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In cities that have experienced the impact of a vibrant arts culture, no one is having an argument about the economic value of the arts, says Benjamin Barber.

Cities are defined by communication,  exchange, association. They were founded around culture, that's why  they are centers of civilisation, so they are not a perifial external that can be  related to cities, they are at the core of what a city is. A city without art and culture is unthinkable, art and culture not in the city is unthinkable, so they are twin dimensions of what cities  are about.

Do cultural organisations do enough to state their value to cities?
There's always a danger when you talk about culture and the city about art and the economy that you instrumentalise and trivialise art and culture and obviously those who care about culture are anxious not to trvialise it - rightly so. But on the other hand, the reality is culture and  the arts make an enormous contribution to the economy of the city that's simply a fact and without trying to instrumentalise it, it's certainly worth talking about that. I've seen estimates that range anywhere between  a factor of three and five of what the arts cost and what they contribute back to cities in revenues and taxes, in activity, in periphiral secondary businesses and so forth, that feed off the arts. So they play a vital role in  the economy of cities - they're also critical to education. Education is about cultivating the imagination - the arts do that powerfully. No education system  - primary, secondary or university can be whole without a fundamental core element of culture and the arts as well. So what we want to try not to do is create two  different entities - the city and the arts and how they relate to each other, but to think  about the city and culture as two dimensions of a single core identity that interplays at every  level - economic, educational, cultural and even political.