Only in Detroit where dreams never die, they just get wrapped in naphtha and slowly turn to rust.
"Detroit has always been a place where things have been made," says Alex Feldman, one of the project's creators, who works on economic development strategies with the company U3 Ventures. "That tradition is still alive here. But it's starting to shift in a small way to a more [artistic] culture of manufacturing and creation."
The FAB Lab, a part of Wayne State University's TechTown initiative, recently won a planning grant from ArtPlace America, a collaboration of charitable foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and federal agencies. The funding is designed not just to feed starving artists or prop up grand old arts institutions. Under the banner of "creative placemaking," these grants aim to inject new life into local economies.
"Our idea is that we will invest in art and culture as part of a portfolio of strategies meant to transform communities," says ArtPlace president Carol Coletta.
In September, ArtPlace announced $11.5 million in grants for the Detroit FAB Lab and 33 other projects designed to "integrate artists and arts organizations into key local efforts in transportation, housing, community development, job creation and more." Two months prior, the NEA doled out $6.5 million in the first round of Our Town grants, funding 51 public-private partnerships that are also trying to both buoy up the arts and reshape communities...
"Advocates of creative placemaking are careful not to present their work as a panacea. But they firmly believe that art has a central role in reviving urban economies and communities. As examples, Coletta offers the Design District in Miami; the ArtPrize festival in Grand Rapids, Mich.; WaterFire, which lights up the rivers in downtown Providence, R.I., with dozens of bonfires; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, which is credited with helping to fuel the resurgence there.
It's the SoHo story gone viral. But beyond anecdotal evidence, what kind of evidence is there that this kind of thing works? Nationally, arts and culture organizations generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, according to the nonprofit Americans for the Arts. But measuring the economic impact of the arts is a slippery business.
Coletta says her organization will be watching the recent grantees closely, in an effort to gauge something she calls "vibrancy." What does that mean? ArtPlace will track the number and kinds of people that come to these communities, the types of jobs and activities there, and the value of real estate and other amenities over time.
"Vibrancy is probably the best proxy we have for the quality of place," Coletta says. "Quality of place is essential for attracting and retaining human capital. And human capital is essential to the economic well-being of communities."
There you have it: the arts recast as urban revitalization strategy...
It's the SoHo story gone viral. But beyond anecdotal evidence, what kind of evidence is there that this kind of thing works? Nationally, arts and culture organizations generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, according to the nonprofit Americans for the Arts. But measuring the economic impact of the arts is a slippery business.
Coletta says her organization will be watching the recent grantees closely, in an effort to gauge something she calls "vibrancy." What does that mean? ArtPlace will track the number and kinds of people that come to these communities, the types of jobs and activities there, and the value of real estate and other amenities over time.
"Vibrancy is probably the best proxy we have for the quality of place," Coletta says. "Quality of place is essential for attracting and retaining human capital. And human capital is essential to the economic well-being of communities."
There you have it: the arts recast as urban revitalization strategy...
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