Art, Design, and Architecture Colleges Boost New York City’s Economy, Report Argues

New York City, which placed a high-profile bet last year on a new campus for the applied sciences as a vehicle for economic development, already enjoys a significant job-creating boost from its colleges of art and design, a new study says. In the study, “Designing New York’s Future,” the Center for an Urban Future found that nearly 20 percent of all graduates from the Pratt Institute, Parsons the New School for Design, and the School of Visual Arts went on to start their own businesses, far more than the entrepreneurial track record of the city’s chief scientific research institutions, which spun off 21 new technology firms in 2007. The study also documents how big a hub for creativity New York City has become; its arts institutions graduated 4,278 designers and architects in 2010, and their alumni have gone on to found and staff some of these fields’ most influential firms. “At a time when designers are having a growing influence on everything from smart phones to the delivery of health care services,” the authors write, “these institutions are poised to play an even more central role in New York’s economic future.”