The Creative Economy
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Photo by Kenton Williams

When Ed and Shannon Martin moved to central Maine in 2001, they wanted to live in "the biggest city in the area." That was Bangor.

They wanted to live downtown "in the middle of something," so they bought a place on Main Street. A four-story building in need of renovation.

Shannon started her job as a journalism professor at the University of Maine while Ed opened his first photographic studio, called Lumiere.

The two faculty members from Rutgers University are among a growing number of professionals contributing to the creative economy of Maine's third-largest city.

"We looked for a building where we could have a studio and could live, and in doing that, I think we contributed to the revitalization of downtown," says Ed Martin of his home in the former Smiley's clothing store. "Ours is just one building out of a great many, but other people are doing similar things. I've been told there are more people living downtown than there were 10 years ago, and I hope there will be even more."

Lumiere Photographic Studio is in the same block as the Maine Discovery Museum for children, and within easy walking distance of a handful of independent bookstores and art galleries, the recently relocated UMaine Museum of Art, the expanded Bangor Public Library, the Penobscot Theatre and the new Bangor Museum and Center for History. The facilities are considered cultural anchors that draw patrons and keep the downtown alive — typical mainstays of a creative economy.

Bangor also is in its third year of hosting the National Folk Festival.

"The creative economy refers to a newly defined economic cluster that has always been a part of our overall economy, but has only recently been identified as a discrete economic sector," says Kathryn Hunt, a research associate at UMaine's Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy. In its 2000 report, The Creative Economy Initiative: The Role of Arts and Culture in New England's Economic Competitiveness, the New England Council reported that $6.6 billion in cultural tourism dollars were generated in the region from 1993–97.

In 2000, 14,000 Maine workers were employed in the economy's creative sector; in the next decade, that workforce is expected to grow by 18 percent.

The creative economy has intellectual capital at its core, Hunt says. The model includes artists, software developers, filmmakers, actors, designers, photographers, musicians, architects, museum curators, authors and many others who are self-employed, or working for nonprofit organizations or small businesses.

As part of economic development, a critical mass of artistic and cultural creativity can help to revitalize communities, create jobs to retain young people, be a drawing card for workers coming to the state, attract tourist dollars and contribute to a region's quality of life. It is already happening in Maine communities like Portland, Lewiston/Auburn, Augusta, Dover-Foxcroft, Rockland and Stonington.

"It has to do with helping communities stop the fantasy that one large company will come in and take away their economic woes," Hunt says. "It's forcing communities and regions to admit that they have to support a diversified economy and encourage creative synergies that lead to new companies based on ideas and technology."

Last year, Hunt, a community and economic development expert, helped to formalize a new partnership between Bangor and the University of Maine. The partnership addresses UMaine's commitment to be engaged with the state and its communities, and the city's need for downtown revitalization, including meeting the growing needs of its elderly and low-income populations.

"We hope," Hunt says, "to create a model that we can then take to other communities."