Culture and Community Revitalization: A SIAP/Reinvestment Fund Collaboration—2007-2009

Between 2006 and 2008, with support by the Rockefeller Foundation, SIAP collaborated with The Reinvestment Fund, a community development financial institution (CDFI), on an investigation of the cultural sector's potential contribution to neighborhood economic and community development. Reinvestment Fund staff of challenged SIAP to identify how its research on the role of arts and culture in urban communities could be applied to the practice of revitalization and redevelopment. In turn, SIAP challenged Reinvestment Fund to redefine how a CDFI could think about the cultural sector. One surprise outcome was Reinvestment Fund's realization that it was already investing in the cultural sector. In fact, around 8 percent of its total portfolio consisted of creative sector projects, including the Crane Arts building (see 2007 policy brief).

Through the collaboration, Reinvestment Fund and SIAP arrived at a common perspective. The team agreed that today's urban policy environment requires us to consider a wider range of "players" in the development of strategies and that the gap between policy-makers and practitioners has narrowed. They agreed, as well, that an ecological approach that focuses on how different elements of the cultural sector interact with neighborhood regeneration processes is a productive starting point for the emerging field of culture-based revitalization. Finally, they endorsed the need to integrate policy, research, and practice to advance this field.

The SIAP/Reinvestment Fund collaboration produced a critical review of the literature, including discussion of the changing structure of the cultural sector in the context of "the new urban reality"; a set of policy briefs; and a prospectus for community investment. The reports and briefs in the SIAP Collection can also be found on the Reinvestment Fund website: https://www.reinvestment.com/impact/research-publications/?topic=creative-economy.

Two articles based on the SIAP/Reinvestment Fund collaboration were published in the Grantmakers in the Arts Reader: Volume 19, No. 3, Fall 2008 (Seattle: Grantmakers in the Arts). The articles—"Culture and Community Revitalization: A Collaboration” by Susan C. Seifert, Mark J. Stern, and Jeremy Nowak—are available online at: https://www.giarts.org/article/culture-and-community-revitalization-collaboration.

 

 

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  • Publication
    “Natural” Cultural Districts and Neighborhood Revitalization
    (2009-06-01) Stern, Mark J
    In this presentation, Stern argues for a policy approach that recognizes creativity as deeply embedded in urban social structure and the importance of diversity (economic, ethnic, and household) to the social production of the arts and culture. Only then can we come up with strategies that stimulate a creative society, not just a creative economy.
  • Publication
    Culture and Urban Revitalization
    (2007-06-01) Stern, Mark J
    This presentation references the SIAP/TRF Harvest Document (Jan 2007) to provide a critical review of literature on culture and urban revitalization. Posing the question--Does creativity have a pay-off for distressed cities?—the talk highlights shortcomings of arguments based solely on the arts as economic engine, including current theory on the creative economy and the creative class. Stern argues that a cultural cluster approach--which is really about economic sociology--leads to a focus on social impacts and an inclusive vision of culture-based revitalization.
  • Publication
    From Creative Economy to Creative Society
    (2008-01-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    Public policy promoting the creative economy has two serious flaws: one, a misperception of culture and creativity as a product of individual genius rather than collective activity; and, two, a willingness to tolerate social dislocation in exchange for urban vitality or competitive advantage. This brief recaps current culture and revitalization research and policy and proposes a new model—a neighborhood based creative economy—that has the potential to move the 21st century city toward shared prosperity and social integration.
  • Publication
    Culture and Urban Revitalization: A Harvest Document
    (2007-01-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This document provides an overview of the state-of-the-art literature on culture and urban revitalization. Part 2 places the creative sector in contemporary context with a discussion of three social dynamics: the “new urban reality”, the changing structure of the creative sector, and the emergence of transactional policy-making. Part 3 turns to the major dimensions of current literature on culture-based urban revitalization: the promise of the creative economy; culture’s role in building community capacity; and the negative consequences of culture-based development. Part 4 uses the critical synthesis afforded by the review of literature to propose a new model of a neighborhood-based creative economy. Part 5 concludes with a reflection on research gaps and implications for community development policy and practice. Here the authors postulate that U.S. cities have the potential to regenerate urban neighborhoods through culture-based strategies that combine wealth-creation and social justice—but only by digesting the lessons of past experience.
  • Publication
    Cultivating “Natural” Cultural Districts
    (2007-09-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This brief presents the concept of “natural” cultural district as a vehicle to translate grassroots culture into urban revitalization. The term is both descriptive and analytical. Descriptively, a “natural” cultural district identifies a neighborhood that has spawned a density of assets—organizations, businesses, participants, and artists—that sets it apart from other neighborhoods. Analytically, cultural clusters are of interest because of density’s side effects. They can build community, spur cultural production, and attract new services and residents. The challenge is how to encourage these geographically-defined social networks without snuffing out the spark that makes them distinctive. “Natural” cultural districts must be cultivated. To do so, we mush first understand their ecology and how they fit into the contemporary urban arts scene.
  • Publication
    Migrants, Communities, and Culture
    (2008-01-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C; Vitiello, Domenic
    New immigrants have already changed Philadelphia's cultural scene—particularly in urban neighborhoods. This brief uses three types of evidence— a small-area database of cultural participation, a survey of residents of North Philadelphia and Camden, NJ, and a survey of artists living or working in the metropolitan area—to explore migrant cultural engagement. Taken together, SIAP’s evidence on artists and cultural participants paints a portrait of migrants and foreign-born residents who are positively oriented toward cultural expression but frustrated by institutional, spatial, and socio-economic barriers. Can culture serve as a means of linking new Philadelphians to other social institutions?
  • Publication
    Creativity and Neighborhood Development: Strategies for Community Investment
    (2007-12-01) Nowak, Jeremy
    In this publication, Jeremy Nowak, President and CEO of The Reinvestment Fund, examines the role of community-based arts and cultural activity in neighborhood development and points towards strategies for building an integrated vision of creativity and development. The monograph focuses on the ways cultural activity and neighborhood development have complementary and in some ways intertwined missions. Nowak also offers a framework for flexible investment and funding that supports the synthesis of creativity, development, and knowledge and contributes to imaginative and substantive urban revitalization.
  • Publication
    Crane Arts: Financing Artist' Workspaces
    (2007-08-01) The Reinvestment Fund; Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP)
    This brief tells the story of Crane Arts, the conversion of Crane Plumbing Company's 1905 factory and warehouse in Philadelphia's Old Kensington, to affordable artist studio and gallery space. In spring 2004 two artists and a developer--Crane Arts LLC purchased the property and began the challenge of rehabilitation of a century-old factory in a former manufacturing district. Along the way, they heard about TRF's lending activities, including commercial real estate in urban neighborhoods. The Crane Arts project was a perfect fit for TRF, which views the arts as critical to the health of a community and invests in projects that have the potential to catalyze revitalization in Philadelphia neighborhoods. The success of Crane Arts has encouraged TRF to finance other artist centers in Philadelphia.
  • Publication
    Culture and Neighborhood Revitalization
    (2008-04-01) Stern, Mark J
    This presentation was prepared for a convening of the Delaware Valley Grantmakers in Philadelphia in April 2008. The purpose of the talk was to draw on SIAP research--in particular, insights from the SIAP/Reinvestment Fund collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation--to shed light on the emerging role of philanthropy in culture-based neighborhood revitalization.
  • Publication
    Cultural Assets Agglomeration and Neighborhood Revitalization: An Empirical Investigation of Philadelphia, 1997 - 2006
    (2009-10-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This presentation reviews SIAP's research in Philadelphia over the previous decade, in particular, the development of empirical methods to examine the links between cultural engagement and neighborhood revitalization. The talk highlights data and methods used to construct a Cultural Asset Index for Philadelphia; key findings regarding social and community impacts of cultural assets agglomeration; and implications for research, policy, and planning.