Arts Buildings To Save Downtown? How About Killing It?

“Large scale arts buildings have recently been opened in Madison, Dayton, Denver and Omaha; new ones are in the pipeline in Miami, Dallas, Orange County and Nashville. Given the economics, it seems likely that these buildings will have a major adverse impact on wider ecology of the arts in these communities as they preempt and siphon off existing audiences and philanthropic resources rather than generating new ones. This is hardly the regenerative function that the planners will have had in mind.”