Below is a round-up of our favorite toolkits, resource guides, reports, and case studies pertaining to the intersection of arts, culture, planning, and community development. These resources along with a more extensive listing of professional and academic reports and articles are also included in the footnotes of each content page in this Toolkit.
Glossary of Terms
Take a look at the glossary of terms we have assembled, which pertains to arts, culture, community development, and planning.
Arts, Culture, and Planning
American Planning Association Arts and Planning Interest Group (APIG)
The Arts and Planning Interest Group (APIG) is a collaborative space for planners and artists who believe that arts and culture is an essential element of what makes places and communities healthy, connected, and vibrant. APIG provides a forum for identifying, developing, and refining policy and planning tools that promote the integration of arts and culture into community development and planning. Membership is open to non-APA members. Join APIG by completing this survey.
American Planning Association (APA) Research on Arts, Culture, and Creativity
As part of a collaborative project with the RMC Corporation and with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, APA's Planning and Community Health Research Center developed a series of briefing papers to illustrate how planners use arts and culture strategies to achieve economic, social, environmental, and community goals.
Creative City Network of Canada (CCNC) Cultural Planning Toolkit
CCNC's Cultural Planning Toolkit is a guide for the process of cultural planning in a community. It includes an adaptable model and practical checklists for navigating and charting progress.
Creative City Network of Canada (CCNC) Cultural Mapping Toolkit
CCNC's Cultural Mapping Toolkit has been designed to take you through the entire mapping process, from creating an inventory to drawing up and presenting your map. Each step is accompanied by examples, checklists or worksheets to help you get organized.
Creative City Network of Canada Public Art Toolkit
CCNC's Public Art Toolkit is intended as a guide when planning a public art program or evaluating an existing one, and contains resources for the management of public art projects. The Toolkit includes links to examples and resources from around the world; detailed case studies and project examples of varying scales; illustrative photos from public art projects; and links to web-based resources.
An open resource-sharing community of practice for anyone involved in arts-and culture-related research. Our network emphasizes the practice and process of current research, and the opportunities to inform that active work among peers, academics, and fellow professionals. Our collaborative platform provides opportunities to explore project or professional connections, methodological challenges, technological innovations, standards and practices, and shared infrastructure
Forecast Public Art Toolkit
The Forecast Public Art Toolkit provides information on and examples of all aspects of public art, from contemporary ideas and resources, to a step by step guide to the entire process of creating public art.
Arts, Culture, and Design
Rudy Bruner Award (RBA) for Urban Excellence Case Studies
The RBA seeks to promote innovative thinking about the built environment and advance conversation about making cities better. The awards celebrate urban places that are distinguished by quality design along with their social and economic contributions to our nation's cities. View the list of award recipients, which range from residential homes to multifamily developments, restaurants, parks, and cultural facilities.
Arts, Culture, and Community Development
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Exploring Our Town Projects Database
Browse the creative placemaking projects that have been funded through the NEA's Our Town grant program. Browse by geography and by insights -- process, setting, and type.
ArtPlace America Projects Database
Browse the projects that have been funded through the National Creative Placemaking Fund and the Community Development Investments Fund.
Creative Placemaking Report for the Mayors Institute on City Design
Ann Markusen's influential report on creative placemaking includes a trove of case studies from different parts of the country.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Community Development Investment Review on Creative Placemaking
This journal looks at what creative placemaking does and how it does it and represents the perspectives of 16 organizations on the frontlines of this work, the funders and financiers supporting them, and the researchers and evaluators who are interpreting progress.
Springboard for the Arts' Irrigate Toolkit
Irrigate was a 3-year creative placemaking initiative that trained artists as community organizers and leaders, facilitated partnerships between artists and businesses, and funded small scale arts projects. This toolkit provides step-by-step guidance in creating partnerships, connecting with local artists, training workshops and evaluation, as well as templates for budgets and timelines for projects at different scales. This toolkit is included in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Resilient Cities Initiative.
The Scenic Route: Getting Started with Creative Placemaking and Transportation
The Transportation for America creative placemaking guide introduces the field of practice to transportation planners, public works agencies and local elected officials who are on the front lines of advancing transportation projects. The guide provides introductions to eight dimensions of a creative placemaking practice in transportation and each section is grounded in examples of projects in action.
Arts, Culture, and Outreach and Engagement
YOUR IDEA HERE: A Toolkit for Unlocking the Community Potential of Vacant Storefronts
This study details the Saint Anthony Pop-Up Shop, a project which entailed creative partnerships used a vacant storefront to express the identity and vision of the neighborhood. Included in the toolkit are FAQs for all parties in a rental or lease situation, a proposed timeline and workflow for a successful pop-up shop, a sample annotated leases and potential renter profiles.
The Neighborhood Postcard Project
The Neighborhood Postcard Project collects personal positive neighborhood stories from residents in marginalized communities and sends them out to random people in the same city to break down stereotypes and foster community connection.
Block Party in a Box Resource Kit
This resource kit aims to help people to plan & execute block parties without breaking a sweat. The ebook includes a step-by-step manual and a dozen printable resources that take care of the mundane and time-consuming work required to plan street parties, leaving citizens with more time to enjoy the company of their neighbors. This toolkit is available at a pay-what-you-want rate via Block Party in a Box.
Arts, Culture, and Economic Development
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies Creative Economy Research
NASAA monitors state arts agency trends, documents the scope and impact of state arts agency activities, and harvests information from other research providers that is relevant to the arts and to government arts support. This page is an excellent roundup of data highlights from state, regional and national creative economy research published between 2000 and today and statistics about the creative work force, creative places, cultural tourism, and investment and participation.
Maine Creative Economy Handbook
This Handbook is designed for communities that are interested in creative economy opportunities. It provides guidance on how to gather key stakeholders, how to determine ways in which you might develop local creative economy initiatives, provides case studies of creative economy initiatives in Maine, and how to determine the level of ready of your community to embark on a creative economy initiative.
Texas Commission on the Arts Cultural Tourism Toolkit
This Toolkit provides an overview of cultural tourism basics; information on starting a cultural tourism program; steps for building a tourism message; ideas on how to tell your community?s story for tourism purposes; guidelines for developing different types of tours; sample letters and agendas for your tourism committee; a tourism assessment survey; sample tourism messages; community surveys; funding and information resources; and more.
Arts, Culture, and Environment
Farther, Faster, Together: How Arts & Culture Can Accelerate Environmental Progress
This field scan, commissioned by ArtPlace America, explores how creative placemaking is advancing sustainability outcomes. This investigation included the environmental areas of energy, water, land, waste, toxic pollution, and climate resilience and adaptation and identified five environmental priorities and explores the potential of arts and cultural approaches to radically amplify and accelerate progress.
Art Hazards: Waste Management Program in King County, Washington
Art materials in most types of art media contain many toxic ingredients. This site offers a database for how to appropriately dispose of various materials
Arts, Culture, and Housing
Exploring the Ways Arts & Culture Intersects with Housing
This field scan, commissioned by ArtPlace America,explores the intersection of arts, culture, and housing outcomes ? focused specifically on work within the housing sector that seeks to build and maintain high quality housing affordable to low-and moderate-income individuals. Through an analysis of both housing sector priorities and place-based arts and cultural work, this scan uncovers six primary ways that creative placemaking strategies are helping to meet affordable housing goals.
Arts, Culture, and Public Safety
Exploring the Ways Arts & Culture Intersects with Public Safety
This field scan, commissioned by ArtPlace America, is an inquiry into the state of arts, culture, and creative placemaking as it relates to the public safety sector. Its findings and recommendations draw upon existing literature, an online survey of 100 creative placemaking stakeholders, and semi-structured interviews with the community of artists, thought leaders, investors, and organizations working at this intersection. It also identifies projects at the intersection of creative placemaking and public safety and organizes them into five areas of activity.
Arts, Culture, and Transportation
Arts, Culture, and Transportation: a Creative Placemaking Field Scan
This field scan, commissioned by ArtPlace America, is a national examination of creative placemaking in the transportation planning process. It identifies ways that transportation professionals can integrate artists to deliver transportation projects more smoothly, improve safety, and build community support, exploressevenof the most pressingchallengesfacing the transportation sector today, and identifies how arts and cultural strategies can contribute tosolutions.
Resources for Artists and Administrators
Americans for the Arts (AFTA) Tools and Resources
Americans for the Arts has compiled an extensive collection of blog posts, articles, reports, and websites that are geared towards professionals working in the public art field. Content is grouped into four categories: resources for administrators, resources for artists, topic-specific resources, and resources for people who are new to the public art field.
Fractured Atlas U.
Fractured Atlas is a national organization that supports folks at every level of the cultural ecosystem. Fractured U. is a collection of online resources that aim to help educate and inspire artists and arts managers on issues related to the business, social, and economic context of art and culture.
Springboard for the Arts Roundup of Toolkits for Artists
Springboard has assembled an excellent roundup of toolkits unpacking techniques used by individual artists, arts councils, community organizations, and others that unpack projects and programs that engage artists and communities in new and exciting ways.