Art town

Arts towns, also called arts cities, art towns or art cities, are cities or towns that are dedicated to and recognized as having art as a central feature to their cultural identity. Arts towns generate a good portion of their economy, their existence, and their tourism from establishing a culture of the arts. By definition, a disproportionately large number of the citizens in these towns are involved in the arts.

Santa Fe, New Mexico is an excellent example of an art town, with over 5,000 artists living within city limits, year round arts events, art institutions including 10 museums and 100 galleries, as well as classes, educational seminars, and conferences.

Further arts towns or towns of art as the Europeans designate them include such internationally famous cities as Florence, the heritage home of renaissance art and of Michelangelo and Leonardo; centers for arts festivals like Tanglewood or continued larger centers of arts like Santa Fe; or such small towns as Nelsonville, Ohio, that have dedicated themselves to an artistic identity based on traditional ceramics and folk-art centered on an arts oriented town square.

Going back several millennia, in the progression of civic history, emerging towns or cities have taken different cultural courses. Certain towns or cities have deliberately attempted to put forward a presence in which culture ranged high above other achievements in military strength, or in manufacturing, or in strategic importance.

Perhaps the best example is Athens in Greece as the first widely known arts town, acting in opposition to Sparta a quintessential examplar of anti-cultural town development in that Spartan citizens were forbidden non-military pursuits and occupations.

Athens has since provided the inspiration for countless imitations in civic development. Hellenism and Hellenistic ideas have driven countless cities to imitate this city driven by arts, populated by artists, and artisans, and with a strong local, regional, and international influence on arts. Alexandria, Constantinople, and many medieval Italian city-states saw Athens as their cultural ideal, and built complex civilisations on reviving Athenian values.

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Wikipedia