Investing In Small, Creative Businesses Can Bring Our High Streets Back To Life

"A great deal of city center space lies vacant, but it needn't be that way."

That's the opinion of Sally Reaper, co-director of Look Again, Gray's School of Art's creative unit, in an op-ed in the Aberdeen Press and Journal.

With that in mind, Look Again and Culture Aberdeen have teamed up to transform empty shop units in Aberdeen's city center into temporary retail spaces, art installations, and pop-up shops, all supported by short-term leases.

"One of the biggest challenges small businesses face are start-up rates," Reaper writes.

"Rents are often too high, and the legalities too cumbersome.

If we are to move forward from this problem, locally or nationally, there has to be a change to the rateable value.

Only by investing in our creative communities and by developing sustainable, affordable city center living and workspaces can we provide small businesses and creatives with the opportunity to be present in our city centers."

To that end, Look Again and Culture Aberdeen are working with local creatives, freelance artists, and community groups to "recode the city center, so that community groups have a bigger role, and so that we can bring the area's soul back," Reaper said. Read the Entire Article


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"The US creative economy was most recently valued at over $1 trillion by the National Endowment for the Arts," per a press release, "even before considering film, fashion, video games, beauty, food,...more

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Foundation: Lancaster County Community Foundation

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Pennsylvania'S Creative Sector Booms, Contributing Over $30 Billion to State Economy

"These figures underscore the vital role that creativity and culture play not only in enriching community life but also in driving economic development." So says the chair of Pennsylvania's...more

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"Many of us, at some point in time, have been told in our lives that we are unloveable. By our parents, partners, husbands, children, friends, or society," says transgender activist Zainab...more

Grant Funding to Bolster Operations at 17 Southern Indiana Nonprofits
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Social enterprise, HandiConnect, wins the Audacious-Business Idea competition’s Doing Good category. The company is spearheaded by University of Otago entrepreneurship master’s student Nguyen Cam Van.



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