Creative placemaking and the NEA: unpacking a multi-level governance

Cultural and Creative Industries and Urban (Re)Development in China

“…Fourth, innovative research designs could shed light on how the development of CCIs engages the private and public sectors, nonprofit organizations, and local communities in including social justice and socioeconomic sustainability. Various studies have highlighted new trends of creative placemaking in urban planning that focus on arts-led, place-based development through multisector relationships (Lin 2019;Markusen and Gadwa 2010;Redaelli 2016). These practices (1) promote moving the arts out of the studio and into neighborhoods (Chu and Shupbach 2014); (2) emphasize the importance of local, organically formed cultural clusters and a robust arts ecosystem, rather than advancing the arts as an outside economic driver (Lin 2018;Lin and Hsing 2009;Stern and Seifert 2013); and (3) encourage formal practices of urban planning and redevelopment, informal practices such as the "makers movement," and everyday urbanism (Sweeney et al 2018;Zitcer 2018).…”

Making Up Creative Placemaking

“…Placemaking was conceived as a reaction to a perceived loss of a sense of “place” amid the architectural dystopia of the urban renewal era. Placemaking has a variety of influences, primarily Jane Jacobs’s neighborhood activism (Redaelli 2016). Though the creative placemaking moniker is newly minted, similar practices exist throughout the history of city making (Bianchini 2012).…”

“…Markusen and Gadwa were substantially influenced by the work of Maria Rosario Jackson at the Urban Institute (e.g., Jackson 2011, 2012) as well as the work of the Social Impact of the Arts Project (Stern and Seifert 2007, 2010). Markusen and Gadwa highlighted the importance of cross-sectoral intergovernmental partnerships, thus advancing the interests of the arts sector among a broad coalition of policy actors in Washington and beyond (Redaelli 2016). Their place-based approach to the arts combined with placing arts in partnership with better endowed federal agencies fulfilled both Shigekawa and Landesman’s goals to bolster the standing of the NEA and meet the administration’s place-based policy mandate.…”

“…The evolution of creative placemaking has been discussed elsewhere (Axel-Lute 2017a; Nicodemus 2013; Redaelli 2016), yet these accounts are largely descriptive and based on an epistemology of rational actors working in concert to deliberately birth creative placemaking as we now know it. By contrast, my understanding is grounded in the notion of policymaking as discourse, foregrounding the complex and contradictory strands that came together to form creative placemaking, and help to explain the ongoing resistance to the concept even as it gains traction in planning and policy circles.…”

Creative Placemaking in the United States

“…But what exactly has the NEA done in promoting creative placemaking? Three main action can be identified: (1) the NEA has spread the use of this term among cultural practitioners with the publication of a white paper titled "Creative placemaking;" (2) it offered funding for projects based on the creative placemaking ideas included in the white paper creating the grant "OutTown;" (3) it leveraged funding and spurred collaborations among different sectors to involve multiple actors in the implementation of creative placemaking projects and ideas initiating the partnership "Artplace" (Redaelli, 2016).…”