Nicholas P. Dempsey

This paper presents early findings from the Sunshine City Happiness Survey, a longitudinal study which assesses the wellbeing of working-age people in St. Petersburg, Florida. Specifically, we examine the degree to which people consume the arts--as measured by whether they attend museums, theatrical, or musical performances--affects their overall wellbeing. As the survey is repeated weekly, we will be able to discern whether arts consumption has positive, negative, or no effect on wellbeing, and will compare the effects of arts consumption to other activities such as exercising, attending sporting events, or eating out at restaurants. 

As a prologue to a new study of wellbeing among working-age city residents, this presentation examines the determinants of urban dwellers' social, physical, and psychological wellbeing. Existing research suggests that environmental factors, community factors, and access to certain kinds of amenities like health care facilities and grocery stores are all generally accepted as important elements that partly determine city dwellers' physical and mental wellbeing. Relatively less is known about short- and medium- term effects of elements of urban life like neighborhood disputes, city service provision, and community events such as professional sports and festivals. We seek to understand how these and other determinants of wellbeing can be modeled to better understand the changing quality of life experienced by city dwellers.

      This paper examines changes in the size of the nonprofit arts sector in US cities with populations between 100,000 and 300,000 people over the period from 2012 to 2019. Broadly, its objective is to discover which cities are more likely to have growing, stagnant, or shrinking nonprofit arts sectors. By examining several potential covariates such as mean income and age of the cities, the study aims to better understand why cities are more or less likely to foster active communities of artists.