The Columbus Partnership released a report recently that ranked Columbus dead last among 16 other cities in terms of arts and cultural establishments. That’s right. Dead. Last.
While I haven’t gotten my hands on the full report, according to the Dispatch article, the qualification for an “arts or cultural establishment” ranges from museums and theaters to video rental stores and barber schools.
It also mentions that these items were simply added up in terms of quantity, not size or quality. So if Nashville has two video rental stores, each with 10 dvds to rent, and Columbus only has one video rental store, but it’s got 10,000 dvds to rent, well then that’s a better scenario for Nashville according to The Columbus Partnership.
I’m starting to believe that the Columbus Partnership played with the numbers on this report just to place Columbus in dead last. It’s a bit of bad press initially, but it may cause a lot of people to rise up and work just a little bit harder to make Columbus a better place. Or at least I hope it does.
Oh, by the way, the latest issue of AmericanStyle Magazine ranks Columbus as the 10th best city in the country for arts destinations. So that that for what it’s worth.
Update: I just got a link to the full report (Wed Apr 9th 8:30pm). I’ll have to spend some time reading over it when I get a spare moment.
Thanks for this. When my husband told me about the Dispatch report I was shocked because it obviously CANNOT be true. What the heck. So thanks for writing this up and sending the heads up re., AmericanStyle Magazine.
Nice work CU… It is ironic that this was a front page story for the
Dispatch and the next day the story was released about the AmericanStyle Magazine’s findings on page 200 of The Same newspaper. I think the Dispatch is a bit embarrased. The Columbus Partnership is the same group that brought the badger Rebecca Ryan to us and recommended our city spend a few hundred thousand dollars on her to help attract and retain young talent. It’s time to take control of our destiny and stop allowing the OLD BOYS CLUB to make all the decisions for us.
The full report.