Arts and Culture

"Toy and Horse" by Marco Ramirez Erre, Port of Entry-Tijuana/San Ysidro, inSITE97 (Photograph credit: Phillip Sholtz Rittermann)

What’s the Issue?

One of the most important yet overlooked regional assets in the San Diego-Tijuana Border Region is the vibrant arts and culture scene emerging in Tijuana recognized by Newsweek as one of the top eight creative cities in the world. In the San Diego-Tijuana region, numerous arts and culture-oriented non profits have demonstrated how the arts can promote community beautification and empowerment, educational enrichment among children and youth at risk, provide therapy for the physically disabled, and political expression. The region’s rich binational cultural heritage is also being protected. Yet, funding for arts and culture related initiatives remains a challenge in our border region and many of border area non-profits focused in this area struggle to sustain their programs year after year. The irony is that Tijuana is earning a reputation as an arts and culture center. 28 Across Europe, Tijuana’s visual arts are being increasingly found in exhibitions and galleries. Tijuana’s intrigue for a growing number of artists is its strategic location along the international border with San Diego, considered "one of the hottest interfaces between 'first' and 'third' worlds." 29

Why Should You Care?

The conventional wisdom among many civic leaders is that support for arts and culture is a luxury that takes potential funding away from economic development. If one only focuses on the allocation of the available funds, it is true that a dollar spent on arts and culture programs means a dollar less available for economic programs, but equally true is the fact that arts and culture contribute to the regional economy. In San Diego County, an Americans for the Arts study found that total spending by local nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences reached $326 million during fiscal year 2000. This spending, according to the study, supported the full-time equivalent of 6,462 jobs, generating $135 million in household income, $9.0 million in local government revenue, and $12.4 million for the state.30

One potential impact of arts and culture on economic development has attracted particular attention from government and civic leaders after the publication of Richard Florida’s book, The Rise of the Creative Class. The book’s main argument is that knowledge workers, whom Florida calls the creative class, are crucial resources in today’s increasingly information and knowledge-based economy, and that the creative class is "transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life."31 He then argues that the creative class needs a vibrant artistic and cultural environment to thrive, and thus communities with rich cultural environment will prosper while those lacking such an environment will fall behind.32 By this logic, fostering a vibrant arts and cultural environments is not merely complementary to economic development but rather necessary for knowledge-based economic development. Here then, the question to ask is: to what degree can Tijuana help strengthen San Diego’s creative quotient?