A Canadian study, for example, analysed expenditure on books compared with expenditure on other cultural items, revealing that Canadian households are high cultural spenders:
The $1.1 billion spent on books is fairly similar to overall spending on newspapers ($1.2 billion) and movie theatre admissions ($1.2 billion) and amounts to more than double the spending on live sporting events ($451 million). (Hill Strategies 2005a: 2)
In all, 63% of Canadian households spent money on newspapers, 61% of households on movie theatres, 54% of households bought magazines and 48% of households purchased books. Households were much less likely to spend money on ‘art, antiques and decorative ware’ (only 29% of households), on ‘live performing arts’ (36% of households), or on ‘admission to museums’ (32% of households). And only 19% of households bought tickets for ‘live sports events’ (Hill Strategies 2005a: 2).
Of the book buyers, there appears to be a relationship between high expenditure on books and expenditure on other cultural activities (performing arts, museums, art/craft and live sports). This appears to demonstrate that a high level of cultural consumption provides an indicator of high cultural capital (Hill Strategies 2005a) thus adding support to the concept of ‘cultural omnivore’ mentioned earlier. Moreover, high cultural spenders have the following distinctive demographic and lifestyle characteristics: they have high incomes, they are middle aged, they are twice as likely to have no children, four times as likely to have no teenagers, and live in a one or two-person dwelling. High cultural spenders are also most likely to be homeowners and live in large cities.
These figures show that expenditure on books is a good indicator of overall cultural expenditure: ‘high spenders on books have much higher spending on other arts, entertainment and sporting items [including children’s camps, sporting equipment, toys, games and hobbies, and photographic goods or services] than non-spenders’ (Hill Strategies 2005a: 12). These figures are similar to research in the United States that showed that:
Book lovers tend to frequent a number of different types of arts and sporting activities. In fact, arts museum and performing arts attendance were found to be ‘significant factors in literature participation, even adjusting for education, ethnicity, race and other factors’. (Hill Strategies 2005a: 12)
In sum, ‘76% of highest-income households spent some money on books, compared with 23% of lowest-income households’ yet ‘the financial commitment required to buy books is much more significant for low-income households than for high-income households’ (20). The figures on book-buying illustrate the selective and elitist nature of cultural consumption and the policies underlying cultural policy. Financial well-being is an important factor in cultural consumption. So too are educational levels, cultural and social capital, normative household structure and locational profile. Given that books are one of the more highly consumed cultural products within a population, it is possible to extrapolate even more skewed consumer profiles for other arts/cultural forms.
These observations are consistent with Savage et al. (2005) in their study of cultural capital in the United Kingdom which found that, despite new cultural forms and wider opportunities for cultural consumption, there were ‘marked patterns of differentiation in tastes, many of which appear familiar from long term historical patterns’ that confirm the correlation between high cultural capital and wealth and education. This evidence, to some extent, challenges the proposition that cultural omnivores are transforming patterns of cultural consumption (cf. Peterson and Kern 1996).
One of the movers and shakers in the nexus between cultural policy and planning in recent times has been Richard Florida (2002, 2005) who has attempted to establish a link between the cultural indicators exhibited by a community or locality and measures of quality of life and wealth. He has contended that city and regional economies facing economic pressures and de-industrialisation should look to establishing cultural industries to spearhead a revitalisation. To this end, Florida developed the ‘Bohemian index’ as a measure of high ‘cultural competence’ against economic potential and well-being. This model has received international acclaim yet its assertions have largely been untested. In one of the few studies that has attempted to evaluate this model, Hill Strategies (2005b) compared ‘the bohemian index ranking with two indicators of cultural spending in 15 Canadian metropolitan areas: per capita cultural spending and per capita spending on art works and events’. They concluded that:
Overall, it appears that the cultural occupations variable (bohemian index) and the two spending indicators do not follow a consistent pattern. Victoria, Calgary and Ottawa rank fairly high on all three indicators, but the largest metropolitan areas — Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver — rank higher on the bohemian index than on the spending indicators. The reverse is true for Edmonton and Regina, areas that rank higher on the cultural spending data than on the cultural occupations data’ (Hill Strategies 2005b: 9).