Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/ChristopherWalker

In 2003, an Urban Institute report concluded that lack of affordable space posed critical constraints in artists’ ability to pursue their work effectively. Scarcity of affordable space not only made it difficult for artists to work but also disrupted entire communities of artists who relied on each other for ideas and support. In response to this finding, this report looks at both a range of ways in which more affordable artist spaces can be created and the impact of artists’ spaces on neighborhoods and cities.

After decades of suffering the grim reality and public stigma of economic decline, America's cities show promising signs of renaissance. Plummeting urban crime rates mean in reality safer streets and neighborhoods, even if these are all but ignored by local television news editors. Increasing numbers of restaurants, shops, and new homes have led to more active nightlife and an aura of vitality in close-in neighborhoods that were shunned not long ago. More and more people of all races and ethnicities have contributed to the vibrant urban mix that symbolizes the diversity and strength of an immigrant nation.

Supporters of urban revitalization have relied on community development corporations (CDCs) to carry a major share of the front-line burden. This research presents new evidence that these community-controlled, market-responsive organizations can indeed spark a chain reaction of investment. Advanced econometric analysis shows that CDC residential and commercial investments have led to increases in property values--the single-best measure of neighborhood improvement--as great as 69 percent higher than they would have been otherwise. To achieve these results, CDCs did more than just develop projects; they also brought business people, civic organizations, and public agencies into the neighborhood improvement process.

Urban parks have long played a vital role in community-based programs for young people. Their traditional role has been to provide venues for play--open spaces, playgrounds, sports fields, and recreational programs. But parks can go much further than simply providing opportunities for recreation. As the examples provided show urban parks can contribute to the fight against crime, childhood obesity, or run-down neighborhoods.

Organizations of all types are forming partnerships--including with organizations outside their fields--to help them carry out their missions. The arts are no exception: many are working with agencies not primarily devoted to the arts to accomplish their artistic and community service goals. These partnerships are not easy to forge or maintain, however, and involve real risks to reputations, constituent relations, organizational missions, and investments of time, money and talent. Fortunately, important practical lessons are emerging to help groups identify and reduce these risks. This brief presents some of these lessons.

Parks have long been recognized as major contributors to the physical and aesthetic quality of urban neighborhoods. But a new and broader view of parks has recently been emerging. This new view goes well beyond the traditional value of parks as places of recreation and as visual assets to communities, and focuses on how policymakers, practitioners, and the public can begin to think about parks as valuable contributors to larger urban policy objectives: job opportunities, youth development, public health, and community building. [View the corresponding press release]

Parks managers share an ultimate objective: to ensure that the parks they manage serve their communities the best way possible. Conducting surveys of park users offers the potential to help managers respond better to community needs, resolve conflicts among groups of park users, and manage park assets more effectively--all keys to maximizing the community benefits of parks. Recently, as part of the Wallace Foundation's Urban Parks Initiative, the Urban Institute designed and conducted usership surveys in four urban parks. Our experience illustrates that usership surveying is a potentially valuable tool for parks managers and suggests ways in which different types of surveys could be helpful. [View the corresponding press release]

People participate in arts and culture by attending events, encouraging their children to participate, making or performing art as amateurs, or supporting the arts through donations of time and money. This policy brief shows that the more ways people participate--and the more often--the more likely they are to engage in other activities that support community life. Encouraging people to advance along a "ladder of increasing commitment" within these four types of cultural participation will benefit both artistic institutions and civic and community organizations, thereby helping strengthen communities.

Many arts organizations are discovering that where people choose to attend arts and cultural events can be crucial to developing effective strategies for reaching broader and more diverse audiences. New research finds that more people attend arts and cultural events in community venues--such as open air spaces, schools, and places of worship--than in conventional arts venues, such as concert halls, theaters, museums, and art galleries. Although audiences for events held in both types of venues overlap, about one-fourth of the people who participate in arts and culture do so only in community venues, representing an untapped market for some cultural groups.

Traditional artists and economic development agencies have much to offer one another, but they need to get past the mismatch of needs, resources, and cultures in order to make productive partnerships work. This report shows how artists and agencies have partnered with one another to further the economic development of the areas in which they live and work. It points out where their assets complement one another, as well as where their liabilities pose special challenges. It also highlights the considerable value of intermediation, in which relationships between these unlike parties can be brokered effectively.

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