Redevelopment That Preserves Cultural Heritage
Preserving and fortifying longstanding culture is key to social cohesion in a community. How can we make sure it's given equal priority when planning for and funding redevelopment?
“Welcome to Little Tokyo, Please Take Off Your Shoes:” Remembering Dean Matsubayashi
Sustained resistance to gentrification and displacement requires more than antagonism. It requires a community organized around an open, positive alternative vision that has both big ambitions and achievable, intermediary steps.
A Radically Different Planning Process in Brownsville
In a year-long program that included bike rides, serenades, and Dragtivist performances, an art collective guided Brownsville, Texas, residents in reimagining how they could influence equity and justice in their city.
An Antidote to the Negativity Surrounding Rural America
With all the news of downward trends in rural America, this rural sociologist says he finally has something to smile about.
Harnessing the Creativity of Artists to Unlock Community Wealth
With collaboration among Dallas' arts community, a place-based initiative called CultureBank invests in social impact artists in order to steward community assets to promote the health and well being of residents.
The Next Generation of Indigenous Knowledge Keepers
A tribal college program works to preserve crucial Native American cultural elements while training indigenous women to step into leadership roles in their communities.
Using Theater to Envision Racial Equity Solutions
Techniques from the arts world can help us envision and re-envision relationships and systems to spot stress points and opportunities within communities.
Regenerating a Place of Cultural Pride and Healing in Albuquerque’s Barelas Neighborhood
Restoring a community's culturally significant site in Albuquerque to be a true economic resource as well as a source of healing.
Arts, Culture, and Community Mental Health
Examples of projects around the country that are infusing community development with creativity and collaboration and stimulating the potential for unique mental health benefits.
Working Through Growing Pains in Artist/Community Developer Collaborations
At their roots, both the arts and community development amplify a people’s voice. And while this connection makes sense on paper, it can look a lot different in practice. We would like to share three insights from our work together that speak to the promise, and peril, of such collaboration.
Reimagining a Neighborhood, The Way It Ought To Be
The arts have a long history of highlighting social issues and creating public conversation that results in measurable change. As an arts administrator with...
Sitting on a Porch Can Be Good for Your Health
To help combat isolation and reweave the connecting fabric that had been lost, a neighborhood arts center launches an initiative that eventually became a movement.
Starting Conversations with Public Art
An arts collaboration comes up with a creative spark to facilitate discussions about neighborhood change.
Regrets of an Accidental Placemaker
Had I unintentionally contributed to the gentrification of my neighborhood and other neighborhoods around Washington, D.C.?
Poem: ms. margaret on her landline phone with ruth, talking about her new neighbors...
A poem engaging equity for the author's godmother and other women who begin their sentences with the word "chile."
The $9 Jar of Artisanal Pickles: Equity and Local Food
Sustainability is about thriving, not just surviving. We will not thrive if we are poorly paid martyrs to a good cause, and thus, in a healthy, diverse and vital food system, some of our efforts might need to be directed to those who can pay nine dollars for a jar of pickles.
The Gentrification Will Be Televised
The North Pole opens discussion between residents of gentrifying neighborhoods and elevates the personal stories and memories of those being displaced.
Generating Civic Power in North Philadelphia
An organization embarks on a community-driven design process to transform two vacant row homes into a site for residents, artists, and law enforcement to collaborate on new public safety strategies rooted in care rather than control.
Using Art to Create Community at a Clinic
Arts projects at a Minneapolis clinic created a natural connection between people who might not otherwise interact.
Miracle on 42nd Street: A Tale of Artist Housing
The story behind a bold idea to create a subsidized housing community for artists in a New York City neighborhood.