Nicholas P. Dempsey

This paper explores the relationship between the utilization of urban amenities and the degree to which residents of a mid-sized city experience happiness and overall subjective wellbeing. Based on a weekly survey of 170 working residents in St. Petersburg, Florida, results indicate that happiness and overall emotional wellbeing are positively correlated with exercise and spending time with friends, as well as spending time at restaurants, clubs, or bars. 

This paper examines changes in the size of the nonprofit arts sector in mid-sized U.S. cities over the period from 2012 to 2019. Asking why some cities have more robust arts organizations than other cities, and why some see more organizational growth over time than others, the paper analyzes data collected on 223 mid-sized municipalities. I find that organizational capacities both within and beyond the arts sector strongly predict the size and growth of a city's arts organization. Those capacities are measured by the presence of Fortune 500 firms, local arts councils, and successful applications for NEA grants. The findings also suggest that cities with greater income inequality have larger nonprofit arts sectors.

This article describes the use of stimulated recall interviews as a technique for investigating how people approach interactions in a number of different situations. In general, the technique I describe involves interviewing individuals by playing them audio or audiovisual recordings of their own behavior in social situations and discussing different aspects of those recorded interactions. Doing so can help us to understand what signals interactants understand as important, what signals they try to convey to others, and how they choose from various options to act upon the information they receive in interactions. Using the example of jazz jam sessions, I ask why it is that interactions can sometimes go smoothly and uneventfully, or sometimes break down completely. The stimulated recall interviews provide a valuable tool in helping the ethnographer to answer these kinds of questions.