In recent memory, the topic of community building has been examined and explored in countless ways. The arts have effectively played the role as convener and construction worker in matters of community. The arts have potential to connect people within a community in new ways, to bringing disparate people together, and to tap into a communitys latent creativity.ﾝ Another recent buzz-word often heard in community building circles is smart growth, ﾝ or a series of activities designed to re-orient and re-center the physical design of communities so that their community fabric is strengthened.ﾝ The smart growth movement focuses on creating vibrant and equitable communities, revitalizing older neighborhoods, keeping housing affordable, and creating diverse new communities and neighborhoods that have greater access to mass transit and is less dependent on automobiles.

How do the arts mix with smart growth? The arts have become a focal point for community building, while the smart growth movement has become a focal point for creating better places. In some communities, the overlap of these two movements is key to a community building strategy. In other communities, the two movements proceed along separate tracks. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role each plays in building communities and the potential they have to work together to this end.

The authors introduce the topic by defining the term community and distinguish it into two categories: as a community of interestﾝ and acommunity of place. In a community of interest, such as in an arts community, persons have a keen desire to seek out and bond with like-minded individuals; as expected, a community of place is rooted in geography. However strong, communities of interest cannot displace communities of place. Robert D. Putnam, in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, has warned us that some communities of place have become disconnected. A popular solution to this growing concern has been to call upon communities of interest to strengthen communities of place. Here is where the arts intersect.

When deployed, an arts community represents a network of community amenities that is almost unrivalled in its ability to connect people and places in new and strong ways. It is widespread knowledge that the arts can infuse urban communities with new energy and invigorate neglected neighborhoods, which in turn can pump up real estate prices. Advocates have known for years that the arts also can boost connectivity among residents in rural communities. However, it is less known that the arts can play an active role in a suburban setting as well.

This is an important new fact, as the majority of Americans now call themselves suburbanites. A recent report by the McKnight Foundation, entitled A New Angle, points out that a vast number of working artists and volunteer-based arts organizations successfully operate in the suburbs, bringing artistic and cultural activities much closer to suburban residents.ﾝ Contrary to belief, the report concluded that the suburbs contain a vast number of artists, a large market, and a considerable donor base. Much potential exists in this area: the suburbs themselves have become more ethnically diverse; they are largely underserved by the arts; and demand for artistic product is high.

With that said, there are challenges. Traditional suburbs have been both targeted as potential new markets by urban arts groups and derided by smart growth advocates as lacking the centered and diverse physical form necessary to establish strong communities of place. These views need not be mutually exclusive. Thousands of suburbs contain older downtowns and neighborhoods that can provide a core for revitalization, and increasingly, newer suburbs seek to create new centers that are vital and intense.

The Smart growth movement is not confined to suburban areas rather its philosophy bodies a series of ideas that can be applied to any setting (rural, urban, suburban).ﾝ A mainstay however is that in order to thrive, communities of place need many diverse activities in close proximity to another. Smart growth, thus, represents a particular form of community building, form that focuses on altering the physical environment.ﾝ What this requires is that smart growth needs the arts to help strengthen their communities of place, and the arts need smart growth to strengthen their communities of interest.

The report then offers several examples of case studies in various settings. The section on Urban Communities discusses organizations such as Philadelphias Village of Arts and Humanities; Miamis Historic Village; and the Urban Trail in Asheville, North Carolina. The examples in a suburban setting include The Center for the Arts in Hopkins, Minnesota; and Santa Clarita, California. Finally, notable organizations in rural America include the Arts Council for Chautauqua County, New York; the Creede Repertory Theater in Creede, Colorado; and HandMade in America in western North Carolina.

Because this report was commissioned by grant-making organizations, the authors also explore opportunities for potential funders. They explain that combining smart growth and the arts provide an unusual opportunity for funders to act in a cross-disciplinary manner to accomplish multiple, yet complementary, community-building goals. Specific opportunities are:

1) Use the intersection of arts and smart growth to work across boundaries within and between funding organizations with geographical interests.

2) Better establish and record the relationship between arts and smart growth in community building, especially in suburban areas.

3)Build the capacity of arts councils and arts groups to operate in the community development arena.

4) Continue educational efforts that promote the transfer of knowledge and experience across fields.

5) Strengthen connections among professionals and policymakers from both the arts and smart growth fields, including artists, designers, planners, transportation experts, and elected officials.

Of course with opportunities come challenges, and the authors cite two. The first one is the need to minimize , a common side effect in revitalized urban areas. The artists who led the way in reviving neighborhoods may often find themselves priced out of real estate when discoveredﾝ by the middle class. Driving out lower-income residents, including artists, is clearly something to be avoided. The key of any neighborhood revitalization is to maintain a diverse mix of residents in terms of income, culture and profession.ﾝ Possible solutions include creating live/work spaces that are restricted to artists and constructing a mix of housing types with subsidies for lower-income residents who are committed to living there. The second challenge is likened to dumb growth, where the vast majority of suburbs in the past forty years have created core-less communities with no real sense of a community of place.

The report calls for community activists working in this arena to recognize that arts organizations can respond to urban and suburban problems in ways that conventional real-estate urban development strategies cannot. How so? Because artists and arts organizations have the ability to proceed incrementally, taking advantage of what already exists, and improving when necessary or possible. Said in a more pragmatic way, the arts bring their business, social, and creative connections that can help create the human networks essential to making streets and buildings and spaces into communities.

To conclude, the authors write: For the two fields to succeed together, artists and arts organizations must be open to the power of place that smart growth represents, and they must be willing to accept the reality check of urban planning policy and private real estate investment. In return, smart growth advocates must be willing to turn to artists, arts organizations, and arts patrons to understand the nature of their constituency.ﾝ Together, there is great potential to learn from one another and achieve their common goal to build livable communities.

This paper was jointly commissioned by the Funders Network for Smart Communities, as one of its series of translation papers, and Grantmakers in the Arts for its 2002 annual conference, "Creative Connections."

In recent memory, the topic of community building has been examined and explored in countless ways. The arts have effectively played the role as convener and construction worker in matters of community. The arts have potential to connect people within a community in new ways, to bringing disparate people together, and to tap into a communitys latent creativity.ﾝ Another recent buzz-word often heard in community building circles is smart growth, ﾝ or a series of activities designed to re-orient and re-center the physical design of communities so that their community fabric is strengthened.ﾝ The smart growth movement focuses on creating vibrant and equitable communities, revitalizing older neighborhoods, keeping housing affordable, and creating diverse new communities and neighborhoods that have greater access to mass transit and is less dependent on automobiles.

How do the arts mix with smart growth? The arts have become a focal point for community building, while the smart growth movement has become a focal point for creating better places. In some communities, the overlap of these two movements is key to a community building strategy. In other communities, the two movements proceed along separate tracks. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role each plays in building communities and the potential they have to work together to this end.

The authors introduce the topic by defining the term community and distinguish it into two categories: as a community of interestﾝ and acommunity of place. In a community of interest, such as in an arts community, persons have a keen desire to seek out and bond with like-minded individuals; as expected, a community of place is rooted in geography. However strong, communities of interest cannot displace communities of place. Robert D. Putnam, in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, has warned us that some communities of place have become disconnected. A popular solution to this growing concern has been to call upon communities of interest to strengthen communities of place. Here is where the arts intersect.

When deployed, an arts community represents a network of community amenities that is almost unrivalled in its ability to connect people and places in new and strong ways. It is widespread knowledge that the arts can infuse urban communities with new energy and invigorate neglected neighborhoods, which in turn can pump up real estate prices. Advocates have known for years that the arts also can boost connectivity among residents in rural communities. However, it is less known that the arts can play an active role in a suburban setting as well.

This is an important new fact, as the majority of Americans now call themselves suburbanites. A recent report by the McKnight Foundation, entitled A New Angle, points out that a vast number of working artists and volunteer-based arts organizations successfully operate in the suburbs, bringing artistic and cultural activities much closer to suburban residents.ﾝ Contrary to belief, the report concluded that the suburbs contain a vast number of artists, a large market, and a considerable donor base. Much potential exists in this area: the suburbs themselves have become more ethnically diverse; they are largely underserved by the arts; and demand for artistic product is high.

With that said, there are challenges. Traditional suburbs have been both targeted as potential new markets by urban arts groups and derided by smart growth advocates as lacking the centered and diverse physical form necessary to establish strong communities of place. These views need not be mutually exclusive. Thousands of suburbs contain older downtowns and neighborhoods that can provide a core for revitalization, and increasingly, newer suburbs seek to create new centers that are vital and intense.

The Smart growth movement is not confined to suburban areas rather its philosophy bodies a series of ideas that can be applied to any setting (rural, urban, suburban).ﾝ A mainstay however is that in order to thrive, communities of place need many diverse activities in close proximity to another. Smart growth, thus, represents a particular form of community building, form that focuses on altering the physical environment.ﾝ What this requires is that smart growth needs the arts to help strengthen their communities of place, and the arts need smart growth to strengthen their communities of interest.

The report then offers several examples of case studies in various settings. The section on Urban Communities discusses organizations such as Philadelphias Village of Arts and Humanities; Miamis Historic Village; and the Urban Trail in Asheville, North Carolina. The examples in a suburban setting include The Center for the Arts in Hopkins, Minnesota; and Santa Clarita, California. Finally, notable organizations in rural America include the Arts Council for Chautauqua County, New York; the Creede Repertory Theater in Creede, Colorado; and HandMade in America in western North Carolina.

Because this report was commissioned by grant-making organizations, the authors also explore opportunities for potential funders. They explain that combining smart growth and the arts provide an unusual opportunity for funders to act in a cross-disciplinary manner to accomplish multiple, yet complementary, community-building goals. Specific opportunities are:

1) Use the intersection of arts and smart growth to work across boundaries within and between funding organizations with geographical interests.

2) Better establish and record the relationship between arts and smart growth in community building, especially in suburban areas.

3)Build the capacity of arts councils and arts groups to operate in the community development arena.

4) Continue educational efforts that promote the transfer of knowledge and experience across fields.

5) Strengthen connections among professionals and policymakers from both the arts and smart growth fields, including artists, designers, planners, transportation experts, and elected officials.

Of course with opportunities come challenges, and the authors cite two. The first one is the need to minimize , a common side effect in revitalized urban areas. The artists who led the way in reviving neighborhoods may often find themselves priced out of real estate when discoveredﾝ by the middle class. Driving out lower-income residents, including artists, is clearly something to be avoided. The key of any neighborhood revitalization is to maintain a diverse mix of residents in terms of income, culture and profession.ﾝ Possible solutions include creating live/work spaces that are restricted to artists and constructing a mix of housing types with subsidies for lower-income residents who are committed to living there. The second challenge is likened to dumb growth, where the vast majority of suburbs in the past forty years have created core-less communities with no real sense of a community of place.

The report calls for community activists working in this arena to recognize that arts organizations can respond to urban and suburban problems in ways that conventional real-estate urban development strategies cannot. How so? Because artists and arts organizations have the ability to proceed incrementally, taking advantage of what already exists, and improving when necessary or possible. Said in a more pragmatic way, the arts bring their business, social, and creative connections that can help create the human networks essential to making streets and buildings and spaces into communities.

To conclude, the authors write: For the two fields to succeed together, artists and arts organizations must be open to the power of place that smart growth represents, and they must be willing to accept the reality check of urban planning policy and private real estate investment. In return, smart growth advocates must be willing to turn to artists, arts organizations, and arts patrons to understand the nature of their constituency.ﾝ Together, there is great potential to learn from one another and achieve their common goal to build livable communities.

This paper was jointly commissioned by the Funders Network for Smart Communities, as one of its series of translation papers, and Grantmakers in the Arts for its 2002 annual conference, "Creative Connections."