More public art could boost Ottawa's economy

Livelier streets, better mental health benefit us, says Keith De Silvia-legault.

Recently, Ottawa's community services committee passed a motion directing city staff to start exploring options for poverty reduction for local artists.

And that makes a whole lot of sense: currently, the median personal income for an artist in Ontario stands at an unfortunate $29,600. But it means that we have a potential workforce of local artists the city can use for community revitalization.

It's not out of the ordinary for Ottawa to want to invest in arts and culture. After all, it's been looking to hire a “night mayor” to improve Ottawa's infamously boring public image and bring some life into its night scene. Why stop there?

Looking around, public murals aren't all that common in this city. Definitely not if you compare us to nearby places: Toronto has just about 1,000 murals while Montreal has more than 3,000. Meanwhile we only have a measly 340 displays of public art.

At first glance, funding public art projects may seem like a waste of taxpayer dollars, but there is plenty of evidence that says otherwise. Public art projects can revitalize our communities, save lives and provide jobs.

Funding public artwork is an investment in the local economy. Studies show that when a city invests real money in public art, it gets more people outside and spending their money.

Not to mention, it's great for mental and physical well-being; there's evidence that public art leads to reduced anxiety and even less pain for residents taking in the sights on a daily basis.

And on top of that, there is even more evidence that public artwork in high-crime neighbourhoods is linked to a reduction in crime rates. Philadelphia has more than 4,000 public murals, and has been using them as an unconventional way to fight crime. A research study in Philadelphia showed that the more murals a neighbourhood had directly correlated with a reduction in violent and non-violent crime.

But public art does more than just discourage crime; a study published by Bloomberg Philanthropies points out that asphalt public art projects, such as creative crosswalks, can reduce crashes involving pedestrians by as much as 50 per cent.

Since the city now has a new directive to explore poverty reduction for local artists, let's “kill two birds with one stone.” It's time to expand Ottawa's existing public art program and use it to create more jobs for local artists.

If we want to be known as a less boring city, we need to do the legwork to make that happen. It's fantastic that we are finally investing money in improving local nightlife, but it cannot stop there.

It's time we start to look at “non-boring ” cities and ask ourselves “what are they doing right that we aren't?” Treating public artwork as a priority is one of those things.