This is the fourth in a series of briefs that describe the changes, insights, and lessons when arts and cultural strategies are deployed in service of comprehensive community development and planning. During ArtPlace America's Community Development Investments initiative, six participating organizations which had not previously focused on the arts developed creative placemaking projects and cultural strategies that could help them more effectively achieve their missions. PolicyLink conducted a research and documentation project to measure the progress, immediate outcomes, and impacts of those projects.

This brief examines how artist researchers in theater, film, photography, and other disciplines brought different questions, sensibilities, and methods to bear to creatively document the CDI initiative as a whole and to advance the goals of the individual site teams. Download the brief.

This is the fourth in a series of applied research agendas, composed of four components, that when taken as a group, form a blueprint for generating and translating knowledge about arts, culture, and equitable development in 2020. The goal of the series is to encourage the examination of these various issues and see that the importance of arts and culture strategies is recognized by potential researchers and those who can use that research. This agenda explores the impact of immigrant food agents in low-income communities of color and identifies their unique characteristics, challenges, and strengths, which may not be currently served by existing healthy food access and food system programs.

Applied Research Agenda series:

1. The Impact of Arts and Culture on Relocation Assistance Programs
2. The Impact of Arts and Culture Strategies on Streetscape Design and Mobility Projects
3. Equitable Business Improvement Districts as a Creative Placemaking Model
4. Immigrant Food Systems and Redefining “Healthy” and “Local” Food 

This is the third in a series of applied research agendas, composed of four components, that when taken as a group, form a blueprint for generating and translating knowledge about arts, culture, and equitable development in 2020. The goal of the series is to encourage the examination of these various issues and see that the importance of arts and culture strategies is recognized by potential researchers and those who can use that research. This agenda explores how “value capture strategies” can be used to make urban creative placemaking projects such as those led by Business Improvement Districts more equitable.

Applied Research Agenda series:

1. The Impact of Arts and Culture on Relocation Assistance Programs
2. The Impact of Arts and Culture Strategies on Streetscape Design and Mobility Projects
3. Equitable Business Improvement Districts as a Creative Placemaking Model
4. Immigrant Food Systems and Redefining “Healthy” and “Local” Food 

This is the second in a series of applied research agendas, composed of four components, that when taken as a group, form a blueprint for generating and translating knowledge about arts, culture, and equitable development in 2020. The goal of the series is to encourage the examination of these various issues and see that the importance of arts and culture strategies is recognized by potential researchers and those who can use that research. This agenda explores, through recent innovative cases, the impact of a community’s creative and cultural approaches to street design standards on mobility and safety. 

Applied Research Agenda series:

1. The Impact of Arts and Culture on Relocation Assistance Programs
2. The Impact of Arts and Culture Strategies on Streetscape Design and Mobility Projects
3. Equitable Business Improvement Districts as a Creative Placemaking Model
4. Immigrant Food Systems and Redefining “Healthy” and “Local” Food 

This is the first in a series of applied research agendas, composed of four components, that when taken as a group, form a blueprint for generating and translating knowledge about arts, culture, and equitable development in 2020. The goal of the series is to encourage the examination of these various issues and see that the importance of arts and culture strategies is recognized by potential researchers and those who can use that research. This agenda explores the role of arts and culture in increasing the rate of successful return and the social cohesion of residents who were temporarily displaced due to redevelopment. 

Applied Research Agenda series:

1. The Impact of Arts and Culture on Relocation Assistance Programs
2. The Impact of Arts and Culture Strategies on Streetscape Design and Mobility Projects
3. Equitable Business Improvement Districts as a Creative Placemaking Model
4. Immigrant Food Systems and Redefining “Healthy” and “Local” Food 

To help inform voters' decision making, PolicyLink has studied the issues and created a 2020 ballot guide. Spanish version is available. 

This is the third in a series of briefs that describe the changes, insights, and lessons when arts and cultural strategies are deployed in service of comprehensive community development and planning. During ArtPlace America's Community Development Investments initiative, six participating organizations which had not previously focused on the arts developed creative placemaking projects and cultural strategies that could help them more effectively achieve their missions. PolicyLink conducted a research and documentation project to measure the progress, immediate outcomes, and impacts of those projects.

This brief examines how community developers working with artists created innovative ways of organizing residents and building power for policy change.

Explore more about our research and documentation project and view the other briefs at communitydevelopment.art/strategies.

The issue highlights how community development that infuses arts and cultural strategies helps residents reclaim community identity, strengthen cultural resilience, and build power—all key components of achieving equitable community development outcomes. It also explores changes and practices to the field of creative placemaking and provides new deep dives, perspectives, and analysis on the implications of this work for broad equitable development goals. Read the full issue here.

The issue features research and documentation from ArtPlace America’s Community Development Investments (CDI) program. The CDI program was a significant three-year investment of resources and technical assistance in six community development organizations who had not previously worked with the arts and culture sector. These investments have yielded valuable insights and lessons for a wide range of fields of practice, from affordable housing development to parks stewardship, from the social practice of art to youth development, from community organizing to public health. With new tools and ways of thinking, imagining, and acting, they have helped residents own and express the identity of their communities, build cultural resilience, and change the ways in which neighborhood planning is carried out.

Read more about the issue on the National Endowment for the Arts’s Art Works Blog or watch video from a release event held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Public funds, established by legislation, ordinance or resolution, to receive specific revenues dedicated to affordable housing development. (2004)