Western Cities Again Tops in 2024 'Arts Vibrancy Index' Rankings
By Chadd Scott on
Southern Methodist University’s DataArts, the National Center for Arts Research, has released its annual ranking of the 40 most arts-vibrant communities in the United States. San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City again topped the “Large Communities” (population over 1,000,000) category for 2024, repeating from a year ago. Western cities also claimed top spot in the “Medium Communities” (100,000-1,000,000) category with Santa Fe, and “Small Communities” (under 100,000) with Jackson, WY/ID, also a repeat winner from 2023.
Santana Family mural in San Francisco's Mission District.
First published in 2015, the Arts Vibrancy Index is composed of 13 unique measures covering aspects of supply, demand, and public support for arts and culture, and are adjusted for cost of living and population differences among more than 900 communities. The 13 categories measured fall into three buckets: Arts Providers, Arts Dollars, and Government Support.
“Arts Providers” includes independent artists, arts and culture employees (people employed by museums, historical sites, theater, dance, music, opera, and other performing arts sectors, as salaried employees or independent contractors), arts and cultural organizations (the number of nonprofit organizations in the museum, arts education, community, dance, music, opera, performing arts center, orchestra, theater, multidisciplinary performing arts, or arts alliance and service organization sectors), and arts, culture and entertainment firms (museums, theaters, dance companies, opera companies, music groups and performers, music producers and presenters, fine arts schools, and recording, motion picture, and video production companies).
“Arts Dollars” essentially measures all the revenue, income, and expenditures generated and produced by the “Arts Providers.” “Government Support” aggregates all the federal, state, and local grants and funding coming into the “Arts Providers.”
As an arts and travel writer, I’ve visited a majority of the cities ranked in the Top 10 across the three community sizes. Overall, I find the rankings largely reflective of my personal experiences. As much as I love San Francisco as an arts destination, one of my handful of favorites across the country, New York City belongs at the top of this list. It’s disproportionately gargantuan population relative to every other American city skews all “per capita” capita rankings.
New York is the arts and cultural capital of the world and everybody knows it. Broadway. The Met, MoMA, The Whitney, The Guggenheim. Literature, theater, music, street art, film, dance. Come on. The galleries.
If I have one beef with SMU’s methodology, it would be underrepresenting the influence of art galleries on a city’s arts vibrancy. Across the Index’s “13 unique measures,” I do not see clearly where art galleries or their employees are factored into scores. As private businesses, perhaps tracking that proves too difficult.
My personal interest resides primarily in the visual arts. Galleries, therefore, to me, are among the leading factors I consider when thinking about my favorite arts destinations. So too would be street art – graffiti and murals – as well as commissioned sculptures.
Alexander Calder's 'The Eagle' sculpture with Space Needle in background.
Galleries and street art are free to visit and enjoy, and with general admission prices for the nation’s best museums reaching $30, and concert and theater prices in the stratosphere, my personal arts vibrancy index would weight free experiences heavily. Arts and culture should be accessible.
New York, again, would score off the charts for galleries and street art. Architecture, too.
The built environment of a place is an important piece of the cultural puzzle to me. The aesthetic. The atmosphere. The vibe. New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Santa Fe, New Orleans. It can be argued that the greatest artwork in those cities is the city itself. Those constitute my Top 5 arts destinations across the country irrespective of size, although not in that order. Architecture is also free to enjoy.
I would like to highlight one massive omission in my opinion: Tulsa, OK. With two world class museums – the Philbrook and the Gilcrease – a vibrant artist community, and a lively cultural atmosphere downtown, I’m stunned Tulsa didn’t make the list. This likely has to do with a quirk of methodology. What I can tell you, having been there three times in the past five years, Tulsa has a massively surprising arts scene far more robust than you’d expect.
I give a little side eye as well for San Antonio not appearing among the “Large Communities” category. Over three visits in the past five years, I’ve found San Antonio to be as culturally rich as any place in the country. You can wring culture out of the air there. Museums, music, food. No offense to places like Milwaukee, where I’m from, and Portland, where I’ve visited, which land in the Top 10, but they don’t compare to San Antonio as an arts destination.
St. Petersburg, FL deserves a spot in the Top 10 as well for cities its size. And Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC.
Santa Fe, surprisingly, ranked 2nd in 2023. Like New York for the largest cities, the top spot in any arts vibrancy rankings for mid-sized cities should retire first place to Santa Fe. The museums, the galleries, THE ARTISTS, the festivals. Art festivals and events are another category I’d rank highly into my personal arts vibrancy index rankings. Santa Fe is a national leader in that category, no matter the size of the city.
I also don’t think the amount of live music, music scene, and music economy in places like New York, Nashville, Austin, or New Orleans can accurately be reflected into cultural rankings like this.
I’m nitpicking. There’s more good than bad here.
While Western cities perform strongly in SMU’s Arts Vibrancy Index, Western states do not. Among the Top 10 states, only Oregon (8th) and California (10th) are represented. New York is No. 1.
Here are the other Western cities ranking among the Top 20 for “Large Communities:”
10th – Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX
12th – Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA
Kenturah Davis artwork on LA Metro. Image courtesy of L.A. Metro.
Ok, sorry to interrupt, I’ve got to butt in and stick up for L.A. L.A. is always criminally underrated in arts and cultural rankings. What about the film industry? Is that not art? Again, on music alone, L.A. deserves a top five ranking. L.A. may be the Number 1 spot in America for artists, for creatives, for the people doing the work. L.A. has exceptional art museums and music venues and street art. L.A. in 12th place is absurd.
13th – Seattle-Bellevue-Kent, WA
17th – Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA
18th – Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO
Among Western cities landing in the Top 10 for “Medium Communities,” San Rafael, CA was an impressive third, Boulder sixth, and Missoula seventh.
For Western “Small Communities” in the Top 10, Steamboat Springs was second – that feels high to me from my experience there – Juneau third, Taos seventh and Glenwood Springs, CO eight.
Taos appeared in the Top 10 for the first time which seems nuts to me. Outstanding museums. Outstanding galleries. Extraordinary artists. What am I missing?
Rankings, of course, are subjective. I hope you’re able to visit as many of these places as possible and come up with your own arts vibrancy index.
