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Echoes of budgets past in Baltimore


Post by Mark Barrycityrank

The Baltimore Office of the Mayors Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture got morphed into the tourism office, Baltimore Office Of Promotion and the Arts.

Everything a city government does tends to be promotional anyway, that’s politics.

There’s some tension and maneuvering going on over budgeting but art still has a niche in City Hall. The Mayor is interested in using artists and art organizations to develop blighted areas of the city.

There is a small wave nationwide of appreciating the value and potential of a strong urban “creative class,” started by Richard Florida and his book, The Rise of The Creative Class. [ed. note–check out Flood’s website — scary for its hard sell approach to the subject and its author, but useful for city rankings on indices like “creative class” and “innovation.”]

Happy Bloomsday. Mark Barry is a Baltimore artist and regular contributor to artblog

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