Communities and Culture: Lessons for Practitioners from Our Research

Communities and Culture:Lessons for Practitioners from Our Research Social Impact of the Arts Project SIAP Mark J. Stern University of Pennsylvania December 2003

Introduction to the Social Impact of the Arts Project • Culture and the New Urban Reality • How we do our work • Uses of our work • Making your case to non-arts audiences • The organization/community dilemma • Scanning your community • Addressing the ‘Culture and Community Development’ paradigm

Beyond the “urban crisis”: a new mix of vitality and stagnation Between 1990 and 2000, Philadelphia lost about more than 4 percent of its population and poverty rose from 20 to 23 percent. This is why the City’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative found that 60 percent of Philadelphians live in a neighborhood that is either “distressed” or in need of “reclamation.”

Signs of vitality: Diversity, youth, and immigrants At the same time, Philadelphia’s neighborhoods have become more ethnically and economic diverse. The idea of the urban crisis was connected to “city trenches” —a view of city life as composed of ethnically and economically homogeneous neighborhoods.

The proportion of the population living in neighborhoods that were either ethnically or economically diverse increased from 26 to 40 percent and the proportion living in areas that were “doubly diverse” increased from 6 to 8 percent.

Changes in family formation and work patterns have increased the number of ‘youth districts’ in major American cities 2000 1970

The foreign-born population of American cities increased rapidly during the decade, accounting for a large share of the increase in population.

SIAP has developed a database that allows us to systematically examine the connection of cultural indicators to other measures of neighborhood well-being Census block groups Counts of cultural providers, other social organizations (1997 and 2002) Child welfare benchmarks 1980-2000 census data Counts of for-profit cultural firms (1997 and 2002) Changes in property values Estimates of regional cultural participation (1997, coming in 2004) Crime data (coming in 2004)

MAKING YOUR CASE: IMPACTSThe cultural sector is not confined to a few well-known Center City organizations. It runs the gamut from professional performing companies to community choirs, from artists’ collectives to non-arts organizations that integrate culture into their programs. This diversity is one of the sector’s great strengths.

Impacts—Diverse neighborhoods and those with high cultural participation had the highest population growth during the 1990s.

Impacts—Among poor neighborhoods, those with high cultural participation were more likely to have very low delinquency and truancy rates.

Impacts—Neighborhoods with many cultural organizations had higher than average increases in property values (median sale price) between 1995 and 2000. Residents of poor neighborhoods were as likely to benefit from this connection as those in well-off parts of the city.

Even among the most at-risk neighborhoods, a significant number experienced population increases and poverty declines during the 1990s. Using the City’s definitions, the odds that a “distressed” or “reclamation” neighborhood would experience revitalization were strongly related to the presence of cultural institutions. Percent of block groups that experienced a decline in poverty and an increase in population, 1990-2000, “reclamation” and “distressed” block groups

The organization-community dilemma • In ‘consultants’ world’—building your organization and building your community go hand-in-hand • In the real world of scarce resources, community cultural providers often must insulate themselves from their community if they are going to build a more ‘rational’ organization

An assets-based view:community cultural providers act more like ‘social movements’ than formal organizations • Driven by an ‘irrational’ commitment to mission • Linked to a community’s search for identity • Opportunistic and nimble • Ability to scan their environment • Resilient in the face of inevitable crises

Connecting to your entire communityCommunity cultural providers rely on networksof relationships to accomplish their work. These relationships form the community cultural ecosystem that includes a variety of “agents.” Thus, as small cultural providers do their work, they weave together disparate parts of their neighborhoods and the region. Regional cultural providers Regional audience for community arts Artists Other neighborhoods Nonprofit community cultural providers For profit community cultural firms Funders & Resource Networks Non-arts community based organizations Cultural participants “Informal” cultural providers

Cultural engagement builds two types of enduring relationships. Inside neighborhoods, cultural participants are likely to engage in other types of civic activities. Cross-participation is critical to the enhancement of community civic capacity. Source: SIAP community participation surveys, 1999

Outside the neighborhood, culture builds links across divides of ethnicity and social class. One of the Philadelphia’s hidden assets is the regional audience for community arts. Eighty percent of participants in community arts programs come from outside the neighborhood in which the programis located. Dots represent participants in Fleisher Art Memorial’s programs during 2000.

Artists maintain relationships with many different nonprofit and for-profit cultural providers in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, yet these connections are often overlooked by the organizations that employ artists Red dots=65 artists, other dots=cultural providers they worked with during 1999-2000 Source: SIAP community artists’ survey, 1999-2000.

The networked cultural enterprise Building strong relationships with other community organizations is a key strategy for both connecting with one’s community, identifying opportunities, and building organizational resilience. Note: red dots=CBC grantees, other dots neighborhood groups with which they have a relationship Source: SIAP institutional network database, 1997-2000

Addressing the Community and Cultural Development paradigm • Demographic and economic shifts in the community/neighborhood over the past ten years that have generated tension points. • Paying attention to changing social and economic conditions is important, but these shifts provide opportunities as well as challenges • In particular, the expansion of diversity, the emergence of youth districts, and the increased immigrant population provide new opportunities for community cultural providers

Creative and non-threatening community arts organizations have the ability to bridge the divides that have grown over the years by addressing the tension points. • We know that diversity and culture reinforce one another, but we don’t fully understand how that works. • Some cultural organizations in diverse neighborhoods work to bridge social gaps, but others focus on self-assertion within one group.

Develop program/s that address these tension points and that promote social integration amongst a diverse population, offer upward mobility to the most marginalized citizens and that simulate those taking part to improve the community after they have left the program • We need to differentiate two distinct ways that residents get involved in communities • Instrumental engagement—to accomplish a particular goal, e.g. new housing, economic development • Expressive engagement—to feel connected and creative • The core of cultural engagement is based on expressive engagement. The arts can create the environment that makes concerted action possible.

For more information:http://www.ssw.upenn.edu/SIAP SIAP Social Impact of the Arts Project School of Social Work University of Pennsylvania

Communities and Culture: Lessons for Practitioners from Our Research