I don't really want to spend money sending artists on little trips across the world to attend parties with other artists. Can't we fix up our parks or hire some more cops or some other, like, you now, city government type thing? Or -- hey! -- municipal broadband?

This UNESCO thing sounds about as useful as one of those sports stadium boondoggles. Cheaper than a sports stadium, yes, but still wasting money because you think your city is going to get invited to sit at the cool table.

And all this "act now! this offer expires soon!" crap? I'm pretty sure there will always artists who will be willing to accept our free trips to other cities. We don't have to act now.

@1, I hear you, and if this were just about sending artists abroad I would agree with you. The Creative City network is designed to promote economic development within creative industries. Joining this network means more opportunities for Seattle publishers, more tourism dollars from visitors drawn to our city's creative industry offerings, and more ways for writers in Seattle to make a living. That's why I'm willing to donate my entire career's earnings to this project.

@3: *slow clap*

@3

Develop the economy how, exactly? Tourists would come here to see what, exactly?

@5 Local writing programs--the MFAs, the Hugo Houses, UW extensions, the Antiochs, and the myriad other options for studying creative writing--will have added legitimacy in both their outreach/marketing for new students and funding applications (especially regionally/nationally). That'll help bring new writers (and their tuition dollars) and funders in.

Local writers that make it to larger stages (like Ryan himself, Sherman Alexie, Jess Walter, Maria Semple, Nancy Kress, Nicole Hardy, etc.; there are so many, it's so great!) and get reviews in the press will be able to talk about Seattle and the Northwest as a hotbed of literary creativity and have this specifically to point to. Can the value of this be really measured? Nope. But I don't think it should be discounted; spin is important.

And to speak specifically to your question about "tourists": tourists are people who visit the city who live elsewhere, yes? I don't have any hard data on how international tourists' habits change with UNESCO status (though I bet Dublin, Reykjavik, et al could share them with us), but I can point you to the city's 2012 report on arts & economic prosperit…. As you'll see on page nine, about 31% of Seattle arts event attendees are non-residents (that is, they reside outside of King County). Non-residents spend an average of 153% more than residents when engaging in cultural activities (particularly with lodging, meals, and transportation).

Between SAL, Hugo House, local bookstore readings, and other events (occasional literary Town Hall productions, indie readings series, and so on), there are, at a minimum, probably 200 days a year that at least one literary event is happening. I'd actually be surprised if that number turned out to be less than 300, but I don't have the time to parse it fully right now.

Obviously, the George Saunders and Gillian Flynns will draw a lot more "tourists" than the Breadlines or Cheap Wine & Poetrys, just because of marketing reach and name recognition. And yes, those tourists might be spending a bit more money at Ring Cycle performances at the Opera or at their annual "A Christmas Carol" viewing at ACT than they will at a SAL reading. But Gillian Flynn's press agent presumably booked her at SAL because Seattle is consistently the most or the second most literate cit…. We're far away from New York, and not super-close to San Francisco, but we're not a market that can be ignored. There is money and interest here, and now is the time to ratchet it up--for the readers, the writers, and the cultural consumers.

A UNESCO endorsement is a big, floppy feather in our cap that will attract more funding for literary orgs, generate attention through the press, give authors something to add to their query letters and bios, and give us access to other cities--and their knowledge base--who have already joined the club. My god, why would we not invest in this.

@6 Any data on tourism expansion pre- and post- UNESCO designation for a city roughly the size of Seattle?

@6:

You give a lot of reasons why Seattle is already recognized as a major city for literary arts. You've more than made the case that a silly UNESCO designation does nothing that we haven't already done ourselves.

@7 That's a great question. I don't have access to that, though hopefully the people putting together the application are taking it into consideration.

@8 I'm a bit of a booster and an eternal optimist, and I can make quite a case when I'm passionate. One of the ideas with UNESCO designation, I think, is that people who don't have the energy and inclination to get all vociferous on the Internet about The Arts will still have that label to point to.

As far as nationally and internationally known name recognition in the field of literature, Seattle has...Amazon, pretty much. Yeah, we know how lucky and talented we are locally. But it'd be nice to make a case to the rest of the world that we are more than just Amazon.

@9 Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but Amazon is a much bigger deal than UNESCO, and only getting bigger.