The Goals of American Cultural Plans

Abstract

Even though several American cities have released cultural plans and invested funding and energy in this process, very little empirical research has investigated the goals of actual plans and the literature remains quite normative. In this chapter, I examine five cultural plans published between 2011 and 2018 by cities across the country and I highlight the main themes emerging from these documents. Common goals are: (1) creating a healthy art ecosystem, (2) integrating the arts with the city, and (3) promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. This analysis emphasizes that cities in different parts of the country are develo** dynamic cultural policies, bringing to the forefront the need for cultural policy studies to focus on local governments to better understand cultural policy in the United States. Future research could add to these findings, by examining the community engagement strategies applied and by studying how these cultural plans connect with the overall planning process of their cities.

Introduction

In the United States, cultural policy is characterized by a system of multi-level governance connecting different levels of government in matters of arts and culture (Redaelli, 2018). This means that there is not a centralized agency that supervises the country’s cultural policy, but rather a chain of institutions at national, state, and local level. They are loosely connected resulting in cultural federalism (Mulcahy, 2002). At national level, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) “supports exemplary arts projects in communities nationwide through grantmaking, initiatives, partnerships, and events” (NEA, 2021). However, this independent agency does not have a centralizing role in terms of mandates or major source of funding mechanisms. At state level, each state and U.S. jurisdiction has a State Art Agency (SAA) (Mulcahy, 2002). SAA’s involvement with communities and funding are more relevant than the NEA even though the federal agency is often more well-known and in the mediatic spotlight (Redaelli, 2018). At local level, local arts agencies (LAAs) serve cities or towns, as well as multiple cities, towns, and counties. They also operate in many forms, such as city or county government agencies, nonprofit organizations, for-profit organizations, and hybrid nonprofit/for-profit organizations.

To understand the American context, cultural policy studies have focused mainly on the national and state levels (Lowell, 2008; Rushton, 2003; Schuster, 2002; Strom & Cook, 2004). Local perspectives have been explored looking at LAAs (Hager & Sung, 2012; Skaggs, 2020) and a growing literature has been analyzing the role of the arts in the city (Redaelli & Stevenson, 2021). However, overall little attention has been given to understanding local cultural policy beyond specific case studies. In line with the main argument of this volume, I believe that the practices of culture are always situated in a specific context (Gilmore, 2013). Therefore, it is crucial for cultural policy studies to direct efforts and attention to local cultural policy. In particular, it is important to better understand how cultural policy is positioned in the urban policy discourse, in the context of community development (Redaelli, 2019c). Cultural planning offers a rich entry point for this topic, as it is a powerful policy tool for local cultural policy, and it provides insights on the values and priorities of local communities and the way they see the arts interact with their places.

In this chapter, I study five cultural plans. I highlight the goals articulated in the cultural plans as documents resulting from cultural planning processes. This focus on text is not meant to undermine the importance of understanding either the planning process per-se or the actions implementing the plan. It is rather intended to pay attention to the deliberate reflection (Hoch, 2012). In other words, this analysis aims to highlight the collective voice that emerges from the planning process and the priorities articulated by the community. For this analysis, I chose the first five largest cities among the American cities that in 2018 had a cultural plan (Redaelli, 2019c): Chicago, Denver, Dallas, New York, and San José. These five cities are also representative of different geographical areas of the country providing a rich overview. I looked at their cultural plans using an inductive method and capturing the main goals as they emerge through close readings (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

The overall argument of this chapter is that the goals of the five plans focus strongly on the arts sector and the desire to support it. Moreover, this attention is articulated with an awareness of the complex connection between the arts sector and its community. These multifaceted goals of the cultural plans can be summarized and understood through the lens of third space: “Looking at how the arts connect with the city through the lens of third space means to move away from the search of a one-dimensional explanation and unveils their relational, layered, and dynamic links” (Redaelli, 2019a, p. 12). Among the five plans, three main goals emerged: creating a healthy art ecosystem; integrating the arts within the city; and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the following analysis, I aim to untangle how the five cities tackle these themes as actionable initiatives. An analysis of five cultural plans emphasizes that cities in different parts of the country are engaged in policy design efforts, bringing at the forefront the need for cultural policy studies to focus on this level of government to better understand cultural policy in the United States. I am not interested in a comparison per se, but rather in understanding how each city gives meaning to these three themes in their own context. Using a thematic approach, I aim to contribute to the local cultural policy discourse going beyond a case-study perspective.

American Cultural Planning: What Goals?

Cultural planning in the United States dates back to the late 1970s, and over the years it has evolved in many of its aspects, including the overall goals (Redaelli, 2019a). The most current definition is given by Americans for the Arts (AFTA)—the national arts advocacy organization. AFTA states, “Cultural planning is a community-inclusive process of assessing the cultural needs of the community and map** an implementation plan” (AFTA, 2020, p. 35). AFTA’s definition focuses on process and highlights engagement with the community, which is a pillar aspect of the cultural planning process in the United States (Redaelli, 2019c). Every year, AFTA has been conducting a survey to track the budgets and programs of 4500 LAAs. The 2019 survey revealed that 34% of LAAs have completed or updated a cultural plan (AFTA, 2020).

A first study of cultural planning, highlighting its goals, was conducted in 1993 (Jones, 1993). For this study, Bernie Jones surveyed 54 communities around the US and claimed that cultural plans addressed a range of goals and issues broader than “the arts” but “not as broad as the most anthropologically oriented definitions of culture that some plans claim to address” (p. 91). Goals were the only feature common to all the plans analyzed, whereas futures such as action steps, list of participants, or background of the project were presented only in some documents. In 1994, another study conducted by Craig Dreeszen created a typology of plans based on their major goals. In a 2018 survey, Tom Borrup asked 200 LAAs to characterize their plan using the typology created by Dreeszen. This comparison provided insights on how the overall process and goals of cultural planning have changed in more than 20 years (Borrup, 2018), showing a shift toward “broader community needs rather than only internal sector needs” (p. 2). In a later study, Borrup (2019) described this shift of goals as the community turn of the arts well illustrated by a diagram that compares the typologies of the plans, which is determined by their major goal (see Fig. 5.1). The plans characterized as “community cultural plans” were the most numerous in the 2017 study; moreover, there is a notable shift away from the typology that focused mainly on planning for the arts. This shift raises questions about the overall purpose of the arts, but also about the goal of cultural planning processes. Borrup (2017) stated “As practitioners of cultural planning, we need to debate whether the practice is planning by and for the institutional arts or whether it is a process to address ways of living in communities and the cultural dimensions of policy options across a spectrum of municipal concerns” (section “Healthy Art Ecosystem”).

Fig. 5.1

Plan types 1994–2017 (From Cultural Planning at 40—A Look at the Practice and its Progress, by T. Borrup, 2018, p. 5. Copyright by Tom Borrup. Reprinted with permission)

Scholars and practitioners claim that so far cultural planning has failed for three main reasons. First, it is considered as simply one other topic to add to the list of topical plans carried out by city administrations, instead of being considered a crucial ingredient for the overall well-being of the city. “It is seen as the icing on the cake rather than the yeast, without which the cake fails to rise to its full potential” (Mills, 2003). Second, critiques claim that cultural planning maintains the cultural status quo privileging Western European art forms (Borrup, 2017). In so doing, cultural planning denies other potentials and is engraved in social biases. Third, there is no arena for debating what cultural tradition should be included, considering that commissioners for cultural plans are usually local arts organizations that are in the service of arts institutions (Borrup, 2020).

Other studies provide a more positive assessment, pointing to some achievements of cultural planning. Kovacs (2011) demonstrated that cultural planning in mid-size cities in Ontario, Canada, was not limited to an arts-focused agenda, including natural heritage, transportation, and urban design. The 2019 AFTA’s survey, mentioned earlier, points toward interesting findings, which include the positive impact of cultural plans. They observed that cultural plans have a positive impact on LAAs budgets. In fact, their findings revealed that the LAAs who worked on a cultural plan in the last 5 years had increased at greater rates than the ones who had no cultural plan. This impact was observed since the 1990s in financial surveys.

My analysis contributes to the cultural planning debate highlighting the goals of five plans (see Fig. 5.2). I selected San José, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, and New York, as they were the five largest cities among the ones with a cultural plan in 2018 (Redaelli, 2019c). I also chose them because they provide an overview of the situation in the United States, as each of them is representative of a very different geographical area. These plans were published between 2011 and 2018 and use a variety of terms for their goals. The terms used include goals, objectives, strategies, visions, recommendations, priorities, and needs. Sometimes, these terms were used interchangeably and sometimes highlighted different aspects of the process.

Fig. 5.2

Cultural plans: Cities, plans, and terminology (by Infographics Lab, University of Oregon)

San José is the oldest one and was released in 2011: “Cultural Connection: City of San José cultural plan for 2011–2020” (City of San José, 2011) lists ten goals. Chicago and Denver released their plans in 2012: “City of Chicago Cultural Plan 2012” (City of Chicago, 2012) highlighting recommendations and initiatives and “Imagine 2020. Denver’s Cultural Plan” (City of Denver, 2012) detailing seven vision elements. New York released “Create NYC: A Cultural Plan for All New Yorkers” (NYC Cultural Affairs, 2013) in 2017, articulating different strategies for the future. Dallas released its plans in 2018: “Dallas Cultural Plan 2018” (City of Dallas, 2018), which explains needs, priorities, and strategies. For this analysis, I use the term goal as the umbrella term subsiding all the other different terms used in the plans, even though San José is the only plan using this exact term.

Healthy Art Ecosystem

In Borrup’s survey only 4% of cultural plans were categorized as arts plan (see Fig. 5.1). However, my in-depth analysis of five cultural plans released between 2011 and 2018 revealed that the goal of planning for a stronger art scene was highly relevant in these documents. What should be noticed is that attention to the arts sector is framed as ecosystem. The term ecosystem originated in the natural sciences, but it has been increasingly used in the social sciences to describe the complexity of different sectors. In cultural policy, it has been used also as a framework supporting inclusive industrial development (Barker, 2019) and in the context of a discourse that discusses culture as an ecology (Holden, 2015). In the plans analyzed, this idea includes not only a comprehensive view of the arts sector, but also a layered interconnection with place and its community. For instance, Dallas described the idea of cultural ecosystems as places “where people go to create, experience, and learn about arts and culture” (p. 23). The plan reports the findings of a cultural ecosystem captured using an interactive map created through an online platform and in-person events. This exercise revealed a map with activities throughout the city, even though a specific area, the Bishop Arts District, still stands out.

The pursuit of a healthy art ecosystem is spelled out as support for individual artists, investment in arts infrastructure, and development of arts education. The support for individual artists is a common goal in all plans, but it is articulated differently in each city. This variety of strategies displays a diverse range of artistic engagement with the city encouraged by the literature (Borén & Young, 2017). Some initiatives aim at attracting artists and creative professionals—according to the renowned Florida’s theory—and pursue logic of spatial clustering that can be supported by urban policies (Andersson et al., 2014; Florida, 2002). Other initiatives consider the benefits of the longstanding American tradition of artist housing (Ryberg et al., 2012; Strom, 2010). Chicago is focused on attracting and retaining artists and creative professionals. They want to broaden creative networks through different forms of media and grow diverse sources and methods of support. For instance, they want to pursue low-cost health insurance programs for self-employed artists and grow support structures for self-funded arts projects. San José also emphasizes the need for support for creative entrepreneurs through web-based resources, a creative business forum, and training and professional development programs. New York is committed to supporting employment opportunities for local artists. However, among the strategies listed to achieve this goal, they mention grants, determination of fair compensation levels, and development of financial management training—all activities that look preliminary to the creation of job opportunities. Dallas aims at a variety of strategies, such as discount housing in exchange for neighborhood involvement, a group health plan, establishing a registration system for reservation of workspaces, and promoting the value of artists serving on several city boards and commissions. Denver puts a lot of emphasis on the need to nurture local talent envisioning initiatives such as professional development programs, the creation of a directory with resources for artists, increased availability of local spaces, and the launch of campaigns encouraging local buying.

Investments in arts infrastructure are also a priority. The literature has questioned the effectiveness of investing in infrastructure for culture as venues (Bingham-Hall & Kaasa, 2011). However, it has also celebrated the value of infrastructure in terms of network and associations (Wyszomirski & Cherbo, 2003) and as a place for the intersection of social and cultural capital (Stevenson & Magee, 2017). San José emphasizes the need to support the availability of diverse cultural spaces through the community, in addition to making downtown the Creative and Cultural Center of the Silicon Valley. Furthermore, they explain that strengthening the cultural community infrastructure means advocating for the arts and develo** interest in individual donations that are only 14% compared to the 31% national average. Overall, they aim to increase funding for wider cultural development. Dallas envisions the support of an arts ecosystem as a broader goal toward which all other priorities are channeled, giving priority to use a variety of spaces around the city. Through an extensive cultural ecosystem map** process, they realized that arts infrastructure is concentrated only in certain areas and provides opportunities for specific experiences. The intent of the plan is to maximize underestimated spaces and maximize the offer for formal and informal activities. New York aims at city-wide coordination, pointing out how the support for arts and culture is disseminated throughout different city departments. However, there is less emphasis on the idea of develo** an ecosystem for the arts.

Besides the support for individual artists and art infrastructure, the goal toward a healthy art ecosystem is pursued by promoting art education. The literature has analyzed several issues of art education, such as accounting for multiple narratives of place (Powell, 2015), develo** transformative educational experiences for adults (Lawton & La Porte, 2015), and studying programs developed by cultural organizations as models for communities (Sandell & Zimmerman, 2017; Soren, 1993). These elements resonate in all five plans analyzed in this chapter. Their overall goals for arts education aim at develo** culturally resonant programming and extension of art learning opportunities to all residents. San José highlights that arts education is not only for children in schools, but it is also more inclusive, serving adults of any age. They use the term “arts and culture learning” (p. 23) to emphasize this broader audience and also to include not only formal instructions but also numerous other forms of experience. Chicago underscores the need for high-quality art education and programs that promote the idea of becoming a lifelong learner. For instance, they aim to train teens to be “cultural ambassadors” and to share artistic content in classrooms with young kids.

In Denver, a survey showed that 85% of residents value arts education in school; however, fewer than 20% found that the current offering of arts education for children was good. The city aims to launch a program for the recruitment and ongoing professional development of arts educators and also to develop better communication of existing learning opportunities offered by arts organizations beyond schools. Interestingly, New York pairs arts education with science education, creating programs for all ages that integrate the two areas. This introduces into the community an effort to bridge the “great divide” in education in the twenty-first century (Braund & Reiss, 2019). Dallas connects art education with communication. In particular, they see education about public art as part of the development of access and engagement in the arts: an idea that connects with community-based art education as programs that promote contextual learning through the local arts (Ulbricht, 2015).

Integration of the Arts in the City

The literature has interrogated the complex relationship between making art in open urban spaces and the debates about the future of the city, claiming that there is often a disconnect (Miles, 1997). My analysis found that the cities under examination have overcome this disconnect, and they pursue a public art that is significantly integrated with city debates at different levels: urban design and development, community participation, and equitable distribution of art in different neighborhoods. Denver and Chicago highlight the goal of integrating the arts into the city by bringing the arts into people’s daily lives. Denver’s vision for an integration of arts and culture in people’s daily lives aim at offering art to residents and visitors “everywhere they turn” (p. 10), informing every aspect of city planning transportation, architecture, housing, public space, etcetera. By contrast, Chicago articulates this goal of integrating arts and culture with the city through the engagement of the arts across the various sectors: government, private, and nonprofit. Moreover, Chicago—similarly to San José and NY—aims at integrating public art and urban design. For instance, since the 1990s, San José has created a large public art collection. However, in 2007, the need for better coordination with urban design and economic development led to the creation of a public art masterplan, titled “Public Art NEXT!”. Afterwards, the cultural plan incorporated the main goals of the public art master plan recommending the prioritization of key areas of city development, incorporating public art in high traffic corridors, and supporting public art projects in community-gathering places.

In particular, New York and Chicago well represent what the literature calls the spatial turn in the arts, which emphasizes the reciprocal influence between the arts and the city (Ardenne, 2002). This spatial turn implies a co-production between arts and urban worlds linking arts practices with broader social issues, bringing together different publics and transforming everyday city life (Molina & Guinard, 2017; Zebracki & Palmer, 2018). For instance, New York City’s portfolio for art in public spaces is quite rich and diverse. The plan emphasizes how, through sculpture, outdoor performances, community classes, and lines of poetry engraved in the pavement, the city sends the message that “all belong here” (p. 125). The goal of the plan to animate and activate public commons continues the efforts of the art commission, established in 1898 to approve public art, and the City’s Percent Art Program signed in 1982 and requiring that 1% of city constructions be allocated for public art works. Moreover, MTA Arts & Design, a branch of the city transit organization, has been commissioning public art in the subway, buses, and rail lines since 1985. The plan calls for more community-engaged participatory art beyond site-specific installation and for access to public spaces through the city for more equitable art distribution. To this end, they developed strategies to help artists navigate the bureaucratic challenges of working in public space and support diverse programming in plazas, community gardens, and parks, with specific emphasis on public space for unrepresented communities.

Chicago has also developed a wide range of initiatives, from involving communities in each different neighborhood in the selection of public art to streamline zoning for street vendors and performers. These goals clearly exemplify the fluidity of the process that shapes the mutual relationship between the arts and the city (Zebracki & Palmer, 2018). It provides very practical directions, such as zoning or place designation, which operationalize the conceptualization of the spatial turn of the arts by overcoming bureaucratic barriers to the public space of the city. Other notable recommendations are the need for collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce to integrate art in commercial districts and the integration of neighborhood history into the design of neighborhood transportation. These goals show a vision of public art as connected with the urban context, functioning as a mediator between history and the contemporary everyday (Ten Eyck & Dona-Reveco, 2016). Indeed, however, further investigation should look into what aspects of Chicago’s history are made visible and legible through the arts, as well as the ones that are obscured.

These goals toward the integration of public art in the city general public debate bring attention to what public art is and illustrate inspiring programs embedding artists in the city administration. New York states, “Public art is indeed murals and statues, but it is also artists working in public agencies” (p. 127). An example of this kind of initiative is the pioneering work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles with the Department of Sanitation in the late 1970s. She would create performances taking on the tasks of cleaners or maintenance workers to draw attention to their role (Kennedy, 2016). She also recently collaborated with the city to celebrate the work of service workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, partnering with the Queens Museum. In 2015, the city launched a Public Artists in Residence (PAIR) program, which embeds artists in city departments to suggest creative solutions to civic challenges. A similar idea of residency, called the “Artist micro residencies,” occurred in Dallas as a week-long pilot program. For instance, photographer Kael Alford worked with the Office on Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs and investigated how sharing images could make immigrants and refugees more visible and welcome to the residents of Dallas.

Through these programs, New York and Dallas aimed at what the literature defines as “creative sociabilities” (Borén & Young, 2013, p. 1810) that are ways to bring together artists and public servants to reshape social futures. Moreover, Chicago and Denver illustrate a commitment toward “creative sociabilities” with different types of initiatives. Chicago developed recommendations to integrate artists in all sectors, including the private sector. Two initiatives designed for the private sector include the following: “Creativity Work,” a roundtable of cultural leaders and artists addressing issues such as staff development, motivation, and problem-solving; and “Artist-for-a Day,” a corporate, cultural awareness program, providing opportunity to shadow an artist for a day. Denver’s emphasis on collaboration with the city administration is crafted around leadership. In particular, the plan calls for collective leadership across business, government, philanthropic, and civic sectors. This takes different shapes: an alliance among organizations, convenings of arts-supporting leaders and elected officials, inspiring funders, and promoting the next generation of leaders.

Attention to neighborhood is a common goal among all the five plans. Dallas developed a neighborhood typology for arts and culture development that includes four models: urban core arts destinations, mixed urbanism arts to explore, residential opportunities for arts, and opportunities for arts in non-traditional spaces. Each of the models is supported by trends in the literature: investment in the arts to revitalize downtown (Campo & Ryan, 2008; Strom, 2002), mixed-use area with the arts as main attraction (Frost-Kumpf, 1998; Redaelli, 2019b), residential opportunities for artist in the form of artist housing (Ryberg et al., 2012; Strom, 2010; Trask, 2015), and the use of non-traditional spaces for arts purposes (Borrup, 2011; Colomb, 2016). This typology emerged from an analysis that emphasizes how Dallas’s community encompasses 400 unique neighborhoods. The creation of a typology for arts and culture is useful: it helps to conceive an engagement of the arts with all the neighborhoods, to support a differentiation of the offerings as more place sensitive and to avoid a blanket standardization of the city.

Denver frames the attention to neighborhood within the goal of accessibility. They want to identify and inventory of all the resources in every neighborhood and at the same time make sure that each neighborhood is infused with arts and culture. Therefore, their major concern is to identify strategies for cultural map** (Duxbury et al., 2015). Chicago, San José, and New York City are focused on enhancing and coordinating neighborhood cultural life (Rosenstein, 2011). Chicago aims to celebrate every neighborhood’s heritage and foster neighborhood connections and exchanges, and San José is dedicated to develo** a comprehensive neighborhood-based initiative to enhance cultural resources at the grass-root level. Finally, New York City is invested in preserving the neighborhood character in all city boroughs through marketing, map**, and building community capacity programs.

Integrating the arts into the city is not only a goal that aims to benefit the residents, but it is also a strategy for making each city a destination. Unsurprisingly, this aspect is not considered an area of need for NY. The other four cities emphasize two goals that have emerged in the literature: the need to develop cultural tourism to attract visitors (Hargrove, 2014) and the need to develop better communication about the current offerings, resulting in a global branding (Okano & Samson, 2010). However, none of the plans mentioned an aspect highlighted by the literature that values cultural planning as a form of organizational learning for the arts and the city aiming at creating a “destination marketing alliance formation” (Hager & Sung, 2012, p. 402). Even though it already has quite an international reputation, Chicago sees the need to invest in strengthening its branding as a global destination and in promoting cultural tourism. San José reiterates the goals spelled out in the “Economic Strategy 2010” consisting of develo** a set of arts, entertainment, and sport events to make the city a tourist destination. In fact, they talk about fostering “destination quality” (p. 25) events designed according to high standards of programming and, in particular, aiming to generate visitor spending. Dallas strives to make the city a local, national, and international cultural destination through better communication. In fact, among their four priorities, they highlight the need for general better communication of Dallas’ cultural offerings. The wording chosen by Denver for this purpose of making the city a destination is unusual, but powerful. They state their goal is amplification, which highlights how much is already there that needs to be magnified to residents and the world, positioning Denver as the “Creative Capital of the Rocky Mountain West” (p. 36).

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Arts

In recent years, several initiatives have been focusing on enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the arts sector. For instance, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission (2017) engaged in an 18-month planning process dedicated exclusively to issues of equity and inclusion in the cultural sector and the way the county has distributed its investments. Another example of how the arts sector is committing to DEI comes from Seattle. Since 2015, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture has made a formal commitment to racial equity that includes capacity building, space, and grant programs in alignment with the city’s Race and Social Justice Initiative (City of Seattle, 2021). Moreover, a study that analyzed the mission statement of 55 LAAs revealed that 26 of them included attention to DEI issues, showing a gradual commitment to cultural equity in the framing of their programming (Skaggs, 2020). This idea is based on AFTA’s definition stating that, “Cultural equity includes, but it is not limited to, those who have been historically underrepresented based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion—are represented in the development of arts policy” (AFTA, 2016).

The broader planning sector is also develo** attention and commitment to DEI issues, while cultural planning has only recently begun to tackle these issues. The American Planning Association provides guidelines for the creation of comprehensive and topical plans through an inclusive process and for addressing the needs of under-represented members of the community (American Planning Association, 2019). These guidelines make DEI issues central to the planning discourse. However, these issues are still working their way within city plans. As far as specifically cultural plans, DEI issues have only been included in the last few years. Borrup’s (2018) survey showed that “allocating more resources for under-represented community ranked the lowest of all outcomes of cultural planning in 2017” (p. 22). Only 30% reported some progress, and only 4% allocated much more funding for under-represented communities. This evidence suggests that cultural planning has not yet been instrumental for creating equitable cities (Borrup, 2017).

A 2021 study of DEI perspectives in 64 cultural plans over the last 20 years (Ashley et al., 2021) found that these practices have been unevenly applied. The authors included plans focusing on a comprehensive view of arts and culture, selected from a database compiled by AFTA. As mentioned in section “American Cultural Planning: What Goals?”, AFTA offers the most updated database available, compiled through a survey of LAAs. One of the findings revealed that of the 64 plans, 54% did not include any city-wide demographic information. Among the five plans analyzed in this chapter, only Dallas’s plan provides data about the overall demographics of the city, focusing on age, ethnicity, and race. This information was instrumental to ensure that during the recruitment for participation, the diversity and composition of the city would be adequately represented. Overall, Ashley et al. (2021) claimed that in the planning process of the 64 cultural plans, a white-majority perspective is evident. Fewer than ten planning processes targeted marginalized groups. The language often utilized inclusive terms, but they were rarely defined. For instance, the word diversity often referred to diverse arts offerings rather than people’s backgrounds. Only in plans completed in the last 4 years is equity elevated to a primary goal.

The plans that stood out in Ashley et al.’s (2021) study for bringing DEI topics to the forefront were two of the plans analyzed in this chapter: Dallas’s and New York City’s plans. “In Dallas, we envision a city of people whose success and well-being are not pre-determined by their race, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, social status, zip code, or citizen status” (p. 57). Dallas elevates both equity and diversity as the main goals of their plan. Equity is the first priority of the plan. To this end, they aim to support art forms and artists not limited to the European canon. Diversity is the second priority, and it is articulated as the need to better represent and serve their multifaceted community through diversity of programming, staff, and organizational leadership. Equity and inclusion are the top goals of New York City, and they were the highest priorities expressed by the community engagement. “In this context, ‘equity’ means broadly that assets are distributed fairly and justly for the benefit of the public” (p. 71). New York City’s bold statement aims to foster equity through a redistribution of the funding resources. As for inclusion, they highlight the need to give individuals with different backgrounds the opportunity to fully participate in the system. They observe that diversity does not necessarily mean inclusion and that greater effort for participation should be implemented in the entire sector. Mayor de Blasio emphasized how the plan aims to financially support cultural organizations’ efforts to diversify their staff and leadership, to create a cultural sector that looks like the city’s residents. However, it is relevant to point out that the plan is only a roadmap, and the directions suggested need to be supported by the city budget (Pogrebin, 2017).

Chicago and Denver’s plans were both released in 2012 but handled DEI issues quite differently. Chicago mentions the diversity of residents involved while describing the planning process, adhering to what the literature considers a fundamental aspect of citizen participation (Redaelli, 2012). However, they did not present DEI as one of their goals. They did not even mention the terms equity and inclusion in the plan. On the other hand, Denver wrote into its goals the development of an arts sector inclusive of all. They want to address issues of social equity and barriers to participation: “Arts, culture and creativity serve as both a social equalizer and a model for authentic expression” (p. 10). This goal highlights both the individual and intrinsic benefits of the arts toward personal well-being and their ability to promote social change (Belfiore & Bennett, 2008). The inclusion efforts in preparing the plan are testified by their use of a bilingual tool to collect community’s priorities and by the development of a survey comparing cultural commonalities and differences between African Americans and Hispanics.

San José highlights the diverse identity of the city several times in the plan. “Diversity is the most frequently mentioned element of San José’s culture, both as a demographic fact and as a long-held civic commitment” (p. 3). However, diversity is not listed among the plan’s goals but rather as the result of arts and cultural activities and one goal is to create availability for cultural spaces throughout the community. The plans states five guiding principles to that grounds the overall goals. Among the five guiding principles of the plan, the idea of cultural pluralism is key to bringing arts and culture to the forefront to represent the diversity of people and their traditions and values. This principle is based on Maria Rosario Jackson’s work, claiming that an effective way to build diverse communities is through arts and culture (Rosario Jackson, 2009). Jackson claims that in order to diversify community is crucial to use arts and culture to create bridges among different groups and recommends the creation of spaces for specific arts groups and the communities they serve. In San José DEI does not emerge as a goal per se, but rather as the underlying assumptions determining the need and value of investing in infrastructure for arts and culture.

Conclusions

This chapter highlighted how the goals of American cultural plans include creating a healthy arts ecosystem, integrating the arts with the city, and promoting DEI. These goals revealed how attention to the arts sector is intertwined with its community and more broadly with its place, overcoming the disconnect between the arts and the city or the idea that cultural plans should focus exclusively on communities’ needs. This awareness of how the arts are interconnected with their cities means understanding that the arts thrive if they are integrated into the community, and a place is vibrant thanks to a thriving art scene. Moreover, this analysis showed how the local discourse resonated with the most prominent scholarly literature.

The three main goals highlighted are articulated through a variety of initiatives. For instance, programs to support individual artists and art education are spelled out next to initiatives for investments in arts infrastructure, public art, and neighborhoods. Several activities aim to reshape the social future through “creative sociabilities” that bring together public servants and artists. The arts also represent the city’s diverse communities and make it a destination. A growing dedication to addressing DEI issues are manifested through efforts to reach a wider community in the planning process, and they include art forms not limited to the European canon and that represent the multifaceted community, offering individuals with different backgrounds opportunities to participate in the system and redistribute funding resources.

Studying five cities located in very different parts of the country demonstrated that, even though in the United States there is not a central authority dictating the priorities to local governments, a common national discourse unifies the aims of different local communities. However, it has also become clear that each cities gives meaning to the three common goals accordingly to their own specific context. Most importantly, each city emphasizes the connections between the arts and the local communities in terms of both addressing its needs and nurturing its strengths. This shows how common goals have a specific local articulation, supporting the claim of the volume that cultural policy is local and understanding cultural policy is a situated practice.

Further research is needed to better understand the overall planning process, with specific attention to the strategies for community engagement. Given the central focus on community participation and the growing interest in inclusiveness, it would be informative to tease out the strategies used by different cultural plans to involve their communities. This kind of analysis would provide a critical perspective on community engagement and would create the opportunity to share the different strategies so cities could learn from each other. Moreover, an investigation of the connection between cultural plans and the comprehensive planning process could bring insights on the role of cultural planning in the overall urban policy agenda.

Overall, this analysis offered important insights on American local cultural policy. Quite often in national and international academic circles, a widespread opinion is that the United States does not have a cultural policy or that its government does not support the arts. On the contrary, this analysis of five cultural plans of cities across the country has demonstrated how American local cultural policy is lively, connects the arts with place, and is animated by multiple, creative efforts. However, so much more needs to be unpacked and clarified to better understand the full picture and the dynamics of the cultural policy process. Hopefully, this chapter will spark interest in further continuing the investigation for a more informed understanding of American local cultural policy.