Eva Dale 0:00 From the heart of the Ohio State University on the Oval, this is Voices of Excellence from the College of Arts and Sciences, with your host, David Staley. Voices focuses on the innovative work being done by faculty and staff in the College of Arts and Sciences at The Ohio State University. From departments as wide ranging as art, astronomy, chemistry and biochemistry, physics, emergent materials, mathematics and languages, among many others, the college always has something great happening. Join us to find out what's new now. David Staley 0:32 I am delighted to welcome Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller into the studio today. Dr. Goldberg Miller is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy, the Ohio State University College of the Arts and Sciences. She also holds a courtesy appointment with the city and regional planning section of the Knowlton School of Architecture. Her research focuses on arts and cultural entrepreneurship, creative economic development, national and global cultural policy, leadership in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, management and administration of nonprofit organizations, fund development in nonprofit organizations and media management. Her most recent book is "Planning For a City of Culture: Creative Urbanism in Toronto and New York", and I welcome you to Voices, Dr. Goldberg-Miller. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 1:26 thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Well, David Staley 1:29 I'd like you to first tell us about the book, "Planning For a City of Culture". What are the main findings of the book? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 1:35 Well, the main findings of the book are looking at the city of Toronto and the city of New York, and really understanding how exogenous and endogenous shocks were dealt with, by those cities, using arts and culture. So, for Toronto, in the 2000s, that city, amalgamated with the surrounding areas, and that gave an opportunity for the various actors in the city to think about, well, what do we want to be now, and that city decided that it wanted to enter the knowledge economy. And what was really exciting about that is there are many things that came together for Toronto during that time. One of them was that Dr. Richard Florida came to the University of Toronto, and he, as we know, studies, the creative class, so he was there doing research. At the same time, the city decided to refurbish its key cultural institutions, and that was part of what they called a big build. So, they also reached out into the private sector, to fund those kinds of things, and that created a really great opportunity for this cultural renaissance, using the creative sector as an engine. And in the 2000s, Toronto really jetted itself onto the global stage as a creative city, so it really used arts and culture to give itself kind of a makeover, because Toronto was known more as like a cow town, and Montreal was the cultural capital. So, Toronto really use that opportunity, which is what we call an endogenous shock. New York, on the other hand, in the 2000s, had what we call an exogenous shock, something coming from the outside, and that was 9/11. So at that time, what happened was you had a new mayor, that was Michael Bloomberg, and he really used arts and culture to bring people back into the city and to feel safe and excited about being there. And some of the things were public art, so you had Christo's, "The Gates", that was in Central Park. David Staley 3:53 The long string of gates that pedestrians could walk through. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 3:56 Yes, the saffron colored flags that were really something that brought people back into the city and had them feel a sense of community. And Christo had tried for many years to have that installed in Central Park, and it never flew, so to speak, until the shock of 9/11 when Bloomberg was really looking for ways to make people feel safe and secure and come back into the city, and that was one of the ways. So the book is really about how cultural policy can influence cities to really take a look at where they are in the cycle of their development to see how arts and culture can be a tool, a policy tool to leverage success in a city. David Staley 4:44 Well, you say that Toronto underwent a cultural renaissance: in what way, what does that mean? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 4:50 Well, really what we call that is where Toronto really decided to use the creative economy, which really includes nonprofit fit and for profit sector, and really use it as an engine and leverage itself on the global stage as a creative city. So, during that time, also the film festival in Toronto became something that it's really the number two film festival in the world besides Cannes, and Toronto really dedicated itself to being a creative capital. And so, that's why it was a cultural renaissance. David Staley 5:25 And when we say creative economy, when we use the word creative, what does that mean? What does that entail? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 5:30 Well, the creative economy is, I would say, an academic term that really looks at arts and culture in both the nonprofit and the for profit sector. So, it's really a gargantuan area, so that means things like architecture firms, music production, film and video production, which is a very, very large area of the sector, and also the nonprofit areas of the creative sector, which means things like museums, its opera, its symphonies. And also it's the individual artist, and arts entrepreneurs, then those are people who might have micro businesses that are creating something that is really not necessarily a functional kind of thing, although it could be a craft, because actually I'm a potter, so I know that's a craft thing. David Staley 6:26 You're a potter. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 6:26 But yes, I am. David Staley 6:27 Okay. Let's talk about that. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 6:30 That's my background, I do have an art background. So the creative sector, the creative economy, is really encompassing so many different kinds of things, and it's really an economic engine, in cities and regions. David Staley 6:43 So when you say cultural policy, for instance, what does that entail for a city or any sort of entity like that? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 6:49 While policy is really where elected officials are making decisions, as well as appointed people that work in government, they're making decisions about allocating resources for different kinds of things. So you could have policy about housing policy, transportation policy, there are many different kinds of policy entities. cultural policy really deals with how does a city or region How do the actors in that city or region, make decisions, and it could be a federal kind of thing about allocating resources. So they could be things like doing tax breaks tax incentives for developers who incorporate public art, or have any kind of artists studios in a build, it could be repurposing city owned property or land, or buildings. For an arts and cultural purpose. It could be fostering creative clusters, for example, it could be having design studios in a building these kinds of things. So this is the kind of thing where cities decide also, they could have things like educating the creative sector, on how they can do business more effectively, or how they can rent with option to own for land, or buildings. So it's really all the different kinds of tools that either cities, states or federal governments use to make decisions about how they're going to allocate any assets that they have. David Staley 8:30 So in your book, you were comparing Toronto and New York: what sorts of comparisons or contrast did you find between those two cities? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 8:37 Well, David, I'm glad you asked that, thank you. Well, Toronto and New York are very different cities, obviously, one of the differences was that cities have municipal powers, and that means that they can leverage their powers for let's say, you know, doing things like charging for building permits, tickets for parking, these kinds of things, and cities have either very wide powers, big powers, or they have small powers. So Toronto was a city that didn't have a lot of municipal power, so what they had to do is build stakeholder partnerships, and their schematic in my book looks like Toronto being in the center, but having lots of relationships with the private sector, and with developers and with the provincial government, and also, of course, with the federal government. New York, on the other hand, is a city that had a lot of power and a lot of money, and it had Bloomberg who was a billionaire as its mayor. So, the schematic for New York looks like very top down. New York City was one where Bloomberg made a lot of decisions, and he didn't have a lot of relationships. With the polis, the public, he really was a very autocratic mayor, and so these are two very different cities. David Staley 10:07 Do you recommend or are there policy implications from this book from your comparison of these two cities? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 10:14 You know, I'm glad you asked that question, David. And I've thought about that a lot for our city of Columbus, our beloved Columbus. The things that I found for cities are three pillars, basically, one of them is that cities should do a lot of research about the efficacy of the creative sector and how it can be an economic engine, and they should do research and studies. So that that can really help inform decisions that are made. The second is that cities should build stakeholder partnerships among the sectors. So that means the public, private and nonprofit sectors, in terms of how they want to move forward with leveraging arts and culture in their city. The third pillar is that cities need to think about economic development, which is usually thought of as just really incorporating ways for a city to bring in money. And that would mean bringing in more businesses, more residents and more tourists. But my research shows that cities need to think about economic development as incorporating economic benefit, and public good. And public good means having options for residents and visitors to experience arts and culture without having to pay. And so that's without what they call barriers to entry. And that means that having public hard having options for people to go to museums without paying, and what that does is it provides a way for residents and visitors and businesses to feel a pride of place, heritage for future generations and really provide a city. That's really something that people feel proud of. Now, how does that apply to our city? David Staley 12:07 My next question. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 12:08 Thank you so much, David, I think we have a mind meld here. The way that it applies to our city, is that Columbus is perfectly poised right now, to do something that Toronto initiated and New York did later, and that is to create a process that's called a cultural plan. Now, what that is, is it's where all three sectors, the public, private and nonprofit sectors get together. And they take a look at what assets in the creative economy are available in that city, so that would mean looking at us. As you know, we're the third largest fashion center, we have the most festivals of any city in the country pretty much, and we have a lot of craft food and beverages here. That's just the tip of the iceberg, actually. So it's really a process where the municipality would drive that, and I invite our Chair of the city council, Shannon Hardin, to consider doing a process like this, it takes a while. It actually is something that brings the sectors together, and it's a really great segue from the smart city project that our city did, into really looking at how we can be an even more creative city. So, Toronto did that in the early 2000s, they kind of started that kind of process. It's something that many, many cities around the world have done, and New York kind of went kicking and screaming into doing it, but they embrace that wholeheartedly. It's also an opportunity for the public to weigh in on things through charettes, through social media, and it's just a really great opportunity. So, I welcome Columbus to consider that. Gretchen Ritter 13:58 Hi, I'm Gretchen Ritter, Executive Dean and Vice Provost for the Ohio State University's College of Arts and Sciences. Did you know 16 of our programs are ranked in the top 25 in US News and World Reports, with nine of those 16 in the top 10? That's why we say that the College of Arts and Sciences is the intellectual and academic core of the Ohio State University. Learn more about the college at artsand sciences.osu.edu. David Staley 14:37 Well, I'm interested in the book you're working on now. So, you have a contract with the University of Toronto press to publish "Urbanism and the Creative Downtown", and I'm interested to know what you're discussing in this book. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 14:48 Thank you for asking, David. This book looks at four cities around the world, New York and Toronto, my beloved cities, London and Shanghai. David Staley 14:58 Oh, okay. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 14:59 And what I do is I look in those cities at three kinds of what we call downtowns. First, I started to talk about the return to downtown, so that means, why do people want to live more in a center city? And that is very interesting, because studies show that millennials want to live in a downtown center city area, as well as baby boomers, and it really is about people wanting to aggregate congregate walkability. And you know, it's really a lifestyle choice, so that really, predicates people being able to be downtown. So I'm looking at three, what I call kinds of downtowns. One is where it's a business area, and are there any arts and cultural amenities in that business area, what goes on at night in the business areas in these four cities. Another one is what I call a developer driven downtown, ao that means where a developer has decided to take on a project, and it could be equated to what we have here in our city, which is Gravity, and you know, Brett Kaufman is really looking at bringing arts and culture and vitalizing an area. And I'm looking at how developers leverage arts and culture in their developments to really create more vitality, more urbanity, and I look in those four cities at that kind of thing. And that I'm looking at the partnerships that these developers build, with universities with arts organizations to really foster an exciting opportunity. In Shanghai, I'm looking at the West bund area, and that's very interesting. So ,the other kind of downtown that I'm looking at is where it used to be a creative kind of hub, but now it's what we call an oversaturated area that might ring a bell in our city. So, I'm looking at how these kinds of arty kind of districts or neighborhoods end up being very commercialized, and you know, where there's just hyperactivity, hyper development. David Staley 17:18 Sounds like you're discussing the Short North? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 17:20 Well, it's that kind of thing. And I'm not saying if it's good or bad, I want to observe that and I want the reader to understand some of those factors. So the book is really something that I'm very, very excited about, and it's an opportunity for the reader to really take a look at these three kinds of lenses in these four cities, so that they can really understand what implications that might have for their own city. David Staley 17:48 Who is the reader that you imagine for this book, or readers? Who's going to be interested in what you're writing? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 17:53 Well, a lot of times I think about my mom, as my gentle reader. So the readers are a combination of, they could be obviously students and scholars, and they also could be just anyone who's interested in cities, anyone who's interested in creativity, or anyone who wants to really understand how some of these processes are evolving in their own city. David Staley 18:18 So, earlier, you brought up the name Richard Florida, who of course popularized the idea of the creative class, creative cities, creative economy, and I know that concept has been revised, challenged, I don't know what the right word is here. But what is the status of the creative class, the creative economy as a concept today? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 18:37 Thank you, David. One thing I would point out is that a lot of the purpose of scholarship is to really engender conversation. And Richard Florida, who I know, and who endorsed my first book, is really a giant in the field. And I have much respect and props for Richard Florida. I think he's terrific. He now just so you know, and perhaps you do know, and your listeners may know that he's turned to the issue of income disparity. And he's really focusing on that. However, I think what's really important is that he has not just opened the door. He's really paved the way for thoughtful research and conversation about this field. So I call myself sort of post Floridian you know, I'm after Richard, Florida, I have great respect for him. And now it's really time for us to turn our conversation to some of what I call the shadow side of the creative economy and the creative class. And that is, who is not at the table when these kinds of decisions are being made. And I talk about that in my first book and some of my other writing. And it's also really time to think about how we creative policy scholars and advocates can be at the policy table with those stakeholders who are thinking about issues about transportation Then about housing, about, you know, all the different areas that urbanism encompasses that the creative class and the creative sector conversation needs to be a part of that. David Staley 20:12 Who is excluded, who's included in that group? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 20:15 Who is included in the exclusion group? Well, that would be a variety of people. First of all, a lot of times, a lot of these kinds of creative city, things that happen in cities are in poor neighborhoods. And a lot of times the residents there might be marginalized, they might feel that they don't have a voice. And so that's really part of what the role of planners and urbanists, it would be is to really empower people's voices and urban planners, I have a very good relationship with they're very interested in my work. And one of the things that they do is community development. And so that means going into a community where there might be development going on, that has to do with, you know, really urbanizing or redoing a neighborhood and helping the residents to understand how they could have a voice in that process. Another aspect is the LGBTQ community. And Florida did a lot of research on you know, the relationship between residents of LGBTQ community and the revitalization of neighborhoods. But it's not clear that people from those groups have representations at what we call this policy table, this amazing table. So they need to also understand that they can have a voice and be part of this conversation. Another aspect is artists that might not be in the accepted norm. They might be artists that aren't part of, you know, the large anchor arts institutions in a city street artists, street artists, graffiti artists, or they might be doing work, they might be very young artists. So artists need to understand that they need to have a voice and be at this policy table. And then finally, it's really actors, you know, in the policy realm, and my doctorates in public and urban policy, we call them actors. They're not on stage actors, but they're, they're part of the landscape of policy. So the final one that I want to mention are actors, from the municipal area in smaller cities, because a lot of the creative city paradigm the conversation is about the larger cities. But smaller cities have a lot to teach us because they have a much more nimble stage that they're working on. In other words, in small cities, people who are in various areas of the government have much closer relationships, because it's a smaller entity. So they might be the people who are looking at transportation planning. And the people who are looking at the housing planning might be in an office right next door to the people who are working on the cultural plan. And so we can learn a lot from smaller cities, and they need to be in this conversation. David Staley 23:08 Well, I want to note that you had a career before arriving in academia, which I just find absolutely fascinating. You were fundraiser for more than 20 years, and so I want to hear about your career before academia. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 23:19 Thank you, David. Well, that was a very useful tool to understand the world of fundraising, I was a professional fundraiser, I worked on the executive staff for many prominent and well known organizations. And I really learned that raising money is a very exciting thing to do. It's very meaningful. All of the organizations for which I worked, including the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Museum of TV and radio, and Museum of Natural History in New York were all fantastic organizations, I really learned how to get to the heart of the mission of any of these organizations. What happened is I really decided that I wanted to raise money and to foster interest in my own interests and my own work. So I was very fortunate to be accepted into the doctoral program at the New School in New York City. And I had a fantastic education in policy. And along the way at the beginning of that process, I had mentioned to you before that I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts and ceramics from University of Michigan, which we don't hate anymore. So many times. And I found at the beginning of my studies for my doctorate, I found the area of cultural policy and arts economics. And I must say, I am the daughter of an economist, who, you know, is not with us anymore, but he'd be very happy to know that I fell in love with arts economics, because I found a whole world of understanding the arts and creative sector in a different kind of a way A to really understand what motivates people to spend money on something that's hand made, when they could buy something that's very ubiquitous that's commercially made for much less the motivation of people how people decide to spend some of their money on creative things that, that enhance life. So I was very fortunate to find that area. And that's what I focused on in my studies, and in my dissertation, and then I was the luckiest person in the world to get a wonderful position here on the tenure track at The Ohio State University, David Staley 25:38 Well, you've mentioned that you have a Bachelor's in Fine Arts and that you were a potter; I'm interested to know about your journey, how did you end up in the world of arts and cultural policy? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 25:50 Well, as an artist, and in my undergraduate work, I realized by studying the great artists of the world, that the fire and the passion to create art had to be incredibly strong. And I decided that my passion was really more in the arts management area. So I actually in undergraduate school, I did an exhibition of all of my professors work and I found that I really liked doing gallery management. So I went to graduate school and got an MBA in arts management at SUNY Binghamton, knowing that I could be around the arts, and I could do management of the arts, I did an internship at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. And that's when I started my journey as a fundraiser, and I found that I was very good at raising money, which actually began when I was a Girl Scout, and I saw sold more cookies than anyone else. And I thought, well, like I'm very good at selling, so in being in the nonprofit sector, it gave me the chance to use my power for good, I got a chance to learn how to persuade people and to help them understand about the mission of an organization. And that, as I said, has really led me into the creative sector and the cultural sector. And now, I love having the chance to write about this field to research about it. And then of course, nobody who is a scholar and his reviewing a manuscript for a journal article can see my smiling face. So I had to really learn how to persuade through the academic channels by doing very solid and substantive research, and really making my case that way. David Staley 27:43 Why pottery, what drew you there? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 27:48 I started working with clay when I was about 12 or 13 years old, when we lived in England for a year with my family, and I just really love working with ceramics. I actually do most of my work on the pottery wheel, and I'm very influenced by the Chinese shapes, so the very formal shapes, but the Japanese way of decorating so I do a lot of brush work. And I still do ceramics here at the Cultural Arts Center, so I'm still a potter to this day. David Staley 28:20 Tell us about some of the classes that you teach here at Ohio State. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 28:23 I love teaching here. I think the students are really bright, fantastic. And it's really a wonderful opportunity. I teach classes on fundraising. I teach classes on Introduction to arts management. I teach classes on creative city creative sector, to really understand that. And I do teach a couple of classes that are cross listed with City and Regional Planning. One is called Arts and Entertainment planning. And that really looks at how cities and regions use arts and culture and entertainment to bring people in, bring tourists have a chance for residents to have a cultural staycation as we call it, and to really leverage the assets that a city might have in arts and culture and entertainment. Another class that I've created with my very good friend, Kyle, ESL, is called City as art, and that really looks at really the granular planning for an actual arts district. So it's looking at it from a an urban planning perspective, and from a cultural policy perspective. So that's a class that we've co taught together. David Staley 29:36 So, in addition to the "Urbanism and the Creative Downtown" book, what's next for your research? Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 29:41 Well, I have some other interesting things that I'm doing. One is I've written a paper with my colleague, Rachel Skaggs, from my department. And that paper is really about these kinds of creative city reports that cities do to kind of sell their own city and it's free really a way of looking at that? Is that something that has a specific narrative arc to it, we are actually going to be part of a conference at Indiana University on arts entrepreneurship, and we are going to submit that paper for a special issue in an economics cultural economics journal as well. I also am really excited to say that I'm going to be a featured speaker at a conference at University of Pittsburgh, that's about the university and creative placemaking, and that's coming up in April, and I'm delighted to have been invited to that. I'm also doing some research now, that's looking at different kinds of micro transportation options in Toronto, to understand whether the creative neighborhoods have these micro options like bicycles and different kinds of Ubers and Lyfts, to really look at the transportation options that are available and that are used for people to go to a creative neighborhood versus just a pure retail neighborhood. David Staley 31:14 Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller. Thank you. Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller 31:17 My pleasure, David. Thanks for having me. Eva Dale 31:19 Voices from the Arts and Sciences is produced and recorded at The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences Technology Services Studio. Sound engineering by Paul Kotheimer, produced by Doug Dangler. I'm Eva Dale. Gretchen Ritter 31:38 Hi, I'm Gretchen Ritter, Executive Dean and Vice Provost for the Ohio State University's College of Arts and Sciences. Did you know 16 of our programs are ranked in the top 25 in US News and World Report's with not... Transcribed by https://otter.ai