ABSTRACT
Arts and cultural planning is a growing subfield of planning, but we know little about how arts and cultural master plans are used in daily practice. Based on a survey of planners in 64 U.S. cities, we found that arts and cultural planners draw on arts and cultural plans more and view these plans as more influential than do general planners. Respondents highlighted plans’ importance in increasing community pride, government support for creative and cultural organizations, and in supporting economic development and place-based interventions. Participants thought they had made good progress towards implementation but still had work to do.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In our sample of plans, 13 were written between 1998–2005, 19 were written between 2006–2010, 43 were written between 2011–2015, and 53 were written in the three years between 2016 and 2019, when we concluded gathering our sample.
2. Unfortunately, the racial distribution of our respondents is unsurprising. The American Planning Association reports that in 2016, only 7% of planners with 20 or more years of experience were minorities. Since we targeted senior staff for this survey, our sample may be even less diverse than the APA’s figure. Although we do not have equivalent figures for arts and cultural planners, we do not have reason to believe that the profession is any more diverse. https://www.planning.org/blog/blogpost/9170454/.