Numerous editorials have covered the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s work in overseeing Pittsburgh’s most historic transformations—turning a seedy red-light district into a magnet destination for arts lovers, residents, visitors, and business owners. Founded in 1984, the Trust is a non-profit arts organization whose mission is the cultural and economic revitalization of the 14-block arts and entertainment/residential neighborhood called Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, which attracts over two million visitors annually. The organization has grown from a $170k budget in 1984 to a $53M budget today. Most importantly, 90% of the annual budget is allocated to the mission and programs and the organization has maintained a balanced budget year to year.

Below are seven key principles that informed the development of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District.

My fascination with cultural districts first started while living in Richmond, Virginia when the city announced the creation of an Arts District within the Broad Street Corridor. As an avid “culture vulture,” I had strolled through many First Fridays Arts Walks and attended a variety of performances at the newly built CenterStage performing arts center. I was thrilled to know the city recognized the potential impact culture could have on this area. Even after leaving Richmond for Washington, D.C. to attend graduate school, I continued to stay updated on the project and would bring it up in conversation whenever I returned to visit.

Failure. Unanimous rejection. Back to square one. That was the reaction nearly 15 years ago when I first proposed the idea that the entire town of Lanesboro, Minnesota (pop. 754) could be transformed into an arts campus.

Fast forward to today: Lanesboro is now a national model arts community, tourist community, and agricultural community. A scenic town with a river running through it (great for trout), it boasts a historic main street, a bike trail, and a waterfall on the town’s edge.

Welcome to our newest blog salon on Cultural Districts and Communities: Catalysts for Change - our first blog salon of 2015!

Americans for the Arts defines cultural districts as well-recognized, labeled areas of a city in which a high concentration of cultural facilities and programs serve as the main anchor of attraction. They help strengthen local economies, create an enhanced sense of place, and deepen local cultural capacity.

Gerard Atkinson

An unexpected part of the internship job description—being called upon to be a documentary judge. In addition to my work in the Research Services team at Americans for the Arts, I was asked to be a judge at this year’s National History Day, in the senior group documentary section. It turns out the arts and history have a lot to do with each other.

Michael Lange

Using cultural districts as a structure for arts and cultural activities is a central catalyst for revitalization efforts that build better communities. Many states and urban areas have setup structures, often through legislation, that promote cultural districts as a way to build vibrant communities that lead to social and economic development.

Getting to the end outcome - the arts playing a leading role in revitalization efforts - is a necessary endeavor, but setting up structures in the same way as urban areas may not be the best approach for a rural state like Wyoming.

Laramie, WY Mural

Wyoming is one of the largest states geographically, but has the smallest population of any state with 575,000 people. Wyoming is better categorized as frontier or even remote. The largest populated city in Wyoming is the state capital Cheyenne, with a population just over 61,000 people. Of the 99 incorporated municipalities, only about half have populations over 1,000 people, and only a handful of those have a population over 10,000.

How can small populated states invest in the outcomes of cultural districts?

In Wyoming, the Wyoming Arts Council has joined in a strategic partnership with Wyoming Main Street which manages the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street program. Located inside the Wyoming Business Council, the Wyoming Main Street program assists Wyoming communities of various sizes and resource levels with their downtown revitalization efforts. Between fully certified and affiliate communities, Wyoming has fifteen active communities in their Main Street Program.

Meri Jenkins

Launched in 2011, the Massachusetts Cultural Districts Initiative addresses community revitalization, business development, new income generation, job growth, cultural tourism, the development of space for artists, and the preservation and rehabilitation of the state’s historic landmarks and cultural treasures. Seventeen diverse communities have achieved cultural district designation so far, and we have forty more in the pipeline.

In designing the initiative, we wanted to give cities and towns new tools and resources to strengthen local economies by focusing on their culturally rich downtowns and neighborhoods. We deliberately positioned local government at the center of our approach, and so it is the municipality that is the applicant. Local government has the authority to remove barriers that help foster and promote a cultural economic development agenda by changing or amending regulations, using their convening power to engage stakeholders, and providing capacity and focus.

Before submitting an application for designation, municipalities must pass a public resolution in support of the district and hold public hearings. To date, the majority of the seventeen municipalities that have won designation have passed a unanimous vote, a fascinating result in a state where local debate on myriad issues is often contentious. Even in our most cash strapped districts, some municipalities have also committed funds in support of this agenda.

And the legislation in support of cultural districts is designed to boost their efforts. Perhaps the most far reaching element of the bill is the following language: Executive branch agencies, constitutional offices and quasi-governmental agencies shall identify programs and services that support and enhance the development of cultural districts and ensure that those programs and services are accessible to such districts.

This means that other state agencies are available to discuss cultural district plans and whether their initiatives are appropriate for a district's plan of action. Some additional programs and services include: strategic community planning, marketing and promotion, historic property stewardship, way finding signage, open space programming, and economic development.

What a great week of blogs in our first Blog Salon on Arts, Cultural and Entertainment districts. Thanks to our bloggers and all our commentators, followers on Twitter, and Facebook fans.

As I read each of these blogs I was reminded of how the arts help improve and engage communities, and more specifically, how cultural districts help communities create identity and place. Several of our bloggers were also presenters at our preconference that was held in Pittsburgh this June, and I found their comments about the preconference to be very thought provoking. For example, Greg Handberg began to think differently about his work and the difference between informal and formal types of districts. And Adele Fleet Bacow reminded us that it’s not just the wedding or the honeymoon – it’s the ongoing partnerships that count. Special thanks to John Eger for his inspiring words about art and culture districts being vital to ensuring vibrant economic activity in our cities. They are foreshadowing a whole new economy based upon creativity and innovation. As President Obama stated, “We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.” So thanks again to all of our bloggers for their willingness to dig deep into this subject.

Finally, thanks to you - our readers - for participating in this great week of cultural district blogs. I hope that you will continue to revisit this blog salon in the future for more creative ideas and inspiration. Fortunately, all of the posts will be archived here. And if you are ever interested in blogging yourself, just send us an e-mail. Keep in touch.

Pam Atchinson

Shreveport Common is a nine-block “Creative Community,” located in the Louisiana-designated 25-block Cultural District of Shreveport, where residents get Historic Tax sales tax credits for purchasing original art. Shreveport Common is distinguished as a Creative Placemaking project by artists at the helm of revitalizing this historically rich yet blighted community.

Shreveport, Louisiana is the birthplace of music and art that has played a significant role in our national history. There are 11 cultural venues within one block of all sites in Shreveport Common; 12 sites are National Historic Landmarks. Renowned musicians such as Cab Calloway, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Duke Ellington, Huddy Ledbetter got their start here. Municipal Auditorium was home to the famous KWKH Louisana Hayride radio broadcast, heard across 10 states.  The Calanthean Temple, America's first sky-scraper that was designed, funded, and built by African Americans, boasted a rooftop stage that attracted musicians from all over the country.  The area is so rich in musical heritage that Robert Plant (of the rock band Led Zeppelin) drove 180 miles to Shreveport following a concert in Dallas to walk the streets for inspiration –specifically Sprague Street, once home to the Blue Goose musicians.

The organizational partnership behind Shreveport Common includes public and private investors who are implementing a National Endowment for the Arts MICD 25th Anniversary funded Vision Plan. Teams of artists, developers, municipal department heads, and non-profits are executing a portfolio of 36 strategies based on authenticity, sustainability, creativity, and community.

Only 800 residents currently live in the area, most in transitional housing. However, new affordable artist housing and exciting market-value, mixed-use developments will join current Section-8 housing. The Vision Plan also engages the area’s social service organizations by forming innovative collaborations with artists’ Pay-It-Forward and Workforce programs. A plethora of functional and aesthetic Public Art, both permanent and temporary, will be combined with consistent programming designed to drive and sustain vibrancy in the district.

Lori McKinney-Blankenship

I am sitting in The Room Upstairs, our living room style theatre, cross legged on a comfortable couch. To my right, my good friend Tiffany is sculpting an octopus out of polymer clay and giggling with her brilliant musician boyfriend Jordan; he just came off the stage after an intense improvisational jam. On stage now is resident artist Maggie playing folk songs on her guitar. Behind her is a beautiful space scene projected on the screen, mixed with video clips of the ocean. It's beautiful.

To my left is Bobby, a man from the neighborhood who we first met as he collected cans to recycle. He absolutely loves it here. He has a special chair in the back; it's a soft cushy seat, and he kicks back, totally engaged from the time the music kicks in until it finishes at the end of the night. We gather that there isn't much more in life that is available for him; he spends a good bit of time pushing a shopping cart around. Everyone here welcomes him with open arms. In the front row is an autistic lady who rocks hard back and forth to the music and comes with her caretaker, a musician, every week. There are high school kids, college kids, a couple of grandparents, lots of 20- & 30-somethings, and a three-legged black dog.

Lori McKinney-Blankenship

Coming from a small town with a population of 7,000, my perspective and experience is quite different from others. The actual county population is 30,000, so the city number is a bit misleading, but still, Princeton, West Virginia is most definitely a small town. Our cultural district is developing in a once abandoned downtown around The RiffRaff Arts Collective, a cooperative group of visual, performing, literary, and healing artists. The concentration of creative activity pouring from our space spilled out and painted the block, and then connected with all the positive pockets of energy and possibility in the downtown. Now, the neighborhood is experiencing a major turnaround complete with government buy-in and major private investment, sparked by something as organic as a few colorful, visionary artists inhabiting a building.

It's no ordinary building, mind you; this reborn turn of the century structure includes an old ballroom turned living room theatre and recording studio, an art gallery, and artists studios. Across the street is Stages Music School, where music is taught to induce joy and change the world. The heavy dose of positive energy is working its way up and down the street, which has been stigmatized for decades.

Greg Handberg

Recently I attended the Americans for the Arts preconference on Cultural Districts. Many presented information on tools and incentives that can be used to establish districts, and it got me thinking more about the difference between informal and formal types of districts.

In my work, I travel to a lot of communities assisting them with real estate development projects in the arts. Through this work I have begun to differentiate between "formal" and "informal" arts districts. I now recognize that almost every project I work on takes place within an "informal" district. Very little of my work takes place in "formal" arts districts. What's the difference? I came away from the preconference thinking about "formal" districts as those that are established through some sort of local or state legislation while "informal" districts are established through an organized branding initiative - typically undertaken at a community (sometimes city) level - but without legislation.

Jeffrey Parks

We Americans are jaded. We have been to amusement parks that attempt to replicate Main Street. We know, or at least think we know, the genuine from the artificial. As we add the next level of development to our communities, mostly in our downtowns or retail districts, we need to keep in mind that each of our communities has a history, a heritage, and a story. While we may not realize it, that story is our most precious asset. In a world where derivative work thrives in film, television, books, and the Internet, the most original stories are right at our own doorstep. And there is an audience eager to hear our stories.

The term “authenticity” was used by virtually every practitioner who spoke at the Arts District preconference in Pittsburgh. Our experience in Bethlehem, PA is not unique, but it is informative. We renovated 10 acres in the core of an old steel plant using the five remaining 80-foot tall blast furnaces as the permanent “installation,” an artwork so authentic and with so many stories, that the sense of place is overwhelming, even with the overlay of landscape architecture, music performance venues, and al fresco dining.

The blast furnaces at SteelStacks are illuminated at night by a massive LED lighting system. They form the backdrop for an indoor stage in a contemporary performing arts center 150 feet from the furnaces, as well as an outdoor stage directly at their base.  With the oldest building (1863) on the site renovated to be the Visitor Center (and major restroom facilities for the hundreds of events that occur on the site), SteelStacks exudes authenticity, and invites the visitor to want to learn more about the stories of this industrial relic.

The threshold question for any use of public and private resources is “Why should we allocate these precious resources to create an arts district when there are so many needs in our community?”

Indeed, an arts district may not be the priority when all of the needs of a community have been analyzed. There are specific circumstances that merit the consideration of an arts district in communities. The need will set the metrics for the success of a district.

Some of the specific needs which an arts district can support are:

James LeFlore

The types of cultural district that I like best are those that are the hardest to define. They're not the type that is bolstered by a fine arts institution or even have organized events that you can rely upon for your evening and weekend pleasure.  I've always been drawn to the artist-made hot spots that evolve over time and transform areas of town known as a "dud" into a "hub".

Why is it that artists are so good at being able to do that? What do artists know that is so potently effective at revitalizing old buildings and empty neighborhoods where others coming beforehand have failed, given up, and left ruins to slowly fade into darkness? The answer to artists' effectiveness at environmental change is not a secret, but it does involve magic. First, the power they wield comes directly from their ability to harness the power of unbridled creativity. The illusion they achieve is due to their capacity to suspend reality just long enough for cool things to start happening - as if they can animate the dead. Artists are the best-trained professional I can think of in the art of improvisation; and when the chips are down we all must know how to improvise, right?

Adele Fleet Bacow

The talk that I gave at the recent Americans for the Arts national convention offered an intriguing title for the panel: “The Wedding of Public Art and Cultural Districts”. That title led me to think further about what makes a real marriage work. I resisted the urge to show in my PowerPoint presentation a photograph of me wearing my mother’s wedding gown at my own wedding 38 years ago as being too hokey. But I did appreciate the opportunity to reflect back on enduring partnerships and what makes them succeed.

We all know horror stories of bridezillas, conflicts in planning a wedding, and marriages that unfortunately don’t live up to the unrealistic romanticized notions played out in movies or idyllic honeymoon settings on a beach. What makes some relationships work and others fail? What traits do you need and what qualities should you run from screaming? Do beauty, power, money, and excitement matter? How do you make a long-term relationship keep its zest? Without pretending to be Ann Landers or Dr. Joyce Brothers, let me offer a few suggestions.

The most successful partnerships bring out the best in each other without trying to be competitive about who is on first or who has the most power. Each partner should feel like it is getting something important out of the relationship and has something to offer. Partners should be clear about their roles, responsibilities, and expectations. What tasks are easy for some and a burden to others? Parcel out the components so people are playing to their strengths.

Adele Fleet Bacow

People often ask me what it takes to create a cultural district. How hard is it to accomplish? How long does it take? Who should be involved? What do you need to know? As an urban planning consultant specializing in cultural development, I have been involved in a number of cultural district and art-related economic development projects. Here is my list of the ten basic steps to creating a plan for a cultural district and important questions to answer before you even begin. You will find a lot more questions than answers. The challenge and the reward are in finding the right answers to meet your unique needs.

1. Decide why you want to create a cultural district in the first place. What do you hope to accomplish? What problem are you trying to solve? Is there a strong interest in creating such a plan? Are people enthusiastically behind the idea who can offer momentum to help you through this process and then work to implement it successfully?

2. Who should be involved? Who are the key players in town who can offer ideas, energy, resources, and legitimacy for your process? In addition to the obvious leaders, identify hidden assets and talent. Involve the community and key players in your early planning stages.

3. Who will do the work in actually crafting the cultural district plan? Do you have staff, expertise, and partners who can put together the information and creative thinking necessary to develop a viable plan and then carry it out? Do you need to bring in outside expertise or can you tap resources and experience in your community?

John Eger

Economist Edward Glaeser once said, "Cities are so fascinating because they play to mankind's greatest gift, which is our ability to learn from other people."

They are places also where you raise your children, develop your sense of right and wrong, learn about yourself and your fellow man. Importantly, they are the places where attitudes about life and values and politics converge and where new ideas take root.

Now, perhaps more than ever, cities are places where the crucial incubators of innovation are formed. Now more than ever Art and Culture Clusters are vital to renewal and reinvention.

In the wake of globalization the challenge America faces in the wake of global competition is daunting. Globalization 3.0, first coined by The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, is here. As Friedman has written, The World is Flat. Outsourcing and offshoring have entered our lexicon of new words and we are suffering what economists are euphemistically calling a "jobless recovery.” We don't know exactly how many jobs are lost from offshoring. But this shift of high tech service jobs will be a permanent feature of economic life in the 21st century.

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.”

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.

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.

John Eger

Welcome to the global economy and society.

U.S. astronauts reflecting on their experiences in space all seemed to see the earth as one "big blue marble."

As NASA writes: "For the first time in history, humankind looked at Earth and saw not a jigsaw puzzle of states and countries on an uninspiring flat map—but rather a whole planet uninterrupted by boundaries, a fragile sphere of dazzling beauty floating alone in a dangerous void."

Thanks to the pervasive worldwide spread of internet technology, the "big blue marble age" is here, the global economy has arrived, and in a sense, the world's map is being redrawn in a way never envisioned.

While interviewing Nandan Nilekani, the C.E.O. of Infosys, Thomas Friedman, columnist for The New York Times and author of The World is Flat, observed:

"There (has been) a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, (and) those things...created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced and put back together again."