#1 Santa Fe, NM (pop. 150,358) 

Arts Providers		3rd
	Independent artists	3rd
	Arts and culture employees	16th
	Arts and culture organizations	2nd
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	7th
Arts Dollars		1st
	Program revenue	1st
	Contributed revenue	2nd
	Total expenses	1st
	Total compensation	1st
Government Support		4th
	State arts dollars	147th
	State arts grants	55th
	Federal arts dollars	6th
	Federal arts grants	2nd

 

Santa Fe, NM, is a cultural haven, with more artists, writers, and designers than just about any city in the country, and it is home to one of the largest art markets in the country. Native arts are a cultural mainstay that predates Spanish and Anglo contact. New Deal government funding enhanced the role of the arts as a valued asset through the contracting of murals, pottery, and other traditional art forms. The visual arts are particularly strong with seven museums and over 150 galleries in Santa Fe. Three major visual arts markets – International Folk Art Market Santa Fe, Indian Market, and Spanish Market – take place each year. Innovative galleries, the presence of SITE Santa Fe, and small nonprofits devoted to new arts experiences energize the thriving contemporary arts scene. Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return, which is an immersive art experience created by an artist collective in 2016, has become a major arts-related business in Santa Fe. In 2019, the exhibit drew a total annual attendance of 475,000 visitors. The Santa Fe Opera is a performing arts mainstay that attracts an international audience. Dance is heavily represented with companies such as Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Entreflamenco, and Arte Flamenco Society featuring Juan Siddi Flamenco. There are the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, and numerous museums and centers dedicated to culture, nature, and science. In addition, the New Mexico Museum of Art is moving forward with construction plans for a new contemporary museum, the Vladem Contemporary, in the Railyard District. Plans also continue to move forward on Siler Yard, Creative Santa Fe’s Arts + Creativity Center, which will provide affordable live-work housing for low-income artists. The Santa Fe MSA ranks in the top 1% of communities on overall Arts Providers, Arts Dollars, and Government Support. Its strengths in the top 1% are manifest in all underlying measures except the two related to state support.

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#2 San Rafael, CA (pop. 258,826)

Arts Providers		7th
	Independent artists	22nd
	Arts and culture employees	7th
	Arts and culture organizations	12th
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	10th
Arts Dollars		7th
	Program revenue	7th
	Contributed revenue	18th
	Total expenses	8th
	Total compensation	6th
Government Support		29th
	State arts dollars	330th
	State arts grants	271st
	Federal arts dollars	26th
	Federal arts grants	11th

 

San Rafael-Marin County, CA, located across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, is one of the Metro Divisions of the larger Bay Area including San Francisco and the East Bay. While Novato, San Rafael, and Mill Valley are Marin’s largest cities, each has its own cluster of arts organizations, including galleries, museums, and performing arts venues. Marin County is home to many world-class musicians, artists, authors, and performers. The Marin Center offers year-round music, theater, and dance performances on its two stages and is located adjacent to the Marin Civic Center in San Rafael, the complex designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Downtown San Rafael was recently designated a California Cultural Arts District, one of California’s premier state-designated arts and culture districts. The District includes Art Works Downtown with galleries and artist studios, Youth in Arts (which is Marin’s premier provider of arts education), the Smith Rafael movie theater, and Falkirk Cultural Center, among other cultural venues. World-renowned tourist destination Sausalito hosts the annual Sausalito Art Festival. Marin Headlands for the Arts provides artist residencies within the National Park Conservancy. Performing arts organizations include Marin Theatre Company, Throckmorton Theatre, Marin Shakespeare Company, the Mountain Play, Ross Valley Players, Marin Ballet, Marin Symphony, Mill Valley Philharmonic, Marin Dance Theatre, and others. Museums include MarinMOCA, the Marin History Museum, and the Marin Museum of the American Indian. Artist studios are found in Sausalito at the ICB Building, in San Rafael at Art Works Downtown, and in Novato at MarinMOCA. Numerous galleries offer exhibits throughout the county, such as Gallery Route One in Pt. Reyes Station and Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley. Marin Open Studios produces a countywide tour of artists’ studios each May. The California Film Institute produces the international Mill Valley Film and DocLands Documentary Film festivals. Marin also hosts the Sausalito Film, Jewish Film, and Italian Film festivals. Lark Theater is a repertory movie theater that sometimes stages live performances. Filmmaker George Lucas has been influential in bringing the entertainment industry to Marin, which is home to Skywalker Ranch, a sound design post-production facility. Book Passage, Copperfield Books, Pt. Reyes Books, and Dominican University offer speakers’ series and book readings for all ages. The community scores in the top 1% of communities on Arts Providers and Arts Dollars and in the top 3% on Government Support. While California state arts funding is relatively low, Marin County is in the top 1% in the country for securing federal arts grants on a per capita basis.

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#3 Pittsfield, MA (pop. 124,944) 

Arts Providers		46th
	Independent artists	127th
	Arts and culture employees	10th
	Arts and culture organizations	4th
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	260th
Arts Dollars		4th
	Program revenue	4th
	Contributed revenue	5th
	Total expenses	3rd
	Total compensation	4th
Government Support		2nd
	State arts dollars	15th
	State arts grants	5th
	Federal arts dollars	13th
	Federal arts grants	6th

 

The Pittsfield, MA, MSA is best known as the Berkshires. Berkshire County is home to a variety of world-class art, theater, dance, music, film, and historic sites along with expansive outdoor recreation options. Berkshire Theatre Group, Jacob’s Pillow, the Norman Rockwell Museum, Barrington Stage, Aston Magna Festival, Berkshire Music School, MASS MoCA, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Tanglewood are among the outstanding organizations that call the Berkshires home. MASS MoCA’s vast galleries and numerous indoor and outdoor performing arts venues allow it to embrace all forms of art: music, sculpture, dance, film, painting, photography, theater, and new, boundary-crossing works of art that defy easy classification. In Pittsfield’s Upstreet Cultural District, The Lichtenstein Center for the Arts features a gallery/performance space, a ceramic studio, and working artist studios, and many of our historic homes such as The Mount (Edith Wharton's home), Chesterwood, and Arrowhead (Herman Melville's home) host outdoor sculpture exhibits along with offering gallery space and on-site artist residencies. The creative economy is one of the five pillars of 1Berkshire’s countywide economic development strategy and is actively a part of the fabric that makes up this county in which Pittsfield is the largest city. Local resources include the Berkshire Art Association, Berkshire Film & Media Collaborative, DownStreet Art, IS183 Art School of the Berkshires, and Pittsfield Office of Cultural Development. The abundance of renowned arts and cultural activity and support drives Pittsfield to rank in the top 1% of communities on Arts Dollars and Government Support, holding the top 2% or better in each area’s underlying measures.

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#4 Ithaca, NY (pop. 102,180) 

Arts Providers		19th
	Independent artists	65th
	Arts and culture employees	22nd
	Arts and culture organizations	15th
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	18th
Arts Dollars		48th
	Program revenue	55th
	Contributed revenue	58th
	Total expenses	51st
	Total compensation	42nd
Government Support		3rd
	State arts dollars	7th
	State arts grants	35th
	Federal arts dollars	1st
	Federal arts grants	49th

 

The Ithaca, NY, MSA is home to both Cornell University, with its world-class H.F. Johnson Museum of Art and Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, and Ithaca College, which has a well-known theater department and School of Music. Ithaca hosts both the Ithaca Festival of the Arts and the Spring Writes Literary Festival, which features up to 125 local writers in workshops, panels, readings, and performances. Ithaca is also home to the Hangar Theatre, Kitchen Theatre Company, The State Theatre of Ithaca, Cherry ArtSpace, Opera Ithaca, The Ithaca Shakespeare Company, and Civic Ensemble, as well as the celebrated Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and Cinemapolis, Ithaca’s community movie theater. Community choruses abound. The Community School of Music and Arts and Opus Ithaca School of Music make arts education accessible to students of all ages, skill levels, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Community organizations like the Southside Community Center and Greater Ithaca Activities Center engage local young people in performing and visual arts. The Sciencenter boasts over 250 interactive exhibits and the Museum of the Earth offers residents earth-science exhibits and science-related art exhibits. Tompkins County distributes over a quarter million dollars each year in grants for arts and culture that are funded by a room occupancy tax, while grants to individual artists in the area are made through the Community Arts Partnership. The area hosts many festivals including Porchfest and the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance. Ithaca ranks 15th in arts and cultural organizations and 1st in federal arts dollars per capita.

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#5 Boulder, CO (pop. 326,196) 

Arts Providers		14th
	Independent artists	14th
	Arts and culture employees	88th
	Arts and culture organizations	41st
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	12th
Arts Dollars		111th
	Program revenue	98th
	Contributed revenue	146th
	Total expenses	116th
	Total compensation	102nd
Government Support		124th
	State arts dollars	451st
	State arts grants	291st
	Federal arts dollars	86th
	Federal arts grants	97th

 

Boulder, CO, has a strong concentration of artists, venues, creative businesses, and cultural destinations. There is a tempting variety of nationally and regionally respected arts venues in the community, including eTown Hall, the Colorado Chautauqua, the NoBo Art District, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), and the Dairy Arts Center. In addition to incredible resources at the University of Colorado and several mid-sized organizations with a significant following, Boulder County is home to many, mostly small cultural nonprofits. Ranking among the top 2% of communities on Arts Providers and 14th on independent artists, the community is home to a high concentration of photographers, authors, musicians and singers, visual artists, craft artists, music directors, and composers. Boulder has a vibrant musical scene. The town has a concentration of classical music organizations: three orchestras, two chamber music societies, six chorale groups, two youth orchestras, and three significant classical music festivals. There is also a healthy popular music scene, especially concentrated around The Boulder Theater and The Fox Theatre. In addition, Boulder has a strong contemporary dance and theater scene. The community is recognized for contemporary visual art, mostly because of the many practicing local artists, supported also by contemporary art nonprofits like BMoCA, EcoArts Connections, Open Studios, and the Boulder Creative Collective. Boulder Arts Week is an inclusive celebration of Boulder's vibrant arts and cultural offerings and the city’s thriving creativity, with over 100 diverse events annually. Boulder is an emerging place for mural artists with the city’s public art program as well as the commissioning of new public artwork. Moreover, there is a commitment to make Boulder a laboratory for public artists to interact with the community through the Experiments in Public Art series. The support from Boulder’s municipal government is significant, providing government spending of about $16 per resident that mostly returns to the community through grants and other spending on public art. There is also much support from the regional Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) tax.

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#6 Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ (pop. 723,933) 

Arts Providers		99th
	Independent artists	115th
	Arts and culture employees	71st
	Arts and culture organizations	186th
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	162nd
Arts Dollars		22nd
	Program revenue	8th
	Contributed revenue	96th
	Total expenses	19th
	Total compensation	19th
Government Support		41st
	State arts dollars	24th
	State arts grants	114th
	Federal arts dollars	62nd
	Federal arts grants	158th

 

NEW COMMUNITY - The Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ, Metro Division includes Wilmington, the largest city in Delaware, as well as Cecil County in Maryland and Salem County, New Jersey. Situated where the Brandywine, Christina, and Delaware rivers come together, Wilmington uses art to bring people together for shared experiences. The area-wide support for arts in Wilmington leads to the area’s ranking among the top 3% in per capita state funding. The Delaware Arts Alliance has three major partners at the state government level that focus on cultivating and supporting arts and arts education: Delaware Division of the Arts, Delaware State Arts Council, and Delaware Department of Education. The region boasts 23 organizations dedicated to historic preservation, assisted by Delaware’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program, which has helped preserve over 230 historic buildings since 2001. The Delaware Art Museum, founded in 1911 and reconfigured in 2005, contains substantial exhibitions as well as the six-acre Copeland Sculpture Garden, the first in the region. The Wilmington Art Loop offers free, self-guided events to the downtown community, allowing participants to experience 20 arts venues across neighborhoods via shuttle. In addition, Wilmington has a strong theater scene, supported by community-based organizations like the Wilmington Drama League and the Delaware Theatre Company, which was the first arts and culture organization on Wilmington’s riverfront. Nearby, the Elkton Arts & Entertainment District features the work of over 100 local artists in its unique galleries, working studios, and live performances. The MSA ranks 8th overall for per capita program revenue and is in the top 2% for all but one sub-measure of Arts Dollars.

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#7 Bozeman, MT (pop. 114,434) 

Arts Providers		13th
	Independent artists	9th
	Arts and culture employees	159th
	Arts and culture organizations	56th
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	11th
Arts Dollars		154th
	Program revenue	102nd
	Contributed revenue	211th
	Total expenses	125th
	Total compensation	188th
Government Support		156th
	State arts dollars	239th
	State arts grants	89th
	Federal arts dollars	293rd
	Federal arts grants	173rd

 

RETURNING FROM 2017 - Bozeman, MT, is a small mountain town filled with artists, professors, and ranchers whose diverse styles are reflected in all aspects of life. It ranks 9th in the country on independent artists and 11th on arts, culture and entertainment firms per capita, driving it to the 13th spot overall on Arts Providers. Public art, provided by The Gallatin Art Crossing, can be found throughout the city and Bozeman has numerous galleries that line the city streets. The Bozeman Art Museum opened in January 2020, offering art education, exhibits, lectures, and workshops for the southwest Montana community. The Bozeman Art Museum is the fifth of Bozeman’s museum offerings, which also include the American Computer Museum, Children’s Museum, Pioneer Museum, and Montana Museum of the Rockies, home to an extensive collection of fossils. Montana State University’s diverse arts department provides a variety of offerings, and there are landmark local organizations such as the Bozeman Symphony, the Arts Council of Big Sky, Intermountain Opera Company, Equinox Theatre Company, Montana Ballet Company, Dance Alliance Company, and Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture, a complex that offers the region’s artists a place to work and sell their work as well as performance space for local performing arts groups, several classrooms, shops, and cafes. The Bozeman Public Library has also played a supportive role in the cultural community by hosting arts events year-round, and it is home to the Bozeman Sculpture Park.

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#8 Oxnard - Thousand Oaks - Ventura, CA (pop. 846,006)

Arts Providers		6th
	Independent artists	2nd
	Arts and culture employees	177th
	Arts and culture organizations	274th
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	4th
Arts Dollars		337th
	Program revenue	355th
	Contributed revenue	314th
	Total expenses	347th
	Total compensation	347th
Government Support		624th
	State arts dollars	638th
	State arts grants	715th
	Federal arts dollars	344th
	Federal arts grants	323rd

 

NEW COMMUNITY - Ventura County, California’s southernmost county along the central coast, has all the iconic imagery of Southern California with blue skies and palm-fringed streets lined with whitewashed, red-tiled Spanish revival architecture. Events like the annual ArtWalk invite the community to take part in self-guided tours of dozens of galleries, studios, and pop-up venues in Ventura’s Westside Cultural District and Downtown. Oxnard is home to the Carnegie Arts Museum, Oxnard Performing Arts Center, Inlakech Cultural Arts Center, Elite Theatre Company, Channel Islands Maritime Museum, and Mullin Automotive Museum. The California Museum of Art Thousand Oaks and Bank of America Performing Arts Center add vibrancy to the region, along with Rubicon Theatre Company. The Museum of Ventura County houses the Agriculture Museum, which pays homage to one of the county’s most important industries. Ventura County has an ever-growing collection of outdoor murals, catalogued by the Ventura County Mural Project, which focuses on showcasing local artists’ work. The annual Ventura Art & Street Painting Festival transforms the sidewalks along the water of Ventura Harbor into canvases for street artists creating colorful chalk pastel murals. The WAV – Working Artists Ventura – is a state-of-the-art community designed for artists and creative businesses, located in the Downtown Cultural District. It offers affordable living and workspace for artists across disciplines as well as a community room space that comes to life with performances, films, exhibitions, concerts, workshops, and classes. The integration of independent artists with local businesses in WAV reflects the benefits of community integration in Ventura. Ventura County is also home to over a dozen film production companies. It is no wonder then that Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA, ranks 2nd overall on independent artists and 4th on arts, culture and entertainment firms per capita.

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#9 Bremerton - Silverdale, WA (pop. 271,473) 

Arts Providers		32nd
	Independent artists	54th
	Arts and culture employees	39th
	Arts and culture organizations	102nd
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	33rd
Arts Dollars		55th
	Program revenue	42nd
	Contributed revenue	97th
	Total expenses	46th
	Total compensation	62nd
Government Support		157th
	State arts dollars	693rd
	State arts grants	539th
	Federal arts dollars	65th
	Federal arts grants	55th

 

Bremerton-Silverdale, WA, takes a unique approach to creating cohesion between city spending and arts and cultural spending. Kitsap County, where Bremerton and Silverdale are located, enacted the One Percent for Art Program Ordinance in 2001, stating that all Kitsap County capital improvement projects must set aside 1% of construction funds to “enhance common public areas or structures either associated with the funding or as a general community improvement from pooled funds.” And the city of Bremerton enacted its One Percent for the Art Program Ordinance in 2005. The city of Bremerton has a robust Arts District with several fine art galleries, three museums, and three performing arts venues. It is home to the Admiral Theatre, Bremerton Community Theatre, Bremerton Symphony, Kitsap Opera, Peninsula Dance Theatre, and West Sound Arts Council. Bremerton is currently focusing its efforts to revitalize a downtown street with a housing-based “day to night” urban center, honoring musician Quincy Jones. To preserve the history of a 1970 relief wall, Bremerton also created an “Open Air Gallery” (outside) to enhance revitalization through public art. Bremerton is now home to a unique arts festival, Wayzgoose Kitsap, where local artists hand-carve linoleum blocks and print them with full-sized steamrollers. Bainbridge Island has its namesake’s Museum of Art and Historical Society, as well as Bainbridge Performing Arts, home to the EDGE Improv, Bainbridge Dance Center, and Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra. Located in Port Gamble is the Museum of Shells and Marine Life, which contains one of the largest shell collections in the U.S. KitsapArt provides art education for children on the Kitsap Peninsula. Bremerton-Silverdale, WA, ranks in the top 4% of cities in overall Arts Providers and scores high in sub-measures on arts and culture employees, as well as arts, culture and entertainment firms per capita.

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#10 Traverse City, MI (pop. 150,653)

Arts Providers		134th
	Independent artists	92nd
	Arts and culture employees	263rd
	Arts and culture organizations	99th
	Arts, culture & entertainment firms	168th
Arts Dollars		21st
	Program revenue	15th
	Contributed revenue	56th
	Total expenses	27th
	Total compensation	10th
Government Support		43rd
	State arts dollars	20th
	State arts grants	111th
	Federal arts dollars	104th
	Federal arts grants	119th

 

RETURNING FROM 2018 - Despite being one of the smaller cities in the medium-size category, Traverse City, MI, possesses a well-developed arts scene. The city is best known culturally for the Interlochen Center for the Arts, which hosts the Interlochen Arts Camp where student actors, artists, musicians, and dancers from around the world flock to spend the summer. Notable alums include Josh Groban and Jewel. Interlochen Center is also home to the Interlochen Arts Festival, as well as some 750 concerts and theatrical productions held throughout the year. Several other theaters and auditoriums dot the landscape throughout the city, boasting a variety of musical and dramatic performances, including specializations in world music, acoustic music, and the blues. Other events include the Downtown Art Walks, the Traverse City Film Festival, and Paint Grand Traverse. The city is home to the City Opera House, built in 1891 and one of only six historically intact Victorian opera houses in the state. In addition to the performance series throughout the year, the House also hosts the National Writers Series. Traverse City is filled with commercial and public galleries, as well as several museums and arts centers such as Crooked Tree Arts Center and The Dennos, which undertook a 15,000-square-foot expansion last year. In 2014 Traverse City established an Arts Commission, where public dollars are allocated annually toward public art programs in the city. In 2019, through a collaboration with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians, an exhibition of 19 murals was installed in a pedestrian tunnel to honor the Anishinabee ancestral connections to the region from an Indigenous perspective. Traverse City is ranked 10th on total compensation paid to arts and culture employees and is in the top 3% of communities for three of the four sub-measures that make up Arts Dollars.

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