Maine’s interest in the creative economy rises as other parts of its economy – manufacturing, natural resources, low-end service – fade or fail to pay a livable wage. Its interest converges on the idea that well-paying, clean employment through creativity can restore vitality to downtowns and make its communities uniquely desirable places to live and work.

On today’s Op-ed Page, Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, offers valuable and practical ideas on building a creative economy. Perhaps most important among those is that communities around the country have successfully reinvigorated themselves by making the arts a more important part of what they are. Mr. Gioia mentions several such places: Ashland, Ore., and its Shakespeare festival; Charleston, S.C., which has recreated Italy’s Spoleto arts festival; Charlotte, N.C., which turned its downdown into a center for the arts. (He also mentions ancient Athens’ Greater and Lesser Dionysia, which were theater competitions that paid homage to Dionysus, patron god of the stage and the god of wine, agriculture and fertility, an intriguing possibility.)

The creative economy is described in various ways. Richard Florida, a Carnegie Mellon professor who is a leading advocate for the idea, defines its successful cities as “places more tolerant, diverse, and open to creativity” with workers such as “scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers and architects, as well as the ‘thought leadership’ of modern society: nonfiction writers, editors, cultural figures, think-tank researchers, analysts and other opinion-makers.” The creative economy isn’t limited to these professions and different groups have defined it in different ways, but the common thought among all of them is that it is the workers themselves, rather than the machines they use or their rates of production, that matter most – as Mr. Florida says, “a high level of human capital.”

Every state wants to build on this idea, and Kathryn Hunt of the Margaret Chase Smith Center at the University of Maine explains in an accompanying commentary how Bangor might also. Maine’s newest attempt at the creative economy is through the governor’s committee organizing a Blaine House conference on the subject for next year. The committee’s work involves persuading businesses that this is something more than a fancy but empty idea, describing the benefits of making Maine a more diverse, dynamic place that provides opportunities in which young, educated adults – in short supply in many places in the state – can thrive and finding ways to capitalize on Maine’s strengths.

The first word of the phrase “creative economy” rides on the second. This is about making money and making it sustainably so that communities accustomed to watching old economies die can anticipate and encourage new life in their downtowns and neighborhoods. Mr. Gioia shows how the arts can help lead the way while enriching lives in more important ways, and his observations should find their way into Maine’s planning as it prepares for this new economy.