Stern and Seifert have long been measuring impacts of the arts at the neighborhood level as leaders of the Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) at the University of Pennsylvania. In their latest major report, “Cultural Ecology, Neighborhood Vitality, and Social Wellbeing–A Philadelphia Project,” they introduce a conceptual framework that is rooted in the “capability approach,” most closely associated with the economist Amartya Sen and the philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Rather than focusing on material resources, the capability approach assumes that wellbeing derives from people’s ability to make choices that allow them to lead a life that they have reason to value. This theory also forms the basis of the Human Development Index, produced regularly by the UN to measure wellbeing at the national level.

In adapting the capability approach to their examination of wellbeing in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, Stern and Seifert draw on eight categories of wellbeing outlined in a 2009 report by Sen and fellow economist Joseph Stiglitz. These original categories, developed for comparisons between countries, were not always appropriate for a local context, and didn’t include an explicit category for arts and culture. Stern and Seifert’s modified version thus includes the following categories:

• Economic wellbeing
• Economic diversity
• School effectiveness
• Housing
• Social connection (including measures of culture)
• Insecurity
• Health
• Environment
• Political voice

Applying this framework to Philadelphia, Stern and Seifert find some interesting patterns of cultural participation and wellbeing. The data tells what the authors characterize as a “tale of three cities.” Advantage and disadvantage cluster together in many neighborhoods that exhibit consistently positive or negative scores in many or all social wellbeing domains, while a smaller number of neighborhoods show more variance. Overall, economic wellbeing is the biggest driver of other social factors, including cultural assets (defined as the number of nonprofit and commercial cultural institutions, the number of resident artists, and cultural participation rates). The authors’ examination of the distribution of cultural assets in the city over a 15-year period depicts a widening gap between neighborhoods with strong cultural resources and those without. A neighborhood’s access to cultural assets is increasingly predicted by its economic status, somewhat belying the narrative of the arts as a social equalizer that underlies earlier SIAP work. In fact, the authors find little correlation between the cultural indicators and indicators of face-to-face social connection, which was supposed to be the theoretical home for culture within the social wellbeing index.

As in their previous work, the authors identify “civic clusters” of arts activity where higher amounts of cultural activity occur than economic or geographic conditions would predict. Many of these civic clusters are losing ground in the density of their cultural assets relative to the rest of the city, and Stern and Seifert see their diminishment as a failure in cultural policy and a missed opportunity to foster more equitable growth. They call on policymakers, practitioners, and funders (in particular those with an interest in creative placemaking) to pay greater attention to disadvantaged neighborhoods and those with mixed wellbeing scores.

While these results are provocative, a note of caution is warranted here. In order to make the social wellbeing index and cultural asset indicators work at a neighborhood level, the authors had to make a number of compromises to data quality. For example, the data sources used to construct the current wellbeing index span a seven-year stretch from 2005 to 2012, a period that includes a major economic recession and its subsequent recovery. Other indicators, notably job satisfaction (a component of the key economic wellbeing subindex) had to be imputed in ways that can only provide a rough estimation of the actual figures. Most troublingly for the central conclusion presented in the article, the authors’ methods for constructing the cultural asset index changed between the comparison years of 1997 and 2010-12. Stern and Seifert attempt to minimize the impact of this deficiency by limiting their analysis to the proportional distribution of cultural resources across neighborhoods rather than absolute numbers, but they don’t seem to consider the possibility that the differences in data collection processes could have introduced a bias in those patterns of distribution that don’t reflect real changes in the city over time. While none of these issues are concerning enough to dismiss the report entirely, its findings should be considered suggestive rather than conclusive in the absence of further evidence.

Fortunately, SIAP is already well on its way toward improving upon this initial effort while simultaneously extending this work to three new cities: Austin, New York, and Seattle. This cross-city comparison will shed light on the extent to which the situation in Philadelphia reflects larger trends and inform theories about the underlying dynamics, while giving policymakers and arts practitioners new tools to understand patterns of advantage and disadvantage in their communities.

As much as we love new decision-making tools, for us the most intriguing aspect of Stern and Seifert’s latest research is its attempt to integrate culture into the capability approach. On a theoretical level, “Cultural Ecology” marks an important moment for arts research, opening up numerous possibilities for considering and measuring the value of culture in new ways. Arguably, Stern and Seifert could push much further in this direction than they have done here. Despite repeated references to overcoming the intrinsic vs. instrumental debate, the analysis routinely switches between using culture as an explanatory variable (identifying how other areas of wellbeing are influenced by culture) and a response variable (identifying how cultural indicators change between different neighborhoods and over time)–in essence reinscribing the intrinsic/instrumental divide. The game-changing potential of this approach would lie in developing a single, summative wellbeing score for each neighborhood based on its component parts. Approaching the task this way would give culture a specific weight and undeniable influence in the construction (and calculation) of overall wellbeing, while enabling an analysis of culture’s direct and indirect role in creating that wellbeing.

By nearly any measure, “Cultural Ecology, Neighborhood Vitality, and Social Wellbeing” is unfinished work, but the direction it points to is a tantalizing one. There is much to be gained and learned from examining cultural participation within a larger framework of wellbeing, and we can’t wait to see what Stern and Seifert have up their sleeves next.

Cover image of mural in Philadelphia, by Flickr user Classic Film. 

The Social Impact of the Arts Project, based at the University of Pennsylvania, was founded in 1994 with the intent of studying the connection between the arts and community life. Over time, SIAP has established mechanisms to help us measure how the arts benefit the areas they inhabit. Culture and Community Revitalization is the result of two years of research done between 2006 and 2008 and consists of summary materials, a literature review, three policy briefs, and a community investment prospectus. The Rockefeller Foundation, which commissioned Culture and Community Revitalization, asked SIAP to partner with The Reinvestment Fund, a community development financial institution, and find ways to “merge cultural data with other types of information on urban revitalization.” Despite some promising findings from the research overview, Stern and Seifert end on a pessimistic note, cautioning that more research is needed before policy decisions can be based off of SIAP’s linkage of cultural engagement to community revitalization.

The literature review covers a vast array of research on the relationship between the creative sector, economics and social benefits, ultimately determining that while most research explores the connection between culture and economic gains, more work needs to be done better understand the less-quantifiable social impacts. The policy briefs make the case for local policymakers to place more of an emphasis on the arts as a way to unlock the human capital in urban areas. Finally, the community investment prospectus provide practical recommendations and case studies that demonstrate different approaches to investing in cultural clusters.

The main strength of the report is its innovative approach to quantifying the ways arts and culture contribute to community revitalization. One of the main highlights of the Culture and Community Revitalization project is a methodology called the Cultural Asset Index. Stern and Seifert were able to build upon The Reinvestment Fund’s Market Value Analysis methodology to demonstrate that a concentration of cultural assets can be connected to a rise in real estate value. Conversely, the study fails to fully grapple with the potential downsides of neighborhood cultural investment strategies, particularly when it comes to issues around gentrification and displacement. Stern and Seifert’s research leads them to conclude that the benefits of creative clusters are not only about economics but also creating and strengthening social bonds across different types of networks.

Stern and Seifert suggest that cities can encourage the development of “natural” cultural districts by attracting private investment; focusing on “quality of life investments” such as regular trash pick-ups, and more green space;  pursuing workforce development policies that help young people gain entry into the creative sector; and gathering more data and background information about how these cultural clusters work.

Stern and Seifert’s research has been applied in practice since the publication of Culture and Community Revitalization. Most notably, the national creative placemaking initiatives Our Town and ArtPlace have used SIAP’s work in varying degrees to shape their approach to arts funding.

(For a much briefer version of this analysis, please see the Executive Summary.)

SUMMARY

The Social Impact of the Arts Project, based at the University of Pennsylvania, was founded in 1994 with the intent of studying the connection between the arts and community life. After all, “if the arts and culture do, in fact, have an important role in improving the lives of ordinary people, we should be able to measure it.” SIAP has completed 13 projects and dozens of related publications since its founding in 1994 and in recent years has frequently partnered with The Reinvestment Fund on its research.

From 2006 to 2008 SIAP’s Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert researched and compiled a set of documents that sought to investigate the real impact of the “creative economy” on community and economic development. The Rockefeller Foundation funded SIAP and The Reinvestment Fund to partner and “merge cultural data with other types of information on urban revitalization.” The project’s publications included a literature review, three policy briefs, and a community investment prospectus in addition to a range of summary materials. This project led SIAP to frame its subsequent work around the concept of “natural” cultural districts, or specific geographic areas dense with cultural assets that have evolved in grassroots fashion.

Literature Review

The centerpiece of Culture and Community Revitalization is an expansive literature review covering three main areas related to the creative sector: culture in the current context, current theories about culture-based revitalization, and the neighborhood-based creative economy. Stern and Seifert argue that, in contrast to the wealth of literature on quantifying the impact of the creative economy, a nuanced approach to the social and community benefits of developing creative sectors has yet to be fully explored. In the end, it may be the community-building influence of the creative sector that will prove the most impactful.

Culture in the Current Context

Stern and Seifert begin the literature review with a tour of various longitudinal shifts that they see as critical to understanding the context in which the creative sector now operates. They begin by analyzing what they call the “new urban reality,” characterized by a few specific factors: increasing social diversity, expanding economic inequality, and the physical reshaping of the city’s industry hubs.

Whereas the middle of the 20^th century was characterized by the exodus of middle and upper class citizens fleeing the urban core for suburbs, the last three to four decades have seen this trend dramatically reverse. An influx of new residents has shifted the types of diversity in urban neighborhoods, especially in the makeup of households (more unmarried households) and the age of inhabitants (more young adults). Additionally, immigrants from Latin America and Asia are increasing the ethnic diversity of urban centers and introducing new forms of artistic engagement into the mix. Meanwhile, income inequality in cities has been exacerbated—as the urban core becomes more attractive, the cost of living has also increased accordingly, pushing out low-income residents. The authors note that the cultural economy is specifically susceptible to the plight of “winner-take-all” markets, a theory promoted by Robert Frank and Phillip Cook that “changes in the American labor market have expanded the number of job categories in which the most skilled members reap a disproportionate share of rewards.”

These demographic and economic changes in cities have also contributed to changes in cities’ physical and geographic structure. Buoyed by the resurgence of cities in general, rehabilitated downtown areas began to serve increasingly important business, entertainment and recreational functions. Production clusters, or decentralized collections of small firms operating in related industries in close proximity, have emerged as a “new kind of spatial organizational form” that is particularly relevant to creative occupations.

Meanwhile, a significant reshaping of the nonprofit cultural sector has been taking place. The authors suggest that “the marketization of the nonprofit cultural sector—the increased stress placed on earned income and financial performance—has been the dominant policy of the cultural sector for the past 15 years.” Over the years these financial pressures, exacerbated by expectations placed on nonprofits by their funders, have put pressure on mid-sized organizations and further stratified the field. The number of small cultural organizations has exploded, but cooperation between community-based groups and large cultural institutions has proven challenging. In the context of this shifting landscape, the dominant paradigm of the cultural sector has changed from high culture vs. mass entertainment to large and broad vs. small and niche.

Given the changes noted above, the notion of a centralized “cultural policy” in the U.S. is essentially obsolete. The arts have never had much of a stronghold in the policy arena, but the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965 was born out of a time when top-down, ambitious social and cultural policy goals were the norm. With the subsequent rise in power of global corporations and special interest groups however, government is now “more likely to find itself brokering transactions between contending interests than setting its own agenda.” Nevertheless, the lack of an entrenched cultural bureaucracy and special interests has its advantages. As Stern and Seifert see it, their absence may make it easier for the cultural sector to innovate and be integrated into other areas of policymaking.

The Current State of the Literature

Stern and Seifert divide current research on the economic and social value of the arts into two main categories: creative economy literature and community-building literature. In addition, there is an emerging third category that looks at the negative effects of culture-based revitalization; however, this literature has largely been ignored by researchers who tend to focus on the first two categories.

The first wave of interest in economic development and the arts began with a 1983 study by the Port Authority of NY and NJ that calculated the economic impact of the arts based on nonprofit expenditures and cultural consumption. Similar studies soon followed and contributed to the formation of the first “cultural districts.” A second strand of creative economy literature focuses on creativity’s role in an area’s overall economic productivity. Over time creative economy scholars have expanded the definition of the cultural sector to include both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors; the oft-cited Richard Florida has a particularly broad definition.  Stern and Seifert choose two bodies of research for more in-depth examination: the Center for an Urban Future’s economic impact study of New York City creative industries and Ann Markusen’s work on the economic role of artists. The Center for an Urban Future suggested that policymakers should begin to look at the arts as an economic sector and take bold steps to help neighborhoods working toward permanent cultural development. Markusen focused on the “hidden contributions artists make to regional economies,” concluding that the unique contribution of artists provides an “artistic dividend” to economic development.

Geography is another important factor in the economic development of the arts.  A 1996 study of the Los Angeles design industry by Allen J. Scott suggested that firms choose to be in close geographic proximity to one another because doing so encourages efficiency, innovation, and process improvements. Stern and Seifert’s Social Impact of the Arts Project applied these ideas to Philadelphia, eventually leading them to the concept of “cultural clusters” or “natural cultural districts” that take into account both production and consumption and both economic and social lenses of impact, all at the neighborhood scale.

In contrast to the research on the economic benefits of the cultural sector, studies focused on community building and culture tend to focus on grassroots and community engagement practices. The bodies of work Stern and Seifert examine in depth are Maria Rosario Jackson’s work with the Urban Institute’s Arts and Culture Indicators Project, Alaka Wali’s studies of informal arts in Chicago, the Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley studies of immigrant and participatory arts, and SIAP’s own work on metropolitan Philadelphia. The Urban Institute’s initial study made suggestions for a “conceptual framework” for research and measurement in the field that would include a broad definition of culture. A later report catalogued “initiatives to integrate culture into broader indicators of metropolitan well-being.”

These studies also began to define the “unincorporated,” “participatory,” or “informal arts” to describe cultural activities that take place outside of traditional institutions. Alaka Wali’s Informal Arts project assembled 12 ethnographic case studies of informal arts activities in the Chicago metro area. The report concluded that informal arts strengthen the entire arts sector, bridge social boundaries that sustain inequality, and build community assets.  Wali followed up on Informal Arts with a study for the Field Museum that looked at cultural, social and artistic practices in the Chicago-area Mexican immigrant community, concluding that “through engaging in informal arts…, Mexican immigrants are creating significant social resources, promoting economic participation, developing civic skills, and reaching out to non-immigrants.”

The Silicon Valley studies, by Pia Moriarty and Maribel Alvarez, sought to place the informal arts into local community context and existing models of cultural production. They introduced the concept of “bonded-bridging” (in-group bonding that supports out-group connections) to the literature, and found that despite informal arts practitioners’ “modest and concrete” goals, a “facture [between formal and informal arts contexts] runs through the Valley’s self-identified ‘cultural community.’”

Despite the considerable volume of research on the cultural sector, Stern and Seifert still feel that the potential negative effects of urban revitalization represent a significant gap in the literature. Without closing the door to new evidence, they argue that the “empirical documentation of art-based gentrification is not particularly strong” and suggest the connection between arts-based urban revitalization and gentrification has been overhyped to date. By contrast, Stern and Seifert maintain that economic inequality in the creative sector is a much more pressing, and well-documented, issue. In fact, their study of artists in six American cities “between 1980 and 2000 found that artists were consistently among the individual occupations with the highest degree of income inequality.” Many of the high-paying jobs in the creative sector require advanced schooling, creating a lack of opportunity for residents who have education equivalent to a high school degree or less.

An Ecosystem-Based Approach

SIAP proposes a new way of thinking about community-based revitalization in the creative sector that integrates both economic and social perspectives on the arts which they term the “neighborhood-based creative economy.”  Stern and Seifert see this framework as providing a potential path toward activating the cultural economy of urban neighborhoods, further integrating local residents with the regional economy and civil society.

In SIAP’s conception of the community cultural ecosystem, nonprofit arts organizations must share the “cultural opportunity provider” role with other entities including street festivals and performances, for-profit cultural firms like dance academies or movie theaters, and non-arts community-based organizations. This is not to say that nonprofits cannot still play an important role beyond serving as direct-service providers. They are also fiscal sponsors and networking agents between regional entities and creative sources; additionally, they often open their physical space to smaller groups. Overall the community cultural ecosystem is interdependent, no matter if the arts organization is a for-profit, nonprofit or “informal” artistic entity.

To provide a quantitative counterpart to this theoretical notion of the community cultural ecosystem, Stern and Seifert constructed a matrix for Culture and Community Revitalization called the Cultural Asset Index. SIAP identified four cultural asset measures–nonprofit cultural organizations, commercial cultural firms, individual artists, and regional participation rates–and localized each of these measures to block groups within the Philadelphia region. Using a factor analysis, Stern and Seifert were able to reduce these four measures to a single variable (a “cultural asset score”) that explained 81% of the variance in the four measures. Then, through regression analysis, they developed an equation to model predicted cultural asset concentrations in Philadelphia based on per capita income, % non-family households, and distance from the city center. Finally, they identified neighborhoods that had higher-than-expected cultural asset scores based on those inputs. One of the purposes of this analysis was to integrate SIAP’s work with the Market Value Analysis methodology of their project partner, The Reinvestment Fund, which resulted in some of the findings reported elsewhere in this summary. Stern and Seifert suggest using this information in various other ways, such as classifying areas strong in cultural assets as cultural districts; targeting workforce development efforts towards low-income, culturally rich areas; and targeting social inclusion interventions towards low-income, culture-poor neighborhoods.

There is a natural tension between the creative economy and community-oriented ideas of cultural revitalization: whereas the latter seeks to lift up currently marginalized elements of the population, the economic approach tends to concentrate resources on “the most visible and profitable aspects of the creative sector.” Unfortunately, the bulk of the discussion and research on the value of culture to society seeks to justify investment solely through an economic lens and valorizes “creative” workers at the expense of everyone else, potentially exacerbating economic inequality. Due to the substantial support labor required by creative occupations, Stern and Seifert encourage policymakers to explore untapped workforce development opportunities that may be lurking within the creative economy.

Despite some promising findings from the research overview, Stern and Seifert end on a pessimistic note, cautioning that more research is needed before policy decisions can be based off of SIAP’s linkage of cultural engagement to community revitalization. They do argue forcefully that in a rational world, policymakers would limit their investments in large-scale cultural projects whose primary purpose is to serve tourists, given the lack of evidence to suggest how low- and moderate-income individuals can benefit from such initiatives. Nevertheless, the authors acknowledge that a number of factors play into policymaking decisions regarding culture and revitalization, and admit that even the promising evidence of social benefits SIAP documented likely isn’t compelling enough or on a large enough scale to garner the support to push through substantive policy changes. 

Policy Briefs and Community Prospectus

While the literature review forms the center of the Culture and Community Revitalization project, SIAP bolsters it with a set of policy briefs to highlight practical applications of its findings. The first policy brief, “From Creative Economy to Creative Society: A social policy paradigm for the creative sector has the potential to address urban poverty as well as urban vitality,” synthesizes much of the literature review and makes a full-throated case for a neighborhood-based approach to cultural development focused on social inclusion rather than economic prosperity. Stern and Seifert advocate for a revitalization strategy that is “both place- and people-based—that is, it should be grounded in a given locale but have active connections with other neighborhoods and economies throughout the city and region.”

The policy brief recommends that policymakers move away from the centralized planned cultural district model that has been in vogue for some time and instead “identify grassroots nodes as leverage points for public, private, and philanthropic investment” to create sustainable, multi-faceted forms of culturally based redevelopment opportunities.  Focusing on smaller-scale cultural clusters and resources would better address the concerns of “winner-take-all markets,” the relegation of much creative activity to the informal economy, and displacement as a result of gentrification.

In their second policy brief “Migrants, Communities and Cultures,” coauthored by Domenic Vitello, Stern and Seifert use immigrant communities in Philadelphia as a case study for the ways in which the informal arts sector can help build important community ties.  Philadelphia’s rapidly growing, ethnically and economically diverse immigrant populations are also home to diverse forms of cultural expression, but they don’t tend to generate relationships with established cultural organizations. In spite of this, the arts can serve as a connective force that can help immigrants adapt to their new surroundings and form social connections in their new communities.  Due to a stronger immigrant presence in the informal arts sector, cities will need to better research how these newer forms of cultural expression can be better utilized to improve the lives of immigrant communities.

“Cultivating ‘Natural’ Cultural Districts,” the  third and final policy brief, introduces the concept of “natural” cultural districts, which are neighborhoods or areas in a city that have “spawned a density of assets— organizations, businesses, participants, and artists— that sets [them] apart from other neighborhoods.” Because these hubs are naturally occurring and build on pre-existing assets, they  offer advantages over cultural districts planned entirely by the city. Stern and Seifert write that the latter “only occasionally are economic successes; most require high, on-going subsidies and effectively feed contemporary cities’ growth of economic inequality.” Stern and Seifert suggest that cities can encourage the development of “natural” cultural districts by attracting private investment; focusing on “quality of life investments” such as regular trash pick-ups, and more green space; pursuing workforce development policies that help young people gain entry into the creative sector; and gathering more data and background information about how these cultural clusters work.

Finally, the community investment prospectus provides a framework for the for-profit and nonprofit sectors to consider modes of investment in arts and culture to facilitate the establishment of vibrant communities. Authored by The Reinvestment Fund’s CEO Jeremy Nowak, “Creativity and Neighborhood Development: Strategies for Community Investment” calls for broadening  “the notion of who…should be part of planning, policy, decision-making and financing related to this field” as well as “top-down and bottom-up strategies that will expand the resources available.” The investment prospectus is accompanied by a case study detailing how a mixture of private and public investment transformed the Crane Arts Plumbing Company’ building in Old Kensington Philadelphia from an industrial space to a true arts hub in the neighborhood. The building now houses “37 studios for different artistic mediums, rooms for three arts organizations, and space for community events.”

ANALYSIS                                                                   

Overall, Stern and Seifert present a comprehensive scan of the current state of the work on urban revitalization and the creative economy. Unlike many other studies on the subject, Stern and Seifert have created a quantitative methodology that allows users to quantify cultural activity in specific locations. Their research highlights some areas that need further study and emphasizes some theories that have the potential to truly change the way policymakers and practitioners view the relationship between culture and economy and even how the cultural sector can be organized and operationalized.

That said, there are some weaker points of the study that need more clarification or further research to drive home the ideas Stern and Seifert really want to promote. One of the main themes of SIAP’s work is the positive social impact of cultural activity, but Stern and Seifert seem to waver between emphatically making this point and stressing the need for further study. In addition, the authors don’t fully weigh the meaning of gentrification and related negative impacts of culture-based revitalization, and neglect to make constructive suggestions for further inquiry.

Does culture truly contribute to local economies?

One of the main highlights of the Culture and Community Revitalization project is the Cultural Asset Index. Most research on the arts’ economic and social effects hasn’t attempted nearly as much depth or specificity in showing the relationship between cultural density and other indicators. Stern and Seifert were able to build upon The Reinvestment Fund’s Market Value Analysis methodology to demonstrate that a concentration of cultural assets can be connected to a rise in real estate value. SIAP’s methods to identify rich concentrations of cultural assets in unexpected places could potentially be really empowering for neighborhoods and residents. By uplifting the cultural value in diverse areas, the Cultural Asset Index and its associated correlations can help people within and outside these areas to understand how culture shapes their communities for the better. However, it is unclear exactly how SIAP calculates the index, which could hamper efforts for those unfamiliar with the concepts to understand how it works.

Stern and Seifert conclude that the benefits of creative clusters are not only about economics but also creating and strengthening social bonds across different types of networks. Through its work in Philadelphia and beyond, SIAP is attempting to create empirical methods that show how community arts and the informal arts contribute to the social and economic landscape of cities. A significant weakness of the community-building research cited in the literature review is that the studies take practitioners’ subjective impressions of neighborhood impacts at their word without trying to measure them quantitatively. An example of a more quantitative approach is SIAP’s earlier work establishing a connection between community culture and child welfare in Philadelphia—low-income block groups with high cultural participation were more than twice as likely as comparable block groups to have low truancy and delinquency. More importantly, in original research completed for the Culture and Community Revitalization project, Stern and Seifert found that block groups with high participation rates were twice as likely to undergo economic revitalization, defined as “above average poverty decline and population gain,” a finding supported by further analysis using real estate market classifications from The Reinvestment Fund.  SIAP posits that the correlation between cultural engagement and poverty decline is connected to the cross-geographical/class/ethnic pollination that occurs in cultural hubs. However, Stern and Seifert have not yet been able to clearly attribute these changes to cultural engagement or identify the specific mechanism that causes that change. One possible explanation, supported by the research in the literature review, is the increase of a neighborhood’s “collective efficacy” – its residents’ ability to imagine and work towards positive change.

The authors also postulate that cultural engagement leads to broader civic engagement, but admit that there is little data that can provide linkage between the two.  Part of the “social role” of cultural engagement is defined as the ability of formal and informal arts organizations to attract attendees from outside the local community, helping urban residents experience different parts of their city. Unfortunately, a “lack of comparable data on other forms of community engagement”  to back up the claim that the arts serve as a connective tissue for the social improvement of communities  weakens the case that the benefits of cultural clusters can be seen in social outcomes as opposed to economic outcomes. In spite of this, the original research SIAP has done thus far has uncovered some promising indicators that deserve further exploration.

Much of the data collected is specifically tied to place—namely Philadelphia—making it hard to extrapolate the findings to the nation as a whole. In their analysis of cultural clusters, Stern and Seifert speak to the way that neighborhood-based cultural ecosystems localize the production and consumption of their products and how that contributes to economic stabilization and revitalization. Since much of their reporting focuses on Philadelphia at the turn of the millennium, it is difficult to know whether there were conditions specific to the Philadelphia economy that contributed to their findings or if these were more universal trends. That said, since Culture and Community Revitalization was completed in 2008 SIAP has undertaken studies of other cities, namely Baltimore and Seattle.

Does the idea of “natural cultural districts” resonate with grassroots arts organizations?

Stern and Seifert do a great job of cataloguing the benefits of “informal” cultural participation. For example, they dedicate one of the policy briefs entirely to exploring how the informal arts help connect immigrant communities to services and networks in their new environments. Depending on the intended audience is for this set of research, Seifert and Stern could be providing a great amount of assistance not only for interested researchers who are not specialists in the field, but for advocates and staff of community-based organizations as well. However, the way the report is organized makes it difficult for me to envision the same community-based organizations they uplift in the reports being able to effectively use the research in their work. However, if this is not their intended audience, who are they trying to influence? Do they see this report as a way to help practitioners advocate for the importance of their contributions to their local landscapes?

What role does gentrification play?

Although rising real estate values are a positive outcome on the surface, especially in economically depressed or distressed areas, they do not necessarily bring rising income levels or job prospects to neighborhood residents. While these changes can benefit longtime residents of a developing creative cluster, it is only a benefit to those who actually own property and can manage the subsequent rise in property taxes. Many times, the smartest option for these types of residents is to sell their property (if they even own it in the first place), which could disrupt the neighborhood’s population dynamics and character—low-income residents are not going to sell property with an increased value to other low-income individuals who simply cannot afford the rising price of their real estate. If SIAP’s “natural” cultural districts do not create jobs that are widely accessible to existing residents of the area but eventually drive up the cost of real estate, the question emerges: how truly beneficial are these creative clusters to the average person? Moreover, how do the economic and demographic shifts in these clusters change the nature of the cultural assets that are produced?

Overall, the authors were largely dismissive of the effects of gentrification and its relationship to the arts in their literature review. However, Stern and Seifert do not provide a clear understanding of how they are defining gentrification for the purposes of that assessment, or specific examples of research that failed to show a displacement effect. Instead, they assert that there is not enough clear information about gentrification for them to truly consider it as a factor in their research. This struck me as an odd claim, especially given Stern’s background in U.S. social history and his research on racial inequality. This is a disconnect that continues throughout their body of work.

Stern and Seifert draw a connection between cultural clusters and both economic inequality and rising real estate costs, yet they treat these shifts as wholly separate from the broader issue of gentrification. My personal understanding is that economic inequality and expensive real estate are considered prime contributing factors to gentrification. Since Stern and Seifert do not acknowledge the relationship between these phenomena, it would have been helpful for them to provide the reader with a clearer understanding of what they mean using terms like gentrification or neighborhood stabilization instead of assuming universal understanding of these terms.

IMPLICATIONS

Regardless of whether or not the strategies SIAP promotes are the best ones to employ, they are definitely some of the most influential theories out there. Joan Shigekawa, the Acting Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Jeremy Nowak, the Interim Director of ArtPlace, were both involved with the organizational entities that funded and collaborated in the Culture and Community Revitalization project. Prior to her term at the NEA, Shigekawa was the Associate Director for Foundation Initiatives at the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded the study. Nowak is the co-founder and former CEO of The Reinvestment Fund, one of the lead partners in this work. As a result, they’ve begun to explore some of the ideas SIAP has developed about the creative economy into the institutions they now run.

How has work on culture and urban revitalization progressed since the study was published?

In my research, it has been difficult to find models of community revitalization using cultural clusters that do not tie into some, if not all of the theories that are covered in this series of research studies.  Stern and Seifert’s research on local production and consumption, as well as their emphasis on the social benefits of creative placemaking, are deserving of policymakers and advocates’ attentions.   Curiously, at the end of Culture and Community Revitalization’s literature review the authors seem to downplay the role of natural cultural clusters in enhancing urban revitalization, stating that in spite of the correlations between culture, social engagement, and economic improvement, these correlations “do not produce direct-enough benefits to generate enthusiasm among those who actually determine the fate of cities.”

Yet, as previously mentioned, two large philanthropic entities are in the midst of executing their own round of funding based on the idea that cultural assets can improve communities socially and economically. Nowak’s ArtPlace is a collaboration between foundations to put “art at the heart of a portfolio of strategies designed to revitalize communities.” Prior to heading up ArtPlace, Nowak helped it get off the ground as president of one of its original funding partners, the William Penn Foundation.  ArtPlace makes grants in all 50 states and has awarded over $42 million to different organizations thus far. The NEA’s Our Town program, begun under Shigekawa’s tenure as Senior Deputy Chairman of the agency, explains its grantmaking objective as providing funding for “creative placemaking projects that contribute toward the livability of communities and help transform them into lively, beautiful, and sustainable places with the arts at their core.” Notably, both funding entities have supported SIAP and TRF’s latest collaboration in partnership with the City of Philadelphia, an interactive data portal called CultureBlocks, specifically designed to bridge the gap between cultural assets and City Hall in the name of community revitalization.

All of this philanthropic activity does beg the question: if natural cultural clusters already exist and are improving their communities, is it really necessary for the public and private sector to get involved? Observing the trajectory of the ArtPlace and Our Town initiatives will help bear this question out.

Are there better models out there?

As pointed out in a previous Createquity piece on the arts and gentrification, there are some really innovative artist and community-driven projects focused on neighborhood revitalization and stabilization across the country. These projects include Project Row Houses in Houston, the work of Theaster Gates Rebuild Foundation on the South Side of Chicago, and the Watts House Project in Watts, CA. Though these projects have been subject to their own criticisms, they do seem to provide an alternative to both completely “natural” cultural cluster development and the completely government-initiated cultural district approach. That said, the aforementioned projects have all been implemented within the past decade—it is still too early to truly determine how deep of an impact they will make, both locally and nationally. Will another innovator be able to combine the work of the artist/community developers and the theories promoted by Stern and Seifert? Is that even the path that should be taken or is it best to leave “natural” cultural clusters alone to develop according to their own ethos?

Additional Reading:

• For more information on the concept of “natural” cultural clusters
• CultureBlocks website
• Local NBC news affiliate on the launch of CultureBlocks

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT

•  At the end of April, the City of Philadelphia unveiled a free online tool called CultureBlocks for “research, planning, exploration and investment” in creative placemaking. Gary Steuer, the Chief Cultural Officer of the City of Philadelphia, gives an inside look at the tool, and the Philadelphia Inquirer has more on how it can be used.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning two statues to Cambodia, where they were determined to have been looted from. Tess Davis, a researcher on Cambodian antiquities, told the New York Times, “The Met Could have treated Cambodia’s request as an obstacle. Instead, the museum recognized it as an opportunity to set the moral standard for the art world.”

MUSICAL CHAIRS

• Jeremy Nowak, the co-founder and former CEO of  The Reinvestment Fund in Philadelphia, was named the interim Director of ArtPlace, a collaboration of organizations focused on creative placemaking.
• Tim Mikulski, the current editor of ARTSblog, is leaving Americans for the Arts, and posted a warm farewell. (ARTSBlog really flourished under Tim’s leadership, and he’ll be missed. -IDM)
• The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s new Research and Policy Director David Pankratz, who came to the organization and the city at the beginning of this year, offers his thoughts on Pittsburgh as a dream city for the arts policy enthusiast. Read David’s guest post for Createquity on creative placemaking here.

ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS

• The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has announced its 2013 Doris Duke Class of Artists. The Doris Duke grant includes up to $25,000 for audience development and up to $25,000 for personal reserves or creative exploration during retirement.
• New Music USA has announced changes to its grantmaking strategy, uniting five  programs into one flexible fund targeting a wide range of music projects.
• You may have noticed that a new model of TV programming has emerged in the last ten years — dark, gritty shows — but shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are the product of a new model behind the scenes, as well, one that pay networks are better positioned to use, according to a New York Times article last week. YouTube just announced that it is piloting a system in which 30 channels will offer paid subscription access to additional content. I wonder whether these channels will find the same advantage pay networks on TV have, or whether paid YouTube will fizzle as a latecomer competitor to Netflix and Hulu Plus.

IN THE FIELD

• After a 191-day lockout, the musicians of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra finally ratified a three-year contract. However, the Minnesota Orchestra’s season has been canceled, following an ongoing labor dispute.
• Finding ways around traditional funding and production models is also one of the goals motivating a growing movement of a very different kind — public libraries as performance venues. By bringing in artist talks, concerts, and comedy acts in the evening, libraries become more of a community hub, while the performers get a place to share their most expressive works, away from the pressure to bring in big ticket sales that they find at many venues.
• The 9/11 museum has decided to charge a mandatory admission fee when the museum opens next year, citing high security costs and questioning whether a donation-only model would support them after the first year. Not directly in response, but on-topic, Jim Undercofler wonders aloud why contributed revenue is considered less stable or predictable than earned revenue.
• The Rio Theater, a beloved mom-and-pop cinema in Monte Rio, California, recently raised $63,993 in a Kickstarter campaign to switch to digital projection and stay open in the face of rapid technological change.
• “How do you reconcile the desire to be inclusive with the practical imperative to target?” asks Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History director and Museum 2.0 blogger Nina Simon. She’s referring to museum marketing and mission, but it can apply to any organization striving for community relevance. Her answer is “social bridging,” deliberately creating programs that appeal to and “matchmake” unlikely segments of the population.
• The Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York recently surpassed 500 members, many of whom are young metropolites. The New York Times provides a style-section type look at who these people are and what goes on at their gatherings.
• A growing number of business colleges and schools are using art as a teaching and learning tool, and some are amassing important collections of modern and contemporary art. Meanwhile, MIT is teaching young people computer programming as a thinking tool, with some artistic results.
• Dayton, Ohio may soon be the home of two separate museums dedicated to funk, leading some to speculate whether it can support two of them.

BIG IDEAS

• In an interview Laura Zabel, director of Springboard for the Arts in St. Paul, talks about the new CSA (Community Supported Art!) supporting health care for artists rather than health insurance for artists, and other projects. She says, “In the work we’ve done in the Central Corridor we have seen that artists can see the opportunity in a challenge… and have nuts-and-bolts skills that can draw people, attention, and dollars to a place.”
• In a new book, Jaron Lanier asks, “Who Owns the Future?” and presents a manifesto for an economy in which the middle class is supported by micropayments for all data we create online, from tweets to purchasing decisions. For a summary, see Evgeny Morozov’s skeptical review in the Washington Post.
• How can foundations become leaders in their communities? The Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society has just published an essay on how the one group has done it,  Changing the Game: Civic Leadership at The Boston Foundation, 2001-2012, authored by the president of The Boston Foundation.

CONFERENCES AND TALKS

• In New York on May 23, and in Berkeley on June 2, Author Arlene Goldbard will give book talks to launch her two new books: The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & The Future, a collection of short essays on the potential for positive social outcomes through art and creativity, and The Wave, a novel set in a future in which the hopes and predictions of The Culture of Possibility have come true. Goldbard presents both books on her blog, and last week, Barry Hessenius interviewed her on his blog (parts I, II).

RESEARCH CORNER

• The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s experiments with a tool called Strategy Landscape have drawn to a close (at least for now; they are considering re-releasing it open-source) and Kevin Bolduc shared some lessons learned from the project on their blog.
• The National Center for Arts Research has a short summary of the implications of the Nonprofit Finance Fund’s 2013 State of the Nonprofit Sector survey.
• The Centre for Economics and Business Research has released a report demonstrating the economic benefits of the arts and culture on the UK.
• The European Expert Network on Culture has released a report on strategies for export and internationalization of cultural and creative industries in the European Union. Find a brief summary here, and the report here.
• Pacific Standard Magazine reports on two studies that suggest musicians — or at least men holding guitars — are more attractive to women than non-musicians. I’d like to see more scientific (and less heteronormative) studies, but it’s an interesting theory.

Between 2009 and 2011, arts participation “increased” from 35% of the population to nearly 75%. Clearly we should have witnessed a paradigm shift in the arts comparable to the Renaissance in these two years, but sadly that’s not what happened. Instead, the National Endowment for the Arts, faced with a mountain of disappointing news about the rates of participation in its 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), commissioned 3 separate monographs and wrote several notes of their own to explain the data, which led to a broadened definition of arts participation that covers three-quarters of the population. Because the SPPA data has been discussed in numerous other research documents and blogs, I will keep the summary of the original report to the most highlighted bullet points and spend more time outlining the history of the analysis.

SUMMARY

The SPPA has been conducted five times by the by the NEA since 1982 in partnership with the United States Census Bureau (with the exception of the 1997 survey, which was administered by a private research firm and is not comparable to other years). The report presents detailed findings from the 2008 SPPA alongside data from prior years. To allow data to be compared with previous years, the survey questions remain relatively stable.

The survey tracks the following kinds of participation:

• Attending arts events
• Experiencing recorded or broadcasted live performances
• Exploring arts through the Internet
• Personally performing or creating art
• Taking arts-related classes

The key indicator for participation for this and all previous versions of the SPPA is attendance at “benchmark“ events:  jazz, classical music, opera, musical plays, non-musical plays, ballet, and visits to art museums or galleries. In addition to the core benchmark activities, four modules within the survey included questions about internet and other media use, arts learning, reading, and leisure activities. To increase the response rate for the 2008 SPPA, respondents were only asked about 2 of the 4 modules. New questions focused on Latin Music, attendance at outdoor festivals, and technology. Sections on trips away from home and desire to attend more events were dropped. The response rate was 82%, for a total of 18,444 adults interviewed over two weeks in May 2008 by phone.

The report itself describes the results as “disappointing.” The percentage of adults attending at least one benchmark arts activity declined from 39% in 2002 to less than 35% in 2008, the largest drop recorded in any survey interval. Just as striking is the long-term trend; participation levels never dipped below 39% since the first survey in 1982 and even rose in 1992 when participation reached 41%. Exceptions to the recent declines are musical plays and art museums, which are both flat from the 2002 SPPA, as well as literary reading, which is also up from 2002.

Attendance at Benchmark Activities

In contrast to the population more generally, most audiences at benchmark activities held at least a college degree and/or pulled in an annual income of $75,000 or greater. Latin music, outdoor performing arts festivals, and art museums drew younger audiences than other genres, while arts and craft festivals, parks and historic sites, and jazz were more successful in reaching lower- and middle-income audiences. These profiles may not be surprising, but what has people concerned is that those aged 45 to 54, historically a large component of arts audiences, showed the steepest declines in attendance, and even the most educated Americans are attending benchmark activities less often than reported in earlier surveys. One possible factor is the economy, which had been in a recession for six months at the time of the survey. This might help explain findings that low-cost, low-travel activities such as researching art over the internet and reading rose compared to the previous survey.

Arts Creation, Performance, and Learning

Since 1982, the number of adults reporting that they had taken arts lessons at any time in their lives has been declining, and substantially fewer young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 have had lessons. For example, in 1982 61% reported having had music lessons of some kind, but only 38% reported the same in 2008.

However, the study shows some forms of participation and creation on the rise, with 10% of respondents reporting participating in at least one of the art forms within the past 12 months. Singing in a choir or vocal group drew the most participants, with 11.6 million adults, or 5.2% of the population, participating. Photography and film‐making increased from 12% in 2002 to nearly 15% of all adults.  Classical music performance or creation increased to 3.1%, after falling to 1.8% in 2002 from 1992 levels  (almost all forms of creating and performing dipped between 1992 and 2002). On the other hand, dancing, weaving/sewing, and pottery/ceramics continued to see long-term declines.

Media Participation

More Americans engage with performances through broadcasts or recordings through radio, internet or other electronic media than attend live arts events. Overall, 41% of adults watched, listened, or explored the arts through some form of electronic media, and the total number of adults watching or listening through broadcast media is double the number that attend performances. Only live theater still attracts more audiences than broadcasts or recordings of its equivalent, not including television or movies. Online, 39% of all Internet‐using adults, or 62 million Americans, viewed, listened to, downloaded, or posted artworks or performance at least once a week. (Keep in mind that this study was conducted four years ago.)

State and Regional Patterns

There are regional differences in how communities choose to participate in the arts. For example, the New England and Pacific regions reported high levels of attendance at most benchmark activities. The East South Central region, which includes Kentucky down to Alabama, reported the lowest participation rates in benchmark activities, but also showed the highest participation rates in choral singing.

History of Analysis

Soon after reviewing the SPPA results, the NEA commissioned independent researchers to mine the SPPA data for details on the following topics: arts education; the personal performance and creation of artworks; and the relationship between age and arts participation.

Case against Demographic Destiny

In Age and Arts Participation: A Case Against Demographic Destiny, Mark J. Stern of the University of Pennsylvania reports that it’s not the audiences that are greying, it’s our country. It’s true that Generation X and Millenials are participating in benchmark events at lower rates in their young adulthood than previous generations. But overall, age and generational cohort accounts for less than 1% of the variance of the total number of arts events that Americans attended between 1982- 2008. Other influences, particularly educational attainment, have a much stronger role in explaining arts participation. Although WWII and Baby Boomer generations do attend a broader array of benchmark events and attend more often, Stern argues that younger generations also have an appetite for diverse arts experiences and that “the ability of established or emerging arts groups to attract participants will have less to do with the age distribution of the population than with their ability to connect to the creative aspirations of their potential audiences.”

Beyond Attendance

WolfBrown’s Beyond Attendance: A Multi-Modal Understanding of Arts Participation suggests that the current participation numbers do not accurately reflect how Americans are choosing to participate in the arts. Using a broader definition of arts participation, Jennifer Novak-Leonard and Alan Brown conclude that three out of four Americans participate in arts activities. The new definition includes a fuller variety of artistic genres, including participation via electronic media, and personal arts creation. Interestingly, approximately 23% of U.S. adults participate in the arts, but do not attend arts events or institutions in person, suggesting there is an opportunity for arts organizations to engage communities through arts creation and performance without expecting that they will ever attend a performance or exhibition at a traditional venue. Finally, although arts attendance at benchmark activities has declined, rates of arts creation have remained stable at 41% between 2002 and 2008. This stable rate is sustained by the increase of online participation.

Arts Education in America

Nick Rabkin and E.C. Hedberg from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) conclude in Arts Education in America: What the Declines Mean for Arts Participation that the most significant predictive factor for arts attendance at benchmark activities is arts education, rather than educational attainment or income. While it is not surprising that adults enrolled in art classes or lessons are most likely to have also participated in benchmark arts activities, it is important to note that most Americans who had arts education as an adult also had had arts education as a child. It’s clear from the data that childhood arts education has been declining over time, and Rabkin and Hedberg argue that reversing this decline will be necessary if arts education is to play a significant role in stemming the erosion of adult arts participation. Perhaps most notably, the report suggests that we need to know more about what kinds of arts education experiences inspire people to continue participating in the arts as adults.

NEA Research Notes and Audience 2.0

Three research notes and an additional research report from the NEA further analyze the geographic, community, and technological contexts of arts participation.

The first research note, “Art-Goers In Their Communities,” reports that Americans who attend arts performances, visit art museums or galleries, or read literature are particularly active members of their communities. For example, while more than half of adults who attended art museums or live arts events volunteered in the past year, only a third of the general population did so.  While it’s not possible to draw a causal inference based on this observation, it suggests that arts, literary, sports, and civic organizations may benefit from the creation of innovative partnerships to reach a larger shared audience.

The second note, “State and Regional Differences in Arts Participation: A Geographic Analysis of the 2008 SPPA,” takes an in-depth look at the regional differences already explored in the original report, including a detailed analysis for 32 states. For example, Oregon consistently ranks among the highest in attendance of the performing arts, including opera, jazz and classical music concerts.  Nebraska ranks high in the number of adults pursuing creative writing.

“Come as You Are: Informal Arts Participation in Urban and Rural Communities” focuses on the differences in participation patterns between rural and urban areas. The analysis reinforces the finding that arts participation in benchmark activities is greater in urban areas, but when “informal arts” (arts activities that are self-initiated, community-based, and often occur in homes, schools, and churches) are added to the mix, urban and rural areas participate at the same rates.  In addition, the study found that arts participation does not increase with metropolitan size beyond 250,000 people.

Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation reported that people who engage with art through media technologies are two to three times more likely to attend a benchmark activity.  Older adults, rural, and  minority groups are more likely to use media technologies to access certain art forms  than attend a live event. For example, more than half of Latinos used electronic media to engage with Latin music, and 20% of African Americans, more than any other ethnic group, used media to explore jazz.

Other Perspectives and Reactions

In 2009, the League of American Orchestras conducted its own study with McKinsey and reversed a long-held assumption that audiences will replenish themselves. The League’s “Audience Demographic Research Review” confirmed that participation is declining within and between generations and “we cannot assume that people will attend more as they enter the 45+ age group.”

Also in 2009, the NEA publicized a press release that used the survey results to declare the success of its Big Read literacy program.  For the first time in the survey’s history, literary reading increased from 46.7% in 2002 to 50.2% in the 2008.  Then Endowment Chairman Diana Gioia remarked in the press release that “this dramatic turnaround shows that the many programs now focused on reading, including our own Big Read, are working. Cultural decline is not inevitable.”

ANALYSIS

The SPPA’s high response rate (82%) and large sample size makes it the most reliable and representative longitudinal audience survey available to us. Because longitudinal analysis has been so essential to the implications of the data, though, it is worth taking a second look at the methodology from a historical perspective.  The first three surveys were conducted as a supplement to the Census Bureau’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and the 1997 edition was conducted by a private consulting firm as a standalone survey. It was only starting in 2002 that the Bureau conducted the SPPA a supplement to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), and although both the NCVS and CPS are based on a random sample of households, the two sampling designs do differ.  However, the impact of these differences have already been measured by the Census Bureau.

Other differences should be noted when comparing the surveys. Earlier surveys were conducted in person, rather than over the phone. This could increase the rate of affirmative answers as people may be more inclined to try to please the interviewer than over the phone. Furthermore, some earlier versions were conducted over a period of a year, rather than just a few weeks, which could impact either seasonality of attendance. Lastly, the fact that spouses or partners were used to collect data in 2008 could contribute to slightly more erratic attendance reporting (if spouses inaccurately report frequency). Taken individually, these are only minor differences, but collectively, could all of these changes lead to lower  reported rates of attendance? Possibly, yet it seems likely that all of these minor differences can be taken into account in a detailed statistical analysis and that there is very little, if any, impact on the participation numbers.

Given the strong correlation between arts education and participation, it would be helpful if the questions surrounding early arts experiences could be further developed. In Arts Education in America, Rabkin and Hedberg highlight that “participants were not asked about the depth, intensity, or longevity of their study in the arts, nor were they asked about their subjective experiences — how much they enjoyed or cared about learning in and about the arts. Private weekly piano lessons for 10 years and recorder lessons in a class of 30 second-graders for a few months are equivalent in SPPA data and recorded as childhood music education, provided that those experiences are remembered and reported.” Future versions of the survey might address this deficiency by asking about respondents’ early arts experiences in more depth.

It’s surprising that actually the reverse has occurred – arts education questions have been eliminated as others were added to keep the survey at a manageable length. Eliminated questions asked about arts lessons during specific age brackets and about in-school vs. out-of-school learning. Although Sunil Iyengar points to the Fast Response Survey System (FRSS) for K-12 arts education as a tool for learning more about arts learning in the country, it doesn’t help us to cross-tabulate early education experiences with adult participation.

IMPLICATIONS

Given the “disappointing” results of the 2008 SPPA, should we be as concerned as we are about the future of the arts?  With the exception of museums and musical plays, attendance is declining, subscriptions are down, and ultimately sustainability is in question for arts organizations large and small.  This year’s Americans for the Arts Convention was titled “The New Normal,” suggesting the financial difficulties artists and art institutions currently face won’t disappear with an uptick in the economy.  As the 2008 SPPA research notes and monographs point out, current trends in arts attendance are beyond the scapegoats of demography or the economy.  It seems these downward trends in attendance stem from deep changes in how we choose to engage not only with the arts, but  nearly all kinds of information, entertainment, and culture.

The flip side of The New Normal is that other kinds of arts participation, including active participation and engagement through technology, are at least remaining stable, and photography and filmmaking are showing significant increases. Furthermore, it’s important to note that more Americans engage with performances through broadcasts or recordings than attend live arts events.

So if The New Normal has an upside, why do we continue to give so much weight to attendance numbers? Is it productive for us to focus on “benchmark” percentages? I would argue that it’s only productive if we are convinced other modalities are not equally valuable within the spectrum of arts participation. It’s not enough to value live attendance over other kinds of participation because of institutional models that yield significant earned revenue from ticket sales. If Americans are showing an interest in participating through choirs or viewing art online, then arts organizations have an opportunity to connect with their audiences through active participation and through online media. Perhaps if we could find a way to monetize participatory arts experiences, arts organizations wouldn’t be as concerned about the effect of dwindling ticket sales on the bottom line.

Regardless of how we value the various participation modalities, we still need to have audiences for America’s best theater, dance, and opera. Nick Rabkin’s and E.C. Hedberg’s monograph Arts Education in America asserts that the most significant predictive factor for arts attendance at benchmark activities is arts education, rather than educational attainment or income.  Furthermore, Jennifer Novak-Leonard and Alan Brown in Beyond Attendance find that “having had any arts lessons increases the likelihood of arts creation by 32%.” Meanwhile, Novak-Leonard and Brown report that 23% of adults participate but do not attend, indicating that there may be certain kinds of participation that do not necessarily lead to attendance. All of this suggests that the SPPA should ask more in-depth questions about the kinds, duration, and intensity of individuals’ arts education, including formal and non-formal types of learning. We could then learn more about which types of educational experiences might lead to attendance and which will not.

Overall, it seems like the real story here is not about the decline in arts participation, but the shift in how we choose to participate. If Americans are still seeking a deep a personal relationship with art, perhaps our increased demand for personal involvement and social connectivity are creating new demands for participatory arts experiences. New research from the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance shows that increased active or online participation can “be a gateway” to attendance, and this shift to participatory arts may point toward a broadening of consumption of the arts rather than a decline. Online, 39% of all Internet‐using adults, or 62 million Americans, viewed, listened to, downloaded, or posted artworks or performance at least once a week, and 45% participated in some form of creation or performance activity. It’s time for the SPPA survey to reflect this shift in participation through development of a new survey protocol, rather than continue to rely heavily on questions that are now over 30 years old.

Fortunately, the NEA agrees. Recently, the agency announced that it was revising the 2012 SPPA, noting that “it seemed time to revisit the way we ask about the arts in America.“ The primary purpose of the survey will be “to create baseline rates of arts participation inclusive of both traditional and non-traditional modes of participation.” The new survey questions will improve the ability to measure participation in emerging art forms and modes, including electronic media and non-formal learning opportunities. It will also ask more specific questions in regards to arts learning, asking specifically about informal modes of learning and whether early learning took place in our out of school. In perhaps the biggest shift in language, questions relating to attendance will not be tied to venue; the SPPA will ask if respondents attended an art exhibit, and if so, where. To maintain some ability to compare this study with previous ones, the 2012 SPPA will have two sets of core questions – the old core will be the benchmark attendance questions, and the new core will include the emerging art forms and modalities. By 2017 the old core will be completely replaced by the new core questions.

The 2012 SPPA will capture arts participation patterns in the aftermath of the biggest recession in 80 years, the heyday of social media, and the mainstreaming of the mobile web. Kickstarter, which arguably has helped democratize access to arts creation, didn’t exist in 2008, nor did the curatorial social media network Pinterest. Etsy, part of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement where artists and artisans sell their wares online, has been profitable since 2009 and has raised $51 million in capital. Meanwhile, we know that arts attendance is down, but the 2008 survey does not prove that other types of participation are increasing. We shall see more clearly when the 2012 edition comes out (sometime in early 2013) if those who are participating online and in active art-making are at the vanguard of a long-term shift in participation away from attendance.

Further Reading:

• Sunil Iyengar, Taking Note: Accounting for Audience Impact — What Were They Thinking (and Feeling)!? (Art Works)
• Greg Sandow, Dire data (ArtsJournal)
• Webinar: Preview of Three New SPPA Reports 
• Betty Farrell and Maria Medvedeva, “Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums“
• Molly Sheridan, And the Survey Says: Considering the NEA’s 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (NewMusicBox)

Steve Powers, “Look Look Look,” Part of the “A Love Letter for You” project, commissioned by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 2009-2010. http://www.aloveletterforyou.com

In the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Public Art Review, Jack Becker writes, “There is a dearth of research efforts focusing on public art and its impact. The evidence is mostly anecdotal. Some attempts have focused specifically on economic impact, but this doesn’t tell the whole story, or even the most important stories.”

Becker’s statement gets at some of the main challenges in measuring the “impact” of a work of public art—a task which more often than not provokes grumbling from public art administrators. When asked how they know their work is successful, most organizations and artists that create art in the public realm are quick to cite things like people’s positive comments, or the fact that the artwork doesn’t get covered with graffiti or cause controversy.

We are much less likely to hear about systematic data gathered over a long time period—largely due to the seemingly complex, time-consuming, or futile nature of such a task. Unlike museums or performance spaces, public art traditionally doesn’t sell tickets, or attract “audiences” who can easily be counted, surveyed, or educated. A public artwork’s role in economic revitalization is difficult to separate from that of its overall surroundings. And as Becker suggests, economic indicators of success may leave out important factors like the intrinsic benefits of experiencing art in one’s everyday life.

However, public art administrators generally agree that some type of evaluation is key in not only making a case for support from funders, but in building a successful program. In the words of Chicago Public Art Group (CPAG) executive director Jon Pounds, evaluations can at the very least “help artists strengthen their skills…and address any problems that come up in programming.”  Is there a reliable framework that can be the basis of all good public art evaluation? And what are some simple yet effective evaluation methods that most organizations can implement?

This article will explore some of the main challenges with public art evaluation, and then provide an overview of what has been done in this area so far with varying degrees of success. It builds upon my 2007 Columbia University Teachers College Arts Administration thesis, And Then What…? Measuring the Audience Impact of Community-Based Public Art.That study specifically dealt with the issue of measuring audience response to permanent community-based public art, and included interviews with a wide range of public artists and administrators.

This article will discuss evaluation more broadly—moving beyond audience response—and incorporate more recent interviews with leaders in the public art field.  My goal was not to generate quantitative data on what people are doing in the field as a whole with evaluation (according to Liesel Fenner, director of Americans for the Arts’s Public Art Network, such data is not yet available, though it is a goal). Instead, I have reviewed recent literature on public art assessment, and interviewed a range of different types of organizations, from government-run “percent for art” and transit programs to grassroots community-based art organizations in New York City (where I am based) and other parts of the United States.  I sought to find out whether evaluation is considered important, how much time is devoted to it, and the details of particularly innovative efforts.

The challenge of defining what we are actually evaluating

The term “public art” once referred to monumental sculptures celebrating religious or political leaders.  It evolved during the mid-twentieth century to include art meant to speak for the “people” or advance social and political movements, as in the Mexican and WPA murals of the 1930s, or the early community murals of the 1960s-1970s civil rights movements. Today, “public art” can describe anything from ephemeral, participatory performances to illegal street art to internet-based projects.  The intended results of various types of public art, and our capacity to measure them, are very different.

In the social science field, evaluation typically involves setting clear goals, or expected outcomes, connected to the main activities of a program or project. It also involves defining indicators that the outcomes have been met. This exercise often takes the form of a “theory of change.” Since there are so many types of public art, it is exceedingly difficult to develop one single “theory of change” for the whole field, but it may be helpful to use a recent definition of public art from the UK-based public art think tank Ixia: “A process of engaging artists’ ideas in the public realm.” This definition implies that public art will always occupy some kind of “public realm”–whether it is a physical place or otherwise-defined community—and require an “engagement” with the public that may or may not result in a tangible artwork as end result. This process and the reactions of the public must be evaluated along with whatever artistic product may come out of it.

The challenge of building a common framework for evaluation

In 2004, Ixia commissioned OPENspace, the research center for inclusive access to outdoor environments based at the Edinburgh College of Art and Heriot-Watt University, to research ways of evaluating public art, ultimately resulting in a comprehensive 2010 report, “Public Art: A Guide to Evaluation” (see a helpful summary by Americans for the Arts).  The guide’s emphasis and content was shaped by feedback from Ixia’s Evaluation Seminars and fieldwork conducted by Ixia and consultants who have used its Evaluation Toolkit. Ixia provides the most comprehensive resources on evaluation that I have encountered, with two main evaluation tools, the evaluation matrix and the personal project analysis. These are helpful as a starting point for evaluating any project or program.

The matrix’s goal is to “capture a range of values that may need to be taken into account when considering the desirable or possible outcomes of engaging artists in the public realm.” It is meant to be filled out by various stakeholders during a project-planning stage, as well as at the midpoint and conclusion of a project.

Ixia’s “personal project analysis”is “a tool for process delivery that aims to assess how a project’s delivery is being put into practice.”  I will not analyze it in detail here, except to say that something similar should also ideally be part of any organization’s evaluation plan, as it allows for assessing how well the project is being carried out.

Personal Project Analysis from Ixia’s “Public Art: A Guide to Evaluation”

Matrix from Ixia’s “Public Art: A Guide to Evaluation”

Ixia’s matrix identifies four main categories of values:

1. Artistic Values [visual/aesthetic enjoyment, design quality, social activation, innovation/risk, host participation, challenge/critical debate]

2. Social Values [community development, poverty and social inclusion, health and well being, crime and safety, interpersonal development, travel/access, and skills acquisition]

3. Environmental Values [vegetation and wildlife, physical environment improvement, conservation, pollution and waste management-air, water and ground quality, and climate change and energy],

4. Economic Values [marketing/place identity, regeneration, tourism, economic investment and output, resource use and recycling, education, employment, project management/sustainability, and value for money].

The matrix accounts for the fact that each public artwork’s values and desired outcomes will be different depending on the nature of the presenting organization, site, and audience.

It is unclear how widely these tools have been adopted in the UK since their publication, and I did not encounter anyone in the U.S. using them. Yet many organizations are employing a similar process of engaging various stakeholders during the project-planning phase to determine goals specific to each project, which relate to the categories in Ixia’s matrix.  For example, most professionals I interviewed cited some type of “artistic” goals for the work. Some organizations prioritize presenting the highest quality art in public spaces, in which case the realization of an artist’s vision is top priority (representatives of New York City’s Percent for Art program described “Skilled craftsmanship” and “clarity of artistic vision” as key success factors, for example).

By contrast, organizations that include a youth education or community justice component may rank “social” or “economic” values higher. Groundswell Community Mural Project, an NYC-based nonprofit that creates mural projects with youth, asks all organizations that host mural projects (which may include schools, government agencies, and community-based organizations) in pre-surveys to choose their top desired project outcomes from a range of choices, as well as identify project-specific issues. Groundswell does have a well-developed theory of change behind all its projects, relating to the organization’s core mission to “beautify neighborhoods, engage youth in societal and personal transformation, and give expression to ideas and perspectives that are underrepresented in the public dialog.” However, some project-specific outcomes may be more environmental—for example, partnerships with the Trust for Public Land to integrate murals into new school playgrounds–while some relate to “crime and safety,” as in an ongoing partnership with the NYC Department of Transportation to install murals and signs at dangerous traffic intersections that educate the public about traffic safety.

Groundswell Community Mural Project, signs from “Traffic Safety Program,” a partnership between Groundswell, the Department of Transportation’s Safety Education program, and several NYC public elemenary schools. Lead artists Yana Dimitrova, Chris Soria, and Nicole Schulman worked with students to create these signs installed at locations identified as most in need of traffic signage.

Groundswell is just one example of many public art organizations that set goals at the outset of each individual project, based on each project’s particular site and community.  While individual organizations may effectively evaluate their own projects this way, crafting a common theory of change for all public art may be an unrealistic expectation.

The challenge of reliable indicators and data collection

The Ixia report discusses the process by which indicators of public art’s ability to produce desired outcomes may be identified, with the following questions:

1. Is it realistic to expect a public art project to influence the outcomes you are measuring?
2. Is it likely that you can differentiate the impact of the public art project and processes from other influences, e.g., other local investment?
3. Is it possible to conduct meaningful data on what matters in relation to the chosen indicators?

For example, in studies seeking to measure any kind of change, good data collection should always include a baseline—i.e., economic conditions or attitudes of people BEFORE the public art entered the picture. Data collection methods ideally should also be reliable, unbiased, and easily replicated.

The “Guide to Evaluation” does not go into detail about any concrete indicators of public art’s “impact.” Therefore, the matrix seems to be most useful as a guide to goal-setting. As the Americans for the Arts summary of this report points out, “Ixia directs users to [UK-based] government performance indicators as a baseline source, but that is where the discussion ends.”

Liesel Fenner of Americans for the Arts’s Public Art Network mentioned in an email to me that while PAN hopes to develop a comprehensive list of indicators in the future, which can be shared among public art presenters nationally, “developing quantitative indicators is the main obstacle.”

According to my interviews with both on-the-ground administrators and public art researchers, many busy arts administrators find the type of data collection recommended in Ixia’s guide difficult, costly and time-consuming. It can be a challenge to get artistic staff to buy into even basic evaluation; says one community arts administrator, “artists are paid for a their leadership in developing and delivering a strong project. Many artists don’t see as much value in evaluation because, in part, it comes in addition to the difficult work that they just accomplished.”   It is also uncommon to spend precious training resources on something like quantitative evaluation techniques.

Some are of the opinion that even if significant time were spent on justifying public art’s existence by “proving” its practical usefulness, this would still be a losing battle that could lead to the withdrawal of support for public art, the production of bad art that panders merely to public needs, or both. One seasoned public art administrator asked me: “Is architecture evaluated this way? The same way public buildings need to exist, public art needs to exist. It’s people looking to weaken public art who are trying to ask these questions about its impact.”

The challenge of evaluating long-term, permanent installations

Glenn Weiss, former director of the Times Square Alliance Public Art Program and current director of Arts League Houston, posits that economic impact studies are “most possible with highly publicized, short-term projects like the Gates or large public art festivals.”   Indeed, the New York City Mayor’s office published a detailed report on “an estimated $254 million in economic activity” that resulted from The Gates, a large installation in Central Park by internationally acclaimed artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, based on data like increased park attendance and business at nearby hotels, restaurants, etc.  However, most public art projects, even temporary ones, are not as monumental or heavily promoted as The Gates, making it difficult to prove that people come to a neighborhood, or frequent its businesses, primarily to see the public art.

Visitors crowd Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates” (2005) in Central Park. Photo by Eric Carvin.

Weiss also believes that temporary festivals are generally easier to evaluate quantitatively than long-term public art projects. For example, during a finite event or installation, staff members can keep a count of attendees (some of the temporary public art projects I have encountered in my research, such as the FIGMENT annual participatory art festival on Governors Island and in various other U.S. cities, use attendance counts as a measure).

The few comprehensive studies connecting long-term, permanent public art to economic and community-wide impacts, conducted by research consultants and funded by specific grants, have led to somewhat inconclusive results. For example, An Assessment of Community Impact of the Philadelphia Department of Recreation Mural Arts Program (2002), led by Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert of University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP), cites the assumed community-wide benefits of murals outlined in MAP’s mission statement at the time of the study:

The creation of a mural can have social benefits for entire communities…Murals bring neighbors together in new ways and often galvanize them to undertake other community improvements, such as neighborhood clean-ups, community gardening, or organizing a town watch. Murals become focal points and symbols of community pride and inspiring reminders of the cooperation and dedication that made their creation possible.

Yet when asked to “use the best data available to document the impact that murals have had over the past decade on Philadelphia’s communities,” Stern and Seifert found that

this is a much more difficult task than one might imagine. First, there are significant conceptual problems involved in thinking through exactly how murals might have an impact on neighborhoods. Second, the quality of data available to test hypotheses concerning murals is limited. Finally, there are a number of methodological problems involved in using the right comparisons in assessing the potential impact of murals. For example, how far from a mural might we expect to see an impact? How long after a mural is painted might it take to see an effect and how long might that effect last?…Ultimately, this report concludes that these issues remain a significant impediment to understanding the role of murals.

By comparing data on murals to existing neighborhood quality of life data, Stern and Seifert considered murals’ connection to factors like community economic investment and indicators of more general neighborhood change (such as reduced litter or crime, or residents’ investment in other community organizing activities). The study also measured levels of community investment and involvement in murals. However, the scarce data available on these factors, according to the authors, are difficult to connect directly to public art in a cause and effect relationship. Stern and Seifert’s strongest finding was that murals may build “social capital,” or “networks of relationships” that can promote  “individual and group well-being,” because of all the events surrounding mural production in which people can participate. It was more difficult to show a consistent relationship between murals and other theorized outcomes, such as ability to “inspire” passersby or serve as “amenities” for neighborhoods. The study recommends that “more systematic information on their physical characteristics and sites—‘before and after’—would provide a basis for identifying murals that become an amenity.”

A more recent 2009 report on Philadelphia’s commercial corridors by Econoconsult also demonstrated “some indication of a positive correlation” between the presence of murals and shopping corridor success. Murals are described here as “effective and cost efficient ways of replacing eyesores with symbols of care.” However, the report also adds the disclaimer that a positive correlation is not necessarily proof of the murals’ role as the primary cause of a neighborhood’s appeal.

So what can we assess most easily, and how?

My research revealed that quantitative data on short-term inputs and outputs of public art programs is frequently cited (sometimes inappropriately) as evidence of a program’s success in things like reports or funding proposals—for example, number of new projects completed in one year, number of youth or community partners served, or number of mural tour participants. However, in this article I am not really focusing on this type of reporting, as it does not address how public art impacts communities over time.

The good news is that there are several examples of indicators that are more easily measurable in certain types of public art situations, including permanent installations. These include:

• Testimonies on the educational and social impact of collaborative public art projects, from youth and community participants and artists alike
• Qualitative audience responses to public art, including whether or not the art provokes any type of discussion, debate, or controversy
• How a public artwork is treated over time by a community, including whether it gets vandalized, and whether the community takes the initiative to repair or maintain it
• Press coverage
• The “use” of a public artwork by its hosts, e.g. in educational programs or marketing campaigns
• Levels of audience engagement with public art via internet sites and other types of educational programming

Below I will summarize some helpful methods by which data is collected around all these indicators.

Mining the Press

Archiving press coverage of public art projects online is a common practice among organizations, as is presenting pithy press clippings and quotes in funding proposals and marketing materials as a means of demonstrating a project’s success. For researchers, studying articles (and increasingly, blog posts) on past projects can also provide rich documentation of artworks’ immediate effects, as well as points of comparisons. For example, the “comments” sections of online articles and blogs can generate interesting, often unsolicited feedback, albeit from a nonrandom sample.

One possible outcome of public art projects is controversy, which is not always considered a bad thing, despite now-infamous examples of projects like Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc being removed. For example, Sofia Maldonado’s 42^nd Street Mural, presented in March 2010 by the Times Square Alliance, provoked extensive coverage on news programs and blogs. The mural’s un-idealized images of Latin American and Caribbean women based on the artist’s own heritage led some women’s and cultural advocacy organizations to call for its removal. The Alliance opted to leave the mural up, and has cited this project as evidence of the Alliance’s commitment to artists’ freedom of expression. The debates led Maldonado to reflect, “as an art piece it has accomplished its purpose: to establish a dialogue among its spectators.”

Sofia Maldonado, “42nd Street Mural,” 2010, Commissioned by the Times Square Alliance Public Art Program. Image Source: http://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts/project-archives/sofia-maldonado/index.aspx

Site visits and “public art watch” 

As an attempt to promote more sustained observation of completed works over time, public art historian Harriet Senie assigns her students in college and graduate level courses a final term paper project every semester that contains a

“public art watch”…For the duration of a semester, on different days of the week, at different times, students observe, eavesdrop, and engage the audience for a specific work of public art. Based on a questionnaire developed in class and modified for individual circumstances, they inquire about personal reactions to this work and to public art in general” (quoted in Sculpture Magazine).

Senie’s students also observe things like people’s interactions with an artwork, such as how often they stop and look up at it, take pictures in front of it, or use it as a meeting place.

Senie maintains that “Although far from ‘scientific,’ the information is based on direct observation over time—precisely what is in short supply for reviewers working on a deadline.” This approach towards challenging college students to think critically about public art has also been implemented in public art courses at NYU and Pratt Institute, and the aggregate results of student research over time are summarized in one of Senie’s longer publications.

I have not encountered any other organizations able to integrate this type of research into their regular operations; however, there may be opportunities to integrate direct observation into routine site visits to completed permanent public artworks.

In the NYC Percent for Art program, and its Public Art for Public Schools (PAPS) wing that commissions permanent art for new and renovated school buildings, staff members are expected to undertake periodic visits “to monitor the condition of artworks that have been commissioned,” according to PAPS director Tania Duvergne. Such “maintenance checks” can provide opportunities to survey building inhabitants or local residents about their opinions and use of the artworks.

Duvergne uses these “condition report” visits as opportunities to further her agency’s mission to “bridge connections between what teachers are already doing in their classrooms and their physical environments.” At each site, she tries to interview custodians, teachers, principals and students about whether the art is well treated, whether they know anything about the artwork (and are using the online resources available to them), and whether they want more information. Duvergne notes that many teachers use the public art in their teaching in some way, even if they do not know a lot about the artwork. While observing a public artwork during a site visit every few years is nowhere near as extensive and sustained observation as Senie’s class assignment, perhaps a similar survey and observation could be undertaken with a wide range of students and staff members over the course of a day.

Project participant and resident surveys

Organizations that create community-based public art usually have specific desired social, educational, or behavioral outcomes in project participants. Mural organizations Groundswell and Chicago Public Art Group describe thorough evaluation processes in which mural artists, youth, community partners and parents are all surveyed and sometimes interviewed before, during and after projects. Groundswell’s community partner post-project survey, for example, asks partners to rank their level of agreement about whether certain community-wide outcomes have been met, such as whether the mural increases the organization’s visibility, increases awareness of an identified issue, and improves community attitudes towards young people.

Groundswell’s theory of change (most recently honed in 2010 through focus groups with youth participants and community partners) articulates various clear desired outputs and outcomes for both youth and community partner organizations. This includes the development of “twenty-first century” life skills in teen mural participants. To measure this impact specifically, Groundswell has made it a priority to continue to track youth participants after they graduate, turn 21, and reach other checkpoints, according to Executive Director Amy Sananman. Groundswell recently hired an outside researcher to build a comprehensive database (using the free program SalesForce), in which participant data and survey results, and data on completed murals (such as whether any were graffitied, how many times they appeared in news articles, etc.) can be entered and compared to generate reports.

In 2006, Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program conducted a community impact study using audience response questionnaires as a starting point.  Then- special projects manager Lindsey Rosenberg employed college students, through partnerships with local universities, to conduct door-to-door surveys of all residents living within a mile radius of four murals. The murals differed by theme, neighborhood, and level of community involvement. The interns orally administered a multiple-choice questionnaire with questions ranging from general opinions of the murals to level of participation in making the murals to perceptions of changes in the neighborhood as a result of the murals.  They then inputted the surveys into a computer database specifically created for this study by outside consultants. The database not only calculated percentages of each response to murals, but tracked correlations between these responses and census demographic data, including income level and home ownership.

This research project was different from prior MAP community impact studies in that it assumed that “what people perceive to be the impact of a mural is in itself valuable,” as much as external evidence of change.

In 2007, MAP shared some preliminary results of this endeavor with me to aid my thesis research. At the time the research seemed to generate some useful data on which murals were appreciated most in which neighborhoods, and the correlation between appreciation and community participation in the projects. However, since then I have not been able to gather any further information on this study, or find any published results. I did hear from MAP at the time of the study that only 25% of people who were approached actually took the surveys, indicating just one problematic aspect of conducting such research on a regular basis. The database was also costly.

Most recently, MAP is partnering (page 160) with the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health & Mental Retardation Services (DBH/MRS), community psychologists from Yale, and almost a dozen local community agencies and funders with core support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on “a multi-level, mixed methods comparative outcome trial known as the Porch Light Initiative. The Porch Light Initiative examines the impact of mural making as public art on individual and community recovery, healing, and transformation and utilizes a community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework.” Unfortunately, MAP declined my requests for more information on this new study.

Interviewing youth and community members can of course only generate observations and opinions, but Groundswell at least is also taking the step of also tracking what happens to participants after they complete a mural project. I am still not clear how to prove that any impacts on participants are a direct result of public art projects. Yet surveying project participants and community members about their feelings about a program or project, and how they think they were impacted by it, is one of the most do-able types of research (apart from the challenges of getting people to fill out surveys).

Community-based “proxies”

Groundswell director Amy Sananman has described some success in utilizing community partners as “proxies” for reporting on a mural’s local impact, effectively outsourcing some of the burden of data collection to other organizations. For example, the director of a nonprofit whose storefront has a Groundswell mural could report back to Groundswell on the extent to which local residents take care of the mural, how often people comment on it, etc.

PAPS, CPAG, and ArtBridge, an organization that commissions artwork for vinyl construction barrier banners, have described similar ideas for partnerships. ArtBridge hopes to implement a more formal process in which the owners of stores where its banners are installed can document changes like increased business due to public art. PAPS director Tania Duvergne also cites examples of “successful projects” in which public schools, on their own, designed art gallery displays or teaching curricula around their public art pieces, and shared this with PAPS on site visits.

There might be a danger in depending on community partner organization representatives to speak for the whole “community” or to provide reliable, accurate data. But if cooperative partners can be identified and regular reporting scheduled using consistent measurement tools, the burden of reporting on specific neighborhoods is lessened for the public art organization.

“Smart” Technology

Groundswell, ArtBridge, and MAP are all starting to utilize the new QR code smartphone application, which uses QR codes to direct public art site visitors to websites with more information about the art. Groundswell experimented this past summer with adding QR codes to a series of posters designed by its Voices Her’d Visionaries program to be hung in public schools to educate teens about healthy relationships.  Groundswell can then track how many hits the website gets through the QR app. In general, web activity on public art sites is an easy quantitative measure of public interest.

Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program has a “report damage” section on its website, where anyone who notices a mural in need of repair can alert MAP online. This is also a potential source for quantitative evidence of how many people notice and feel invested in murals.

Use of Interpretive Programming

Public art organizations are increasingly designing interpretive programming around completed artwork, from outdoor guided tours to curated “virtual” artwork displays. NYC’s Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Arts for Transit program provides downloadable podcasts about completed artworks on its website; other organizations include phone numbers to call for guided tours at public art sites themselves (as in many museum exhibits). Both in-person and virtual/phone tours can provide rich opportunities to track usage, collect informal feedback from participants, and solicit feedback via surveys. ArtBridge recently initiated its WALK program giving tours of its outdoor banner installations. After each tour, ArtBridge emails a link to a brief questionnaire to all tour participants, and offers a prize as an incentive for taking the survey.

A Philadelphia Mural Arts Program guided tour.

Concluding remarks: What next for evaluation?

While systematic, reliable quantitative analysis of public art’s impact at the neighborhood level remains challenging and undervalued in the field, new technologies as well as effective partnerships are making it increasingly feasible for public art organizations to assess factors such as audience engagement, benefits to participants, and community stewardship of completed public art works. The Ixia “Guide to Evaluation” offers a useful roadmap for approaching the evaluation of any type of public art project. At the same time, we should not forget the ability of art to affect people in ways that may seem intangible or even immeasurable, or, as Glenn Weiss puts it, “become part of a memory of a community, part of how a community sees itself.”

My major project for the summer is a cultural asset map of the Bay Area, for which I am currently in the research phase. The plan is for me to eventually complete a pilot version of the mapping project that the Foundation can subsequently use as a guide for the whole shebang, which is likely to be an ongoing effort. I’ve spent the last week and a half or so just gathering information about comparable projects across a range of disciplines, everything from a community-generated atlas of the Mayan people to a network of “Green Maps” showing where one can find various amenities like farmer’s markets and organic food stores in communities all around the world.

To be honest, I thought that this stage of the project would be relatively easy, but it’s not at all. The difficulty stems from two factors: 1) the sheer volume of information that is out there; and 2) the fact that it’s really hard to find if you don’t already know what you’re looking for. It seems like every time I think I’m ready to settle down and start writing up the summary of my findings, I stumble upon some new website that opens up an entirely new avenue of inquiry that I hadn’t even considered before. It also strikes me that these websites and studies often represent months or years of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of investment, yet even I–pretty much the target audience defined for many of these projects–didn’t know about them before last week. So with that in mind, I thought I’d share some of the more amazing work that I’ve come across so far that you should know about if you don’t already.

• The Center for Creative Community Development. Check out the Case Studies, particularly the amazingly extensive one for MASS MoCA, my favorite Western Massachusetts institution. You can overlay Census demographics while viewing a social network map of the area, or check out where visitors to the museum are coming from (hint: zoom out for the full effect). There’s also an economic impact calculator where you can not only view the actual numbers from the study, but also put in your own hypothetical ones and see how things change. Really fascinating stuff.
• The San Francisco Green Map. This thing is INSANE. If you live in or around San Francisco and consider yourself at all environmentally conscious, you need to get your hands on one of these.
• Westchester County GIS. Westchester, for whatever reason, seems to have hired an extensive in-house team of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) programmers to make online interactive maps for the county. And boy, have they kept themselves busy, with a “Mapping Westchester County” gadget that combines a breathtaking array of information in one place. Click on “Layers” and expand the trees to see what data is available.
• Dataplace. If you ever wanted to know anything about anything, Dataplace is the place. You can even upload your own data sets and it will make a map for you.
• The Social Impact of the Arts Project at the University of Pennsylvania. There are 30 studies, policy briefs, reports, and working papers at this site, examining the impact of the arts on society in remarkable depth (based on what I’ve been able to get through so far, which is only a small fraction). Mark Stern and Susan Seifert are the heroes of this one, and it looks like they’ve been at it for nearly 15 years.

That should be enough to whet your appetite, but there’s much more to come. I’ll continue sharing resources as I find them.