I hear you, and gahhhh! this stuff is killing me!

For one, although it's predicated on common sense (people like to live in liveable places), we have kerjillions of examples (like, um, 21 Grand) when civic policy works counter-intuitively to building community upon the accomplishments of neighborhood arts organizations. They are razing your block! Displacing you for condos that will hope to attract people who like to live in liveable places!

The reality is that if you were, by some slacking of greed, permitted to stay and pursue your mission and achieve some success, the police and fire marshall would make sure you had sufficient constraints.

I'm so cranky.

The latest iteration of the Florida argument is that cultural policy should cease its investment in supply (artists and arts organizations) and begin investing in demand (audience education and development). www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG121/

Naturally, there's a lot of work on that end for artists (and plumbers and well-connected developers and lawyers), but only if we hop a little over the back seat and grab the windshield wiper lever, if not the entire steering wheel.

Where did that metaphor come from? I cannot say. I am a product of America's love affair with the automobile.