Mapping Cultural Participation in Chicago - Cultural Policy Center

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ConclusionThe primary focus of this project was on participation in Chicago’s largest not-for-profitcultural institutions by the African-American and Latino communities. A secondary focuswas on participation in smaller and more specifically targeted institutions, to see whetherthey engage a different population than the large institutions. The data we used werebuilt from the records of the cultural institutions; each individual-level piece of data wasan administrative record of a transaction between the institution and an individual orhousehold.We find that participation in Chicago’s largest arts and cultural organizations is highest inpredominantly white, high income areas of the metropolitan area. Areas with the highestparticipation densities are community areas in Chicago and townships in the suburbs thatare north of downtown bordering on Lake Michigan. A few other areas that also haverelatively high rates of arts participation are scattered about Cook County, including areaswith more ethnically diverse populations such as Hyde Park on the city’s South Side andOak Park in the near western suburbs. In these areas roughly one household in twoparticipates in some way in the city’s largest arts organizations.By contrast, participation rates are low throughout much of the rest of the metropolitanarea. However, they are consistently lowest in areas with large percentages of African-American or Latino households. These areas include Chicago’s South and West Sides aswell as suburban communities in Cook County with relatively large minority populations.In these low participation areas roughly one household in twenty participates in thecity’s large organizations.Measures of more intensive forms of arts participation reveal even greater geographicconcentration of participation. For example, the geographic distribution of donors tothese organizations is even more concentrated in predominantly high income areas thanis the distribution of all forms of participation. Likewise, the proportion of householdsparticipating in more than one organization is higher in these areas as well. We plan tocontinue to explore these issues.To many familiar with Chicago’s arts community, these participation patterns may notbe surprising. However, one of our most important findings is that socioeconomicattributes are the most important predictors of the density of arts participation. Amongthe characteristics that we considered were an area’s median household income, thepercentages of residents with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, household size, and theage of its adult population. These characteristics of a community or neighborhood canexplain much but not all of the variation in arts participation densities among areas inChicago. As such, ethnicity represents only a part of the picture; socioeconomiccharacteristics are much stronger predictors of who does and does not participate inthese organizations.There is no earlier benchmark with which to compare the current situation. Thus, wecannot address whether progress is being made. Indeed, a major purpose of this studyis to provide that baseline for future studies. Currently, however, Chicago’s large artsorganizations are not successfully engaging households in areas with poor socioeconomicbackgrounds. Both predominantly minority and predominantly white areas with relativelylow household incomes, low levels of educational attainment, and large householdsparticipate in the city’s large arts organizations at relatively low rates. This findingsuggests that to engage such households, these organizations may have to reconsiderhow they deliver their services, their pricing structure, and the times they make theirservices available to this audience.51
Mapping Cultural Participation in ChicagoAlthough our findings underscore the importance of an area’s socioeconomiccharacteristics for understanding patterns of arts participation in Chicago, aneighborhood’s ethnic composition still appears to matter. Even when we comparepredominantly white and African-American communities with similar socioeconomiccharacteristics, we find that participation rates in the city’s largest arts organizationstend to be lower for predominantly African-American communities. We did identify somepredominantly African-American areas in which arts participation was much higher thanexpected. However, when an area’s rate of participation in large organizations was lowerthan expected, that area was more likely to be predominantly African-American thanpredominantly Latino or white.When we consider participation with smaller and more targeted arts organizations,we find a different story. Not only do the diverse and ethnic institutions tap a differentpopulation, but the audiences they tap are relatively unengaged with the largerinstitutions. This finding holds especially true for the smaller organizations whosemissions target particular ethnic audiences. What is clear is that among the organizationsin our sample, participation in these smaller organizations is more geographicallydispersed than the corresponding distributions of participation for the largerorganizations. Furthermore, communities with predominantly African-American andLatino populations appear to be well represented in the audiences of these organizations.An important caveat to the foregoing finding is that most of the area’s small to mediumsizearts organizations (those with revenue under $8 million) are not adequatelyrepresented in our sample. Without a larger and more representative sample of theseorganizations, we cannot say for sure whether our findings on participation in theseorganizations reflect their audience more generally or just the participation patternsfor the smaller organizations represented in our sample. We propose to address thisimportant question in future research.52 Conclusion
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Mapping Cultural Participation in C
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Page 6 and 7: Map 15a Density of Households Parti
Page 8 and 9: ForewordMany studies claim to ‘ma
Page 10 and 11: AcknowledgmentsWe thank the Joyce F
Page 12 and 13: ExecutiveSummaryIn early 2003, the
Page 14 and 15: IntroductionChicago’s cultural in
Page 16 and 17: The ChicagoContextChicago has one o
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Page 20 and 21: Characteristics of Cultural Institu
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Page 36 and 37: Lake Michigan10Combined Population
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Page 40 and 41: ModelingParticipation:Does Ethnicit
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Page 44 and 45: will be about 5 percent lower in th
Page 46 and 47: Lake Michigan15aDensity of Househol
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Page 56 and 57: Appendix IPartnering Organizationsb
Page 58 and 59: Appendix IIIModeling and Prediction
Page 60 and 61: RecommendedReferencesSurvey Researc
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