The joint meeting held on April 15, 1993, at The Asia Society was a direct result of the activities of the New York City Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission under Commission Chair Ellen Liman.

One of the first tasks of the newly constituted Commission was to conduct a survey of all related research including reports made to various cultural and arts commissions within the U.S. since the last New York City report in 1983. It was found that many cities and regions around the country had developed economic impact statements based on New York City's 1983 seminal study, The Arts as Industry: Their Economic Importance to the New York - New Jersey Metropolitan Region (in the process of being updated) and cultural master plans similar to that developed in Los Angeles in 1991.

No such plan existed in New York City nor were there plans to initiate one. This lack of long range planning was seen to be due in part to the very unsettled environment in the cultural community associated with the controversy surrounding certain conditions being attached to federal moneys and cutbacks in government funding of cultural institutions by state and federal governments. The local funding environment in New York City had also become unstable. Even though City funding had remained level, individual and corporate funding was increasingly curtailed by a general economic recession and lowered interest rates.

The Commission's function in rethinking the role of New York City's cultural institutions was facilitated by two developments outside of the cultural community. The most important was one of the conclusions in the report Reinventing New York: Competing in the Next Century's Global Economy. This study, prepared by the Urban Research Center of New York University and funded in part by The Mellon Foundation, articulated a vision of the City as a center of international business grounded in what was termed Intellectual capital, a major component of which was individuals engaged in the arts.

The second development was the election of Mayor Dinkins. His various appointments, including those to the Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission, reflected his personal view of New York City as a gorgeous mosaic.

CONTENTS
New York City Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission.
New York City Commission for the United Nations, Consular Corps and International Business.
Introduction.
Proceedings.
Addendum.
Biographies of participants.
List of Attendees.