survey that the U.S. Census Bureau (Census) administers every two years. The questions were designed to measure the value that U.S. residents place on living convenient to arts and cultural events, householder satisfaction with access to such events, and householder perceptions of the social and economic impacts of these events on their neighborhoods.

Abstract:

To better understand the impact of local arts and cultural events on Americans’ choices about where to live, researchers at the National Endowment for the Arts worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to ask a series of questions as part of the 2015 American Housing Survey (AHS). The AHS is a HUD-sponsored national household survey that the U.S. Census Bureau (Census) administers every two years. The questions were designed to measure the value that U.S. residents place on living convenient to arts and cultural events, householder satisfaction with access to such events, and householder perceptions of the social and economic impacts of these events on their neighborhoods.

For the purpose of the survey, examples of arts and cultural events included musical, theatrical, and dance performances, literary events, film screenings, museum and gallery exhibits, and crafts and performing arts festivals.

Key Findings:

1. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. householders (representing 50.7 million households) rated living convenient to arts and cultural events “important” (27 percent) or “very important” (11 percent).
2. Householders who affirmed the importance of living convenient to arts and cultural events were more likely to be paying a premium for their housing than those who did not affirm this importance.
3. Fifteen percent of U.S. householders (representing 20.4 million households) reported that convenient access to arts and cultural events played a role in their choice of neighborhood.
4. Eighty-eight percent of householders who valued living convenient to arts and cultural events were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their own access to these events from where they currently live.
5. Of householders who affirmed the importance of living convenient to arts and cultural events, a large majority agreed that such events provide social and/or economic benefits to their neighborhoods.
6. Mapping nonprofit, tax-exempt arts organizations to the 2015 AHS dataset revealed that the share of U.S. householders who rate access to arts and cultural events
   as a factor in neighborhood choice was increased as the distance to nonprofit arts organizations was reduced.
   
    

Arts & Intersections: Livability

Categories: Community Development, Housing