Local Arts Index (LAI), United States, 2009-2015

The Local Arts Index was developed in response to an interest in "scaling-down" the National Arts Index (NAI) to the community level and to the growing demand for comparative information on arts at the community level. The LAI was developed in partnership with arts leadership organizations in over 100 communities and is comprised of a variety of indicators to understand who we are as a community and how that manifests itself through cultural activities and participation. Indicators are a systematic data collection initiative that is conducted regularly over time. The LAI compresses many arts indicators into one number that is calculated the same way and at regular time intervals, making it easy to compare performance between time periods.
The LAI collected county level data such as nonprofit arts revenue and expenditures, creative businesses and nonprofit arts organizations per 100,000 residents, arts share of businesses, employees, establishments, and payroll, estimated expenditures on arts equipment, number of visual and performing arts degrees, and adult population attending arts and culture activities. Demographic information includes median measures of age, household income, and year housing was built, as well as population density, and population share that was over 65, non-English speakers, and non-white.

地方艺术指数（Local Arts Index，LAI）的开发，旨在将全国艺术指数（National Arts Index，NAI）降尺度至社区层面，同时响应日益增长的社区层级艺术对比信息需求。LAI由超过100个社区的艺术领军组织合作开发，通过一系列指标剖析社区的身份特质，以及这些特质如何通过文化活动与艺术参与得以体现。此类艺术指标是一项系统性数据收集项目，需定期持续开展。LAI将众多艺术指标整合为单一数值，该数值采用统一计算方式并于固定时间间隔更新，便于不同时段的表现对比。
LAI收集县级层面数据，涵盖非营利艺术机构的收支情况、每10万居民对应的创意企业与非营利艺术组织数量、艺术产业在企业、雇员、经营场所及薪资总额中的占比、艺术设备预估支出、视觉与表演艺术学位授予数量，以及参与艺术文化活动的成年人口规模。人口统计信息则包含年龄中位数、家庭收入中位数、住宅建成年份，以及人口密度、65岁以上人口占比、非英语使用者占比与非白人人口占比。