Creativity Levers: A Framework for Investment in Neighborhood Change

Monday, October 13, 1:45 pm – 3:15 pm
International Ballroom C, M2/International Ballroom Level

Organized by Joan Shigekawa, associate director, Creativity and Culture, the Rockefeller Foundation. Presented by Jeremy Nowak, president, the Reinvestment Fund and Michael Johnson, president, Em Johnson Interest, and moderated by Maria Rosario-Jackson, director of the arts and cultural and community, the Urban Institute.

Powerful evidence and new perspectives presented by two CEOs from the fields of urban finance and urban real estate development demonstrate how the social, economic and cultural benefits of the arts can combine to create new vitality for the redevelopment of urban neighborhoods.

Jeremy Nowak, President of The Reinvestment Fund, a regional Philadelphia-based financial economic development organization, and Michael Johnson, President of Em Johnson Interest, an Atlanta and San Francisco-based real estate development firm, will present the case-making framework and on-the-ground reality of investing in culture as a strategy to develop thriving neighborhoods. Maria Rosario-Jackson, Director of the Culture, Creativity and Communities Program at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. will introduce the speakers.

Resources for further study:

Creativity and Neighborhood Development: Strategies for Community Investment:
www.trfund.com/resource/creativity.html

  1. The Reinvestment Fund and the University of Pennsylvania — Critical Review of the Literature on Culture and Urban Revitalization:
    1. Culture and Urban Revitalization: A Harvest Document
      www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/HarvestReport.pdf
    2. Culture and Urban Revitalization: A Presentation
      www.sp2.upenn.edu/SIAP/CultureandUrbanRevitalizationv31.pdf

  2. The Reinvestment Fund - Policy Briefs:
    1. From Creative Economy to Creative Society
      www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/Economy.pdf
    2. Cultivating “Natural” Cultural Districts
      www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/NaturalCulturalDistricts.pdf
    3. Migrants, Communities, and Culture
      www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/Migrant.pdf
    4. Crane Arts: Financing Artists’ Workspace
      www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/CraneArts_Final.pdf

  3. The Reinvestment Fund - Prospectus for Community Investment:
    1. Creativity and Neighborhood Development: Strategies for Community Investment
      www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/creativity_neighborhood_dev.pdf
    2. The Power of Place-making
      www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/PowerOfPlacemaking.pdf

  4. Publications from the Urban Institute’s Art and Cultural Indicator Project:
    1. Cultural Vitality in Communities: Interpretation and Indicators
      www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/311392_Cultural_Vitality.pdf
    2. Culture Counts in Communities: A Framework for Measurement
      www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310834_culture_counts.pdf
    3. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston — Communities & Banking, Vol. 19, No. 2
      Measuring Cultural Vitality in Communities
      www.bos.frb.org/commdev/c&b/2008/spring/Jackson_cultural_vitality.pdf

* All publications will be available at the Creativity Levers session in Atlanta