Per the City of Rockville: “The Frederick-Rockville-Gaithersburg region has come in ninth out of 20 large communities ranked as the most arts-vibrant nationwide.
SMU DataArts, the National Center for Arts Research, released its ninth Arts Vibrancy Index in December, which identifies the 40 most arts-vibrant communities in the United States.
“Rockville, along with its neighbors Frederick and Gaithersburg has consistently appeared on the Arts Vibrancy Index since the launch of the rankings in 2015,” an SMU DataArts news release on the rankings states.
The index analyzes 13 unique measures, including the level of supply, demand and government support for the arts in more than 900 communities across the country. Large communities are those with a population of 1 million or more.
The Frederick-Gaithersburg-Rockville region also scored in the top 2% on measures related to state arts dollars.
Maryland ranked fifth overall in the nation in SMU DataArts’ separate arts vibrancy rankings of all 50 states.
Find out more about the index and the arts communities it analyzes at culturaldata.org/arts-vibrancy-2024/executive-summary.
The top 10 large communities by rank are:
- San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, California.
- New York-Jersey City-White Plains, New York-New Jersey.
- Boston, Massachusetts.
- Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, District of Columbia-Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia.
- Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minnesota-Wisconsin
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee.
- Newark, New Jersey-Pennsylvania.
- Frederick-Gaithersburg-Rockville, Maryland.
- Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas.”