Art as Personal Business in the City: Brooklyn's Creative Freelance Economy

Our phase one report for Intuit on the Future of Small Business forecast continued expansion number of personal businesses.

I spent the morning at the Brooklyn Public Library for a panel discussion organized by the Center for an Urban Future and the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation. The topic was "Harnessing Brooklyn's Creative Capital: The Impact of Self-Employed Creative Professionals on the Borough's Economy". The panel consisted of an interesting range of freelance activists and organizers, including the head of the Freelancer's Union and the Brooklyn Writer's Space a local legend in the co-working scene.

According to the Center for an Urban Future, "freelance businesses has been a faster growing part of the Brooklyn economy than employer-based businesses". The BEDC reported that the number of creative self-employed persons in Brooklyn grew at five times the rate of Manhattan over the 2002-2005 period. Brooklyn now has 22,000 creative self-employed workers. More than 70% are independent artists, writers, photogrpahers, jewewly makers, designers - making Brooklyn's "creative crescent", a cluster of waterfront neighborhoods stretching from Greenpoint in the north to Red Hook in the south, the largest concentration of artists in the history of the world.

The discussion centered mostly around local issues like the lifestyle and cost-competitiveness of Brooklyn vis a vis Manhattan, but there was also raging debate around what the city could do to support freelancers. Three issues were paramount: affordable an flexible working space for various kinds of creative work, health insurance, and disability insurance.

A transcript will be available soon from the Center for an Urban Future's website.

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