Creative Placemaking:How do We Know it Works?

Ann MarkusenArts Economy Initiative

Humphrey SchoolUniversity of Minnesota

Markusen Economic Researchannmarkusen.com

Art of PlacemakingConference

Providence, RINovember 8, 2013

Creative Communities Artist Data User Guide

Ann Markusen and

Greg Schrock

What are the Place-based Missions of Arts and Culture?

Instrumental missions: art/culture as a means to other ends

Economic development: arts activities produce output, jobs, incomes, and neighborhood revitalization

Educational: arts competence improves children’s mathematics performance

Creative placemaking:

*animates public and private spaces

*rejuvenates structures and streetscapes

*improves local business viability and public safety

*brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired

with arts and culture at its core!

Intrinsic missions: unique contributions of art/culture:

Beauty

Emotional insight

Innovation

Social and political critique

Spiritual aspiration

Bonding: cherishing and passing tradition on

Bridging: learning about other cultures and sharing

Expression: Bill Ivey’s “the right to an expressive life”

McCarthy, Kevin, Elizabeth Heneghan Ondaatje, Laura Zakaras, and Arthur Brooks. 2004. Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts. www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG218/

Ivey, Bill. 2008. Arts, Inc: How Greed and Neglect have Destroyed our Cultural Rights. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Analogy with community health clinics

We don’t ask community health clinics what impact they have on surrounding businesses or property values

We want to know if they are improving community health!

Question 1:

From your own experience or from other cases you know, what are ways of demonstrating the unique, intrinsic contributions of arts and culture as features of placemaking?

The Challenges in Evaluating the Results of a Creative PlacemakingProject

International Journal of Urban Sciencesforthcoming. Published on-line, September 2013: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/12265934.2013.836291

Question 2:

How are you dealing with the problem that even if your creative placemaking efforts are bearing fruit, other forces in the same area are undercutting (or contributing to) overall success?

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Population Growth: Riverside's Neighborhood vs. Reno and Washoe County

Riverside Neighborhood Reno Washoe County

A closing future-looking question:

How can we and other creative placemakersgenerate more conversation and reflection on the place-targeted missions of arts and culture ?

…and how can we best evaluate, improve and share the remarkable practices currently bubbling up everywhere?

Ann MarkusenDirector, Arts Economy Initiative

Humphrey School of Public AffairsUniversity of Minnesota

http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/prie/index.html

markusen@umn.edu

Principal, Markusen Economic Research

annmarkusen.com

Creative Placemaking Arts.gov

New and forthcoming:

Creative Cities: A Ten-Year Research AgendaJournal of Urban Affairs, Spring 2014

Diversifying Support for ArtistsGIA Reader, Fall 2013

Artists Work EverywhereWork and Occupations, Fall 2013

From Audience to Participant (With Alan Brown)Theater and its Audiences, 2014

Spatial Divisions of Labor: How Key Worker Profiles Vary for the Same Industry in Different Regions (With Anne Gadwa Nicodemus)Handbook of Economic Geography and Industry Studies, 2013