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

This report introduces a definition of cultural vitality that includes the range of cultural activity people around the country find significant. We use this definition as a lens to clarify our understanding of data necessary, as well as the more limited data currently available, to document arts and culture in communities in a consistent, recurrent and reliable manner. We develop and recommend an initial set of arts and culture indicators derived from nationally available data, and compare selected metropolitan areas based on these measures. Policy and planning implications for use of the cultural vitality definition and related measures are discussed.

The report presents the overall findings of Investing in Creativity: A Study of the Support Structure for U.S. Artists. A major contribution of the study is a new comprehensive framework for analysis and action, which views the support structure for artists in the U.S. as a system made up of six key dimensions of the environment in which an artist works. This builds on previous and ongoing Urban Institute work to measure characteristics of place that make a culturally vibrant community. The study provides information on the status of various dimensions of the artists' support structure--both nationally and in specific sites.

Based on several years of field research in communities around the U.S., this brief presents a framework for better capturing and measuring arts, culture, and creative expression at the neighborhood level. Specifically, the brief discusses four domains essential to understanding community cultural conditions and dynamics: presence of opportunities for cultural engagement, cultural participation, impacts of participation, and systems of support for cultural expression.

Cultural participation is an important element of community life and an essential component of community building. But delineating the full role such participation plays in the community is dependent on capturing the range of ways in which people actually participate in creative expression. This brief presents our findings on a range of arts and cultural participation within the context of various community-building processes.

Robust cultural participation in any community depends heavily on having an effective system of support--a system that is made up of the contributions and relationships of many different kinds of stakeholders both inside and outside the cultural realm. Despite the centrality of understanding systems of support to people concerned with neighborhood conditions and dynamics as well as cultural vitality, this topic has received little research attention. This brief summarizes what we have learned so far about support systems that operate in communities and the characteristics of those systems most likely to produce opportunities for cultural engagement.

This report presents the guiding principles and conceptual framework developed by, and underlying the work of, the Urban Institute's Arts and Culture Indicators in Community Building Project (ACIP). The report also reviews the current state of data and research on integrating arts, culture, and creativity into quality of life measures and suggests prospects for future developments. It is the first in a series of publications of the Institute's Culture, Creativity, and Communities program.

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