Creative placemaking and the NEA: unpacking a multi-level governance

ABSTRACT

The role of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in shaping the arts and cultural sector is not well understood. In this paper, I focus on the development of the governance of the creative placemaking policy to unpack the complexity of the role of the NEA. Governance is used to refer to collective action designed to achieve a general interest through different actors from both the government and civic society. I use intergovernmental relations theory to capture governance dynamics in creative placemaking. In particular, I focus on three main tools developed by the NEA to spur a multi-level governance: research, grants, and partnerships. What emerges is that the role of the NEA in the development of the creative placemaking policy is multifaceted as it includes offering and leveraging funding, shaping the conversation, providing insights, and spurring collaborations. These actions create a multi-level governance based on a dynamic exchange between national and local governments, and the involvement of a variety of actors from civil society.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative placemaking
• cultural policy
• NEA
• multi-level governance
• intergovernmental relations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Eleonora Redaelli is an assistant professor at the University of Oregon. After working for public and private institutions in the cultural sector in Italy, she received her Ph.D. at The Ohio State University and taught in the Arts Management program at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She specializes in cultural policy, cultural planning, and arts management education. Her works appear in International Journal of the Arts in Society, City, Culture and Society, Urban Affairs Review, Cultural Trends, Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society, Journal of Planning Education and Research, and Urban Geography. In 2015, Palgrave published her book Arts Management and Cultural Policy Research, co-authored with Jonathan Paquette.

Notes

1. The Mayor’s Institute of City Design organizes six to eight two-day sessions around the country bringing together 20 people, half mayors and half leading design experts. Each mayor presents an issue from their city, and the group engages in finding possible solutions.