Over the last 50 years, local government in Australia has increasingly practiced cultural development as a means of supporting community cohesion, wellbeing, sense of identity and economic development. The practice includes activities intended to elicit, express or explore aspects of community life that lend themselves to these goals, including arts practices that are generally integral to the activities. The requirement of funding bodies to evaluate the effectiveness of subsidised programs has led to a tendency to view the arts instrumentally, that is, as a means to an end. That tends to leave discussion of the intrinsic value of the arts relatively undeveloped or unresolved. The paper argues for the use of an adaptive frame for evaluating cultural development and for cultural development's institutional contribution to local government and its communities to be better recognised. Integrated strategies are available for a systems view of cultural development and the paper discusses how this can contribute to governance approaches in local government.