Culture Need a Boost? Save The Big Ticket Items and Use Your Brain.

I posted a story about the dangers, and appeal, of major expansion for cultural institutions, many of which are having hard time realizing increased revenue and supporting their new additions.
http://marionart23.blogspot.com/2012/06/over-expansion-cultural-death-sentence.html

And while the push for greater art-related institutions, events, and community based organizations and happenings is great, no one seems to really look at the small-picture, grassroots things you can do just by yourself. New York and Paris did not become a hub of the creative world, at their respective times, because someone opened a giant museum and held"community discussion" events on the importance of culture. They weren't the centers of creative revolution because Frank Gehry designed an atrium.  They didn't attract artists because they had a lakeside complex for their art museum. It probably would have been great...and I'm not arguing against it, but those things won't make your city a great cultural center. They were what they were because of the individual people that built up their creative scene...the discussion that resulted from those investigations...and the effort and progression from those artists and those around.

Sure, you need some strong artists, some great minds, and some great ideas for it to actually work, but that seems far more feasible than most of these ideas we hear thrown around today with 15 million+ pricetags.

Take a look at this idea, getting art into the areas it's much less likely to be seen....and what do you know, it didn't take an expansion, newconstruction, or a million-dollar commission.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Mobile-art-series-hits-Boston’s-streets/26753

It's a tough subject. There's a balance and it's hard to fine. I'd love for the museum to have endless additions to their art collection, to see gallery after gallery pop up to sell work...but if its nothing more than a new business, how is that making the creative culture in our city better?

Art in volume is good, but it doesn't make it better. And culture is the same way. More is good, but it doesn't directly translate to us having a better understanding, a better connection or a better relationship. A great cultural city is built from great people, great ideas, and great involvement..and unless you attack the problem with those goals in the forefront of your mind, you'll end up with a sterile and unconnected "public" cultural addition, that might as well be slapped in any city, with any plaque, with any general "better cultural connection" statement.

I'm not against the BIG ideas, but if big is the ONLY idea, then you might as well forget about it.