Culture and Social Wellbeing in New York City—2014-2017

From 2014 to 2017, building on their work in Philadelphia, SIAP with Reinvestment Fund undertook a study of culture and social wellbeing in New York City. The project involved development of a 10-dimension social wellbeing framework—beginning with construction of a cultural asset index—for every neighborhood in New York City’s five boroughs. Integration of cultural assets into a multi-dimensional index of social wellbeing allows us to assess the contribution of culture and the arts to neighborhood ecology and their relationship to broader community vitality.

NYC’s social wellbeing tool enabled a variety of analyses: the distribution of opportunity across the City; identification of areas with concentrated advantage, areas with concentrated disadvantage, as well as “diverse and struggling” neighborhoods with both strengths and challenges; and analysis of the relationship of neighborhood cultural ecology to other features of community wellbeing. Qualitative neighborhood studies—with a focus on Fort Greene in Brooklyn and East Harlem in Manhattan—helped the research team interpret and elaborate the findings of the quantitative analyses.

The final research report (March 2017) and accompanying briefs (Feb 2016, Feb 2017) document the conceptual framework, data and methodology, findings and implications of the three-year project. Since release of the March 2017 report, the research team has completed four working papers on New York City that further explore the relationship of neighborhood cultural ecology to social wellbeing—the concepts that have animated the research—and expand our understanding of the dynamics of neighborhood change as the context within which cultural ecosystems evolve. Two papers discuss new methods, developed by SIAP and Reinvestment Fund, to assess rapid neighborhood change in light of citywide patterns of geographic mobility and displacement risk among residents.

The Culture and Social Wellbeing in New York City project was undertaken with support by the Surdna Foundation, the New York City Cultural Agenda Fund in the New York Community Trust, and the University of Pennsylvania. The research was conducted between 2014 and 2017.

 

 

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  • Publication
    Culture and social wellbeing in New York City: Concepts and methods
    (2017-09-01) Stern, Mark J
    This presentation was prepared to accompany Mark Stern’s discussion of the conceptual framework, data and methods, findings, implications, and policy impacts of research undertaken between 2014 and 2017 on the relationship of culture to social wellbeing in New York City. The concepts of neighborhood cultural ecosystem, social wellbeing, and civic engagement provide the rationale for the study of culture and social justice. Data and methods involved are: development of a citywide cultural asset database; construction of a multi-dimensional model of social wellbeing at the neighborhood level; and interviews with cultural and community practitioners to add depth to the quantitative analyses. Findings related to the geography of inequality and gaps in neighborhood cultural ecology suggest opportunities for public investment and philanthropy. The research has had policy uptake by the Mayor’s Office of Operations’ OneNYC (The Plan for a Strong and Just City), NYC Department of Cultural Affairs’ first comprehensive cultural plan (CreateNYC: A Cultural Plan for All New Yorkers, July 2017), and in establishment of an interagency Culture Cabinet.
  • Publication
    Divergent Paths--Rapid Neighborhood Change and the Cultural Ecosystem
    (2017-12-01) Seifert, Susan C; Stern, Mark J
    This paper considers the impact of rapid neighborhood change on the cultural ecology of Fort Greene and surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods based on qualitative study undertaken during 2016 for the NYC project. The paper argues that rapid neighborhood change causes an attenuation of the organic neighborhood connections among artists, creative businesses, cultural organizations, and cultural participants—that is, the neighborhood cultural ecology. Cumulatively these changes in cultural ecology further weaken the neighborhood ecosystem and introduce an additional source of inequality with respect to the wellbeing of the City’s communities. In response to rapid neighborhood change, different cultural agents find themselves on divergent paths as they respond to challenges and seize opportunities. The paper identifies and illustrates four trajectories: 1) the uprooted and replanted—organizations and individuals for whom rapid neighborhood change has made their existing modus operandi and/or location untenable; 2) flourishers—organizations and individuals that have been able to benefit from the economic and social effects of a neighborhood undergoing rapid change; 3) adaptors and transplants—organizations and individuals, both locals and outsiders, that have devised survival strategies in the face of increasing challenges; and 4) new growth—new cultural entities that have seen the emergent ecology as an opportunity. These trajectories, posed as more a set of hypotheses than a set of findings, are based on approximately 40 interviews conducted during 2016 and supplemented by references from those interviews.
  • Publication
    Using PUMS to Calculate Geographic Mobility in New York City
    (2017-10-01) Stern, Mark J
    New York City’s remarkable population growth over recent decades has heightened concerns about gentrification and displacement. In this paper, SIAP uses census data drawn from the annual American Community Survey (ACS) to identify patterns of geographic mobility common in New York City Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) during the past decade. Major findings include: 1) New York City residents tend to move less frequently than those of other major cities; 2) the city displays two distinct dimensions of geographic mobility—one associated with high population turnover (number of residents moving in and out of a neighborhood) and a second associated with net population change (shifts in the ethnic and educational composition of the area); and 3) the presence of cultural assets in the neighborhood is associated with high turnover, but not with shifts in the ethnic and educational composition of the area. The paper concludes with observations about how these different patterns might affect residents’ experience of rapid neighborhood change.
  • Publication
    Social Networks and Inequality in New York City's Cultural Sector
    (2017-10-01) Stern, Mark J
    This paper uses NYC Department of Cultural Affairs data on grantee program sites to address questions about structural inequality associated with the geography of cultural resources across New York City. The analysis supports and expands SIAP findings documented in its March 2017 report about the geography of culture in New York City. On the one hand, the distribution of program sites across the City is consistent with that of other cultural assets. Program sites tend to reinforce rather than mitigate the shortfall of cultural opportunities in the majority of lower-income neighborhoods. At the same time, it demonstrates that civic clusters—low-income neighborhoods with relatively large numbers of cultural assets—have stronger and more diverse institutional networks. This paper suggests that improving social wellbeing in lower-income neighborhoods requires strengthening both local and regional networks.
  • Publication
    Understanding neighborhood change: An approach to assessing displacement risk among NYC residents
    (2017-10-01) Goldstein, Ira; Dowdall, Emily; Weidig, Colin
    The SIAP research team has sought to develop methods to assess the complexity of rapid neighborhood change in New York and other U.S. cities. Reinvestment Fund developed an approach to identify locations in New York City where the housing market has changed in a way that residents who have been in a community for several years cannot likely be replaced by people of similar economic means. This paper discusses their method—called Displacement Risk Ratio (DRR)—for identifying areas at risk of displacement (or the inability to replace a resident population over time) based on the gap between housing costs and household income. The paper identifies six patterns in neighborhoods with significant DRR Sales increases as a preliminary typology of change: 1) transitioned from majority black or Hispanic to racially/ethnically diverse; 2) remained predominantly black or Hispanic; 3) remained predominantly white; 4) Asian immigrant neighborhoods; 5) remained diverse; and 6) high residential development areas. The conclusion reviews the potential for use of the DRR method to assess neighborhood change in New York City.
  • Publication
    Culture's Contribution to Social Wellbeing & Neighborhood Vitality
    (2016-02-01) University of Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project; Reinvestment Fund
    In the fall of 2014, building on their work in Philadelphia, Penn's Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) and Reinvestment Fund began to develop a policy tool to assess how culture contributes to social wellbeing in New York City neighborhoods. This brief is a summary of the project rationale--that is, why and how to measure social wellbeing--and its potential to guide policy toward more equitable and livable communities.
  • Publication
    Culture and Social Wellbeing in New York City: Highlights of a Two-Year Research Project
    (2017-02-01) University of Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP); Reinvestment Fund
    Understanding the social value of the arts and culture in New York City neighborhoods was the goal of the research undertaken between 2014 and 2017 by Penn's Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) in collaboration with Reinvestment Fund. This brief is a summary of the conceptual framework, data and methodology, findings and implications of the research discussed in the full report--The Social Wellbeing of New York City's Neighborhoods: The Contributions of Culture and the Arts (March 2017).
  • Publication
    The Social Wellbeing of New York City's Neighborhoods: The Contribution of Culture and the Arts
    (2017-03-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This research report presents the conceptual framework, data and methodology, findings and implications of a three-year study of the relationship of cultural ecology to social wellbeing across New York City neighborhoods. The team gathered data from City agencies, borough arts councils, and cultural practitioners to develop a 10-dimension social wellbeing framework—beginning with construction of a cultural asset index—for every neighborhood in the City’s five boroughs. The social wellbeing tool enabled a variety of analyses: the distribution of opportunity across the City; identification of areas with concentrated advantage, concentrated disadvantage, and “diverse and struggling” neighborhoods with both strengths and challenges; and analysis of the relationship of “neighborhood cultural ecology” to other features of community wellbeing. Major findings include: 1) Cultural resources are unequally distributed across the city, with many neighborhoods having few resources. 2) At the same time, there are a significant number of civic clusters—that is, lower-income neighborhoods with more cultural resources than their economic standing would lead us to predict. 3) Although lower-income neighborhoods have relatively few resources, these neighborhoods demonstrate the strongest relationship between culture and social wellbeing. Notably, if we control for socio-economic status and ethnic composition, the presence of cultural resources is significantly associated with improved outcomes around health, schooling, and personal security. Qualitative study highlighted how neighborhood cultural ecology also contributes to other dimensions of wellbeing—in particular, social connection, political and cultural voice, and the public environment and public sphere.