As an elder Millennial, I still feel hungover from the Great Recession, that loathsome period from 2008 – 2009 when the economy and society itself seemed turned upside-down. Right after graduating college, I was looking for a Pioneer Valley sublet in fall of 2007 and a woman responded to my Craigslist post, offering to rent me an entire Victorian home. I remember her, desperate, saying, “I’m trying to sell the house, so I’m hoping to do month-to-month and you’ll have to clear out occasionally if there is a showing. You don’t think this housing slump is going to last, is it?”
It was in this milieu of severe contraction that the cultural zeitgeist landed on STEM as the solution to our unemployment woes. The problem was that too many people my age had majored in the humanities – too many psychology, history (ahem, me), literature, English, and arts majors for an economy that didn’t want them. The arts were seen as a frivolous indulgence, perhaps done on the side of what you actually did for work. The message was clear: Excel spreadsheets and R and Python and AutoCAAD and all the other buzzy, hip software programs were what you needed to learn.
As I’ve gotten deeper into my planning career, I’ve become more circumspect about the importance of “the soft skills.” Basically all I do during my day is read and write. Emails, reports, memos, document edits. I give presentations and engage in video meetings little different from producing a mini-stage show. The importance of art – the skill of capturing attention and imbuing these work products with compelling narratives and captivating visuals – has snuck back in.
In the midst of this content creation, I thought of this question the other day: Can a Federal compliance report be art?
It seems (and I hope) I’m not alone in thinking about the importance of art. I recently listened to an episode of the American Planning Association podcast (also see this article here) where they interviewed Shane Shapiro to talk about Nashville’s active effort to plan for music districts (e.g., requiring sound proofing). I couldn’t help but think about the wind-down of Gateway City Arts in Holyoke as a performance space and the hole that it will leave. I thought about El Corazon de Holyoke, an ambitious mural project to cover the blank spaces downtown with artwork.
I thought about Make It Springfield, a “maker space” where people can create – bicycle repair, soap, paintings, what else? And of course MGM Springfield, a nearly $1 billion investment in the South End of Springfield to realize the vision of a true regional Entertainment District.
While I was in Minneapolis for the National Planning Conference last week, I saw a sculpture that is also a wetland. Why shouldn’t a wetland be art?
I was in a meeting several years ago to discuss a report that a senior manager wanted to jazz up with graphics. He had heard about these “animated GIFs” and said, “Could we put one of those on the cover?” Younger people laughed at the idea of putting an infinitely looping animated image as the cover of an otherwise dry infrastructure feasibility study. As I think about it now, with the benefit of hindsight, he might have been on to something. Even the mundane can be – should be – fun.
Pioneer Valley Planner 
Two reactions:
So my conclusion is don’t get distracted. Don’t make the art an end in itself, but a way to be better at making the trains & buses run often, fast and reliably.
I’ve noticed that the safest organizations are the same as those with highest profit (long-term). There isn’t really a conflict between safety and creating value. I’m willing to bet it is the same in regards to creating happiness and higher consciousness. (I suspect that applies to other things to such as serving the community and cultivating the community and humanity within the organization).
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Thanks for this! I agree, we shouldn’t lose sight of the purpose of whatever project we’re working on – but fun and joy are important, too.
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