A British study has called into question the positive role of the arts in modern society.

In a new study, published by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the role of the arts in the community has come under fire. In a comprehensive 200-page report, the work of governments to implement expansive arts programs in local communities has been called into question. The report even suggests that spending government money on building community arts spaces, particularly in regional areas, is not encouraging a better local engagment with the arts, but is instead an instigator for gentrification, raising property prices and forcing locals to move. The report also takes a look with a new, objective eye at ideas like children’s involvement in music through primary school, the promotion of music for healing in spaces like hospitals and prisons, and the ecological impact of arts schemes, including the potential damage caused by large-scale public artworks and sculptures. 

Champions of the arts and believers in the power of culture could understandably be angered by the apparent negativity of this study, but in fact, the underlying argument of the report in no way suggests the arts lack importance. Instead, it argues...