Locally Embedded Artistic Careers: Career Satisfaction and Intrinsic Rewards in Creative Core Cities

Abstract

How does residence in major cultural cores affect job satisfaction among creative workers? Focusing on two major American creative core cities, New York City and Los Angeles, this paper aims to answer this question using survey data from the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (N=24,437 currently working alumni across the United States). Unsurprisingly, the author finds that artists living in core cultural areas tend to rate their area far more positively than non-core artists. However, creative core artists tend to rate satisfaction with intrinsic rewards lower than individuals in non-metropolitan and non-core areas, suggesting a tradeoff between creative values and access to resource-rich urban locations. This research emphasizes the local embeddedness of careers in the arts.