Cultural Sustainability of US Cities: The Scaling of Non-Profit Arts Footprint with Population

The functional characteristics of urban systems vary predictably with Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) population, with certain metrics increasing apace with population (e.g., housing stock), some increasing faster than population (e.g., wealth), and others increasing slower than population (infrastructure elements). Culture has been designated the fourth pillar of sustainability. The population-dependent scaling of operating revenue, work space, and number of employees was investigated for almost 3000 arts organizations in the US, both in aggregate and by arts discipline (music, theater, visual and design arts, dance, and museums). Unlike general measures of creativity, the three measures of economic footprint did not scale supra-linearly with the population of metropolitan areas. Rather, operating revenue scaled linearly (e.g., like amenities), and work space and employee number scaled sub-linearly (e.g., like infrastructure). The cost of living, proxied by housing costs, increased with MSA population, though not as rapidly as did arts organization operating revenue, indicating a degree of uncoupling. The generally higher educational attainment of adults in larger cities, coupled with the growth of the education-dependent arts patronage, suggest a funding focus on less populous (50,000–1,000,000), as well as on under-performing, cities.