Creative returns on investment: Funding the arts grows the bottom line

When investment banker Robert Foster agreed to co-chair an advisory council early in January to update Toronto’s culture plan, he did so assuming everyone he spoke to shared his underlying philosophy: that a creative city drives the engine of economic growth.

For Foster, who has been profoundly influenced by the writings of culture guru Richard Florida, the evidence is overwhelming that investing in arts and culture produces healthier, more prosperous and more livable world-class cities.

But in an era of fiscal restraint, where many individual Canadians trim concert tickets and live theatre from their personal budgets, he might have expected resistance from those holding the public purse strings.

Surprisingly, his assumption was never challenged.