The Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released data showing how Americans in different parts of the country have taken measures to prepare for natural disasters or other emergencies. Disaster preparedness questions were a new addition to the 2013 American Housing Survey, intended to assist policymakers and emergency responders with planning.

The Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) will receive the National Planning Achievement Award for Economic Planning & Development from the American Planning Association (APA) at the 2015 National Planning Awards Luncheon in Seattle Washington on Monday, April 20, 2015. The 12 Achievement Award recipients were selected by a prestigious awards panel and the awards range from transportation planning to environmental improvements to urban design, among others.

Google contiues to photograph street art and murals around the world in high-resoultion images. Various organzations have have teamed up with Google to collect images of the emperial artworks and in some instances created online tours for users who can't travel to the location to view and learn about the artwork.

Artist Random Act states that “Street art is trying to elevate itself to a higher art form, and Google is allowing us to do so.” Google is preserving street art even while it is having trouble  documenting musuem artworks due to copyright issues.

Land art artist Michael Heizer has been developing "City" in the Garden Valley, Neveda since the early 1970's. Today, the land around the artwork is under threat of development. Though the land that the artwork sits on is owned by the artist, there is a movement starting to protect the land around it.

A new medium of creating art is being developed in the United Kingdom with the support of Parliament. “Democracy Street” is a crowdsourced web app accessible by mobile phone that encourages users to visit places that hold important historical significance to Parliament. Through a collection of maps, users will be able to learn about the street or site of significance, and share a story or a photo. Those involved hope the project will result in an exhibition of original artwork and maps by November 2015.

On the heels of Arts Advocacy Day, this year's Nancy Hanks Lecturer - Norman Lear - wrote to The Hill about how the arts can help solve our nations problems, both here at home and abroad. He highlights arts and diversity and the power of art in the face of recent events in North Korea.

United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF) recently held its 35^th annual Ride for the Arts in the city of Milwaukee. The event, which supports UPAF's United Arts Fund campaign, has become one of the largest one-day recreational bike rides, with major sponsors like MillerCoors. This year, over 5,000 riders raised more than $550,000 as part of the United Performing Arts Fund campaign.

On May 23rd and 24th 2015, the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra capped its season with the second iteration of Symphony in Sculpture—a musical tour of the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park—which featured six new movements by Emmy Award-winning composer Steve Heitzeg.

On June 1, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced his “Shared Prosperity for the Arts Package,” which will provide $7 million to city arts programs over the next two years. 

Several bills are making headway in the Louisiana House and Senate to reform the state’s film tax credit program. The current film tax credit program covers 30 to 35 percent of filmmakers’ costs when they choose to film in Louisiana. Last year, the program cost the state $226 million with independent analysts reporting that the state only made 20 cents in tax revenue for every dollar invested in tax credits.

The Georgia Department of Education announced on June 1 that it created a new fine arts specialist position. The fine arts specialist will focus on the disciplines of music, dance, theatre and visual arts and will provide assistance for fine arts staff throughout Georgia’s school districts.

The New York City Council has passed a bill which will give the public more say in the city’s Percent for Art program. Since 1982, the Percent for Art program has allocated one percent of the budget for all city-funded construction projects for public art.

The Massachusetts Senate has approved a $38 billion budget for FY 2016, which includes $14 million for the Massachusetts Cultural Council, as well as $6 million for regional tourist councils. This proposed 16% increase is especially significant since the Senate Ways and Means Committee initially recommended the arts council to be funded at $12 million, which was the same funding level as FY 2015.

In a surprising turn of events, both the Oklahoma Senate and House of Representatives have now approved SB 839, which appropriates funds to help build a state popular culture museum, OKPOP. On May 21, the House initially rejected the bill on a vote of 44-49 and then reversed its ruling on May 22 with a vote of 51-40.

On May 20, 2015, the third annual Battle of the Biotech Bands, hosted by the Arts & Business Council of Boston took place at Boston’s Royale Nightclub. Described as a fun, community-driven, networking event, Battle of the Biotech Bands features bands associated with Boston-based biotech companies. The bands compete to raise money for a charitable foundation of their choosing.