In mid-June, 2009, about 150 citizens gathered at the new Fillmore Theatre in Charlotte to hear a presentation by the ASC about its recently commissioned Creative Vitality Index (CVI). Attendees listened to a panel of two out-of-town officials from the Western Arts Foundation and one local researcher from the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute deliver a presentation benchmarking the region’s creative vitality against the nation. The bottom line: unpleasant news – our 2007 index value declined from 2006, and the Mecklenburg CVI was half that of Denver county, and considerably less than Seattle-King and Portland counties.

Attendees kept their chin up, but the mood was dim. During recessionary times, few support prioritizing the arts. Those who advocate for the arts appeal to humanist ideals or make an economic case that the arts create wealth. But there is a core, if less discussed, reason why during trying times we need to double-down on creativity: the arts make us smarter and provide tools for innovation – both of which are essential to the city’s evolution and civic wellness.

The Integral City

In a breakthrough book entitled Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, Marilyn Hamilton, a self-described catalyst of city well-being, asserts that the purpose of a city is to optimize the life of the human species and add value to the life of the planet. She examines cities as whole systems. With nearly 60% of the human population now in cities, and the scale of our urban development exceeding the carrying capacity of bioregions to support them (and communities further subject to intense, whipsaw global economic forces and cycles), many of our cities are in crisis. Her book proposes an “integral” framework to include and transcend the models of the city that emerged from the traditional, modern and postmodern urban eras so that cities can adapt to change and thrive.

Her central thesis is that cities evolve through stages of intelligence. Communities must constantly solve problems. They must regularly reorganize to provide essential services, and reinvent themselves to confront threats and exploit opportunities. People and communities with greater integral development (or levels of intelligence and complexity) have more resilience to survive. They literally have more assets and capacities to manage conditions of stress.

Intelligence comes in many forms, across multiple domains. It includes the intelligence of mechanics, athletes, accountants, cooks, counselors and plumbers. Intelligence progresses from self-awareness to other-awareness to context-awareness to system-awareness. As one progresses to system-awareness, one becomes an increasingly capable contributor to the intelligence of city life. The broader and deeper these intelligences are in community, the greater the capacity for regeneration.

Regeneration in community occurs through shared learning of competencies and capacities. The arts, through literature, design, music, dance, and drama, passes along accumulated wisdom and provides vocabulary and tools for the invention of new visions. The arts help us become increasingly attentive and intentional. If we understand a city, as Marilyn Hamilton does, as “a living system that emerges from the intentions and interactions of individuals and groups to produce both a conscious presence (or spirit) and a habitat (or a built city),” it is through creative activity and the arts that the city evolves.

Integrative Medicine

Integrative medicine also provides a metaphor for communal health that underscores the necessity of the arts. Integrative medicine combines conventional Western medicine with Eastern complimentary treatments, to treat the whole person – their mind, body and spirit.

American cities are managed not unlike Western medicine, with vast resources allocated toward treating dysfunction or disease. We invest in police, jails and the built environment, often after the fact of physical disintegration. When resources are limited, rarely do cities prioritize spending money on the interior realities of a city’s population – emotional and spiritual health – as they are subjective, invisible and difficult to measure. Yet these interior realities determine our quality of life as much if not more than any exterior condition.

Dr. Russell H. Greenfield, president of Greenfield Integrative Medicine, PLLC, an integrative healthcare consultancy, notes that “Supporting the arts allows us to reach out and help others even as we find ourselves in need, an act that is healing unto itself and can make us feel less helpless. The arts help give rise to hope, and whether the challenge is a difficult illness or a difficult economic period, hope is essential to healing.”

Integrative medicine teaches that the further we are in touch with our life purpose and what we find meaningful, the more readily we heal and stay well. Participating in creative work is a sure path to discovering purpose and meaning.

The arts are essential because they contain and give shape to civilization. The more Charlotte is invested in enriching its intellectual and artistic capital, the greater our civic wellness.