Exploring the dimensional structure of the arts in communities

Research in the 2010s by Americans for the Arts (AFTA) assembled what was perhaps the most comprehensive extant set of community arts indicators for counties across the United States as the “Local Arts Index.” To present the indicators, AFTA researchers organized indicators into four categories that they dubbed a “Community Arts Vitality Model.” However, the indicators were assigned to categories intuitively rather than according to statistical consideration of their inter-correlations. In an effort to either validate or reframe the Community Arts Vitality Model, the data are subjected to factor analysis. This analysis re-categorizes the indicators, resulting in an empirically validated framing of arts in local communities: arts business, arts consumption, and arts nonprofit. The resulting schema can provide conceptual guidance to researchers who seek to measure the role of arts in local community development.