A task force of civic, arts, and business leaders says the arts can be an economic engine for North Carolina. The panel has as part of the . It's mapping out ways for communities to use the arts to increase jobs and quality of life. Mary Regan is executive director of the . She says creative industries have bucked the unemployment trends in North Carolina.
Mary Regan: The number of jobs that we call creative worker jobs - those have held steady over the last four, five years. So there's a great future for North Carolina; if we can support that climate I think that it will just bring huge rewards.
The Arts Council will provide grants of $20,000 to $30,000 to up to four communities to help them use their cultural assets to create arts-driven economic development. The SmART Initiative Task Force recommends facilitating more cultural districts, and lays out ways to incentivize and facilitate partnerships between non-profits, business, and government. The panel is chaired by Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon. He spearheaded Durham's American Tobacco Historic District, a model for the initiative.
