Americans for the Arts

Mara Walker

June seems like convention season in the arts world. There are lots of national arts organizations developing educational and networking programs for their constituents.  If you are an arts discipline organization like a theatre or chorus or a service organization like a local arts agency there is a gathering for you next month.

Why choose the Americans for the Arts convention? Sure, it has workshops like other conferences and we cover topics like finding creative funding sources for your work, getting arts supportive local ballots passed, mapping your cultural ecosystem, serving diverse audiences, working toward equitable funding for the arts and much more. Naturally, it has receptions at amazing venues like The Andy Warhol Museum and the Mattress Factory. Yes, it has amazing award winning, game-changing speakers like Jim Messina, Manuel Pastor, Bill Strickland, Paula Kerger, Gary Knell, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Adam Goldman, Matt Arrigo, Tim McClimon and Edgar Smith. And there will be plenty of opportunity to hear from peers, colleagues and decision makers about how they are ensuring the arts are sustained and seen as core to building better communities.

We’ve picked an amazing city, Pittsburgh, for the convention where you can literally see the arts making a difference as you walk down Liberty Avenue. In return, Pittsburgh has the Three River Arts Festival, Gay Pride and baseball games taking place while we are there, June 14-16, so you can have the best of times.

Theresa Cameron

I'm so excited to welcome you to our blog salon devoted solely to arts, entertainment, and cultural districts. Wondering what exactly we're talking about? We loosely define a cultural district as: “...a well-recognized, labeled, mixed-use area of a city in which a high concentration of cultural facilities serves as the anchor of attraction and robust economic activity.”

A few important bits of information:

• More than 600 communities in the U.S. have designated cultural districts.
• Some cities have formal boundary lines with specific zoning ordinances and economic tax incentives.
• Others have more informal, unofficial boundaries that become a marketing focal point to cluster arts organizations.
• Twelve states have enacted statewide arts, entertainment, and cultural district legislation.

Since the late 1990s, Americans for the Arts has been monitoring the growth of arts, entertainment, and cultural districts across the United States, documenting their location, and reviewing, in relevant cases, their legislation of creation. In 1998 Americans for the Arts published the Cultural Districts Handbook, a first of its kind guide for establishing and developing districts. The Handbook examined districts in 24 U.S. cities. Since the Handbook’s publication, however, the number of districts has grown. Given the phenomenal rate at which the district model has been and continues to be adopted across the country, there is a clear and compelling need for new technical assistance and training resources designed to meet the unique needs of those charged with creating, maintaining, and evaluating districts.

John Eger

President Obama has said repeatedly that "We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world." According to Forbes Magazine, "If there was a central theme to the president's remarks, it was innovation."

Yet, although everybody is talking about how innovation is what we need and will solve our jobless dilemma, few people know what innovation is or how we get it, or critically, what our communities must do to meet the challenges of the new age.

It is becoming clear that art and culture districts are vital to ensuring vibrant economic activity in our cities. They are foreshadowing a whole new economy based upon creativity and innovation.

Fortunately, Americans for the Arts (AFTA), who as early as 1998 researched the emergence of such districts in which the arts were used as part of a strategy for revitalizing cities, has now launched an even more ambitious effort:

A plan to produce an update of the earlier report, and more importantly, a three year effort - inviting mayors and other city executives, architects, city planners, and experts in the field to “blog”, and to participate in webinars and conferences to help cities and towns across America to reinvent their community for the new age, this rapidly emerging age of  "creativity and innovation.”