“Excuse me, are you the yarn-bombers?” a woman asked on the sidewalk of Boonville Avenue one Sunday afternoon.
Yarn-bombing is a contemporary street art using noninvasive yarn craft to make temporary colorful public art installations. The bright stripes of yarn being knitted and crocheted by an assortment of people sitting outside around a portable picnic table visually answered her question.
The questioner, Rachel McCown, had been recruited from Austin, Texas, to work as academic dean of Everest College-Springfield, and she did online research to find yarn shops, knitting and the local art scene before moving to Springfield. Finding the yarn-bombers’ meeting at the ideaXfactory installation art space, she was soon right at home – knitting and chatting with an assortment of professors, artists, students, homemakers and librarians she would not have met otherwise.
The recent meet-up is an example of Social Interaction Potential, a new statistical measure for cities started by University of Utah professor Steven Farber. He studied 42 of the largest U.S. cities to measure population, decentralization and commute times to find how much time people might have to engage in face-to-face socialization after work.
The SIP relates to the strength of a city because socialization builds social capital, and bigger is not better. Bigger cities might have more people to meet, but also more distance and time between them. Higher SIP cities have a strong central core where creativity and cross-pollination of ideas can happen during social interaction.
Missouri State University professor Bob Jones, who is writing a textbook on environmental psychology for publisher Taylor & Francis/Routledge, says studying physical aspects of urban life is an established part of psychological research, but investigation to quantify isolation created by cars and urban sprawl is a new subject of inquiry.
Currently, Springfield Public Works is incorporating physical amenities into downtown streetscapes to create more pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and lighting, and Springfield arts and culture organizations have been working for much longer to build social networks that contribute to a vibrant center city.
The Springfield Regional Arts Council’s First Friday Art Walk effort began in the 1990s and formally organized in 2001. Today, FFAW coordinates and promotes 24 to 30 arts events and locations on the first Friday of every month, encouraging an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people to explore the network of businesses and galleries that spider through the downtown district.
Participating members of the Art Walk say it’s the best promotional investment they’ve made for bringing people through their doors. FFAW coordinator Clarissa French says it also is “a tide that lifts all boats.” Businesses and restaurants that are not members or sponsors also reap benefits from the increased traffic the Art Walk brings downtown.
The Springfield Theatre Alliance reported more than 40,800 patrons visited various theatrical performances during the second quarter of this year.
Live theater events bring to center city people who mingle before and after performances at downtown shops, bars and restaurants. Not included in these figures are the large attendance numbers for live music events and arts programming on Park Central Square. These arts and culture events and audiences help create the social life that is attracting young professionals such as McCown to relocate to Springfield and choose to live downtown.
Gary Moss, the director of account services at Marlin Co., says he didn’t know much about Springfield’s art community when he moved from Chicago to take the position. “But I chose a downtown loft because I’m an urban guy,” he says, and he’s now a volunteer member of the SRAC Board of Directors. “Finding the exciting art scene here was icing on the cake.”
Pam RuBert is the immediate past president of the Springfield Regional Arts Council. She can be reached at pam@rubert.com.
