Stories
Mar 15, 2017
The U.S.-Mexico border has been long been portrayed as a source of threat and instability in political rhetoric. And that characterization has been particularly potent in this election, helping as it did, to pave Donald Trump’s path to victory. But not everyone sees it that way. Architect Teddy Cruz and political scientist Fonna Forman, who head the University of California San Diego Cross-Border... Read More
Mar 22, 2017
Amazing news! We have chosen Transportation for America (T4A) as our newest research partner in the field of transportation. T4A helps local leaders come together and ensure that states and the federal government invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions. T4A will be leading both our field scan research and working group convening, and we chose them because of... Read More
Mar 29, 2017
This month I had the opportunity to interview John Arroyo, an urban planner and PhD candidate at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. John is also a co-founder of Project 51, a collective of artists, designers, urban planners, writers, and educators, whose ArtPlace-funded first project, Play the LA River, invited participants to discover 56 unique... Read More
Mar 30, 2017
The Academy of American Poets, the nation’s largest membership-based literary organization, was founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry. Home to poets.org, one of the most visited websites for poetry, the Academy is also responsible for Poem-a-Day, National Poetry Month, and an array... Read More
Mar 30, 2017
We are proud to share with you a new paper from our partners at PolicyLink: Creating Change through Arts, Culture, and Equitable Development. This is a policy and practice primer that highlights approaches that can be brought to scale through policy change, addressing communities of color, low-income communities, and immigrant and rural White communities, drawing on their cultural... Read More
Apr 05, 2017
Danya Sherman began research on the ArtPlace Housing field scan with the hopes of understanding how creative strategies help build sustainable and healthy communities of opportunity. She saw firsthand how powerful arts and culture are in articulating complex dynamics of urban and community development; in raising the flag to indicate where need exists; in providing crucial emotional... Read More
Jan 30, 2020
Creative placemaking is a powerful tool for helping residents shape the future of their neighborhood. This tool, though, is best leveraged when different residents are represented. Unfortunately, many communities face a similar problem: the same people participate in community engagement, and the same hard-to-reach residents are missing from the conversations.
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Apr 17, 2017
In 2002, Richard Florida published a book that kicked off a wave of urban development efforts based on the belief that architects, artists, musicians, and writers were core members of an emergent creative class who together represented the economic future of our country. As the ideas in The Rise of the Creative Class circulated among mayors, city managers, economic... Read More
Apr 26, 2017
For the past five years, I’ve had the honor and privilege of serving as Soul Food Cypher’s founding Executive Director. SFC is a community based arts organization that utilizes freestyle rap and lyricism to transform communities and individuals. In the Summer of 2015, Soul Food Cypher was honored to receive a creative placemaking grant from ArtPlace America. ArtPlace invests... Read More
Apr 20, 2017
As Danya Sherman pointed out in her field scan on housing for ArtPlace Exploring the Ways that Arts and Culture Intersects with Housing, “One’s housing may be an opportunity to accumulate wealth, have short commutes, and live in well-resourced school districts, while others’ makes them particularly vulnerable to health hazards, economic and environmental shocks, and can prevent them from... Read More