The Massachusetts Metropolitan Area Planning Council consulted state and national advisors to develop this “Arts and Planning Toolkit” to guide planners and other government staff through impactful integration of arts and culture into their work. The toolkit provides background and best practices on a wide variety of topics from cultural planning and space activation to socially engaged art practice and arts district development. The resource provides policy specifics on topics such as zoning and permitting, public sector arts funding, and artist residencies. National best practice case studies illustrate the impact of these activities.

From her perspective as senior advisor to The Kresge Foundation’s Arts & Culture Programs since 2012, Rosario Jackson provides observations and suggestions on creative placemaking for practitioners, leaders, and funders. Her recommendations include developing a greater understanding about how inequality and meaningful change to address it occur, and including art and culture in their widest definitions as a critical component of meaningful community development rather than as an afterthought. She charges practitioners to be nimble and flexible in developing cross-sectoral relationships and partnerships, and to better communicate successful outcomes from creative placemaking work. On that topic, she advocates for unorthodox research and evaluation methods.

This report introduces the important role of arts and cultural spaces, particularly for low- and moderate-income communities. Rosario Jackson discusses some considerations and logistics in the creation of artist-driven spaces in these communities.

Creative placemaking projects strategically link communities and local governments with artists, designers, and arts organizations to improve quality of life, create a sense of place, and revitalize local economies. This online resource from the NEA of over seventy case studies gives examples from across the nation on how different communities are harnessing the capacity of arts- and culture-based strategies.

This 2010 white paper by Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa and commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts is an important early resource and codified the term creative placemaking. The report outlines the ways that leaders and participants from different sectors can use place-based art to pursue a variety of positive outcomes, including streetscape improvements, economic activity, and public safety. An early understanding of creative placemaking coalesced in this report, and the field still builds on it and reckons with it.

Roberto Bedoya impacted the direction of the field with this article, which is critical of what he sees as creative placemaking’s emphasis on neighborhood revitalization and economic development. He points out that without honoring equity, race, and justice at the center of creative placemaking, arts-based practice can easily be misapplied to reinforce existing barriers to opportunity and sense of belonging for marginalized people. He advocates for using creative placemaking to foster belonging and to achieve “strength and prosperity through equity and civility.”

This Knowledge Center portal from the American Planning Association allows you to search for resources that provide background and policy guidance on creative placemaking. You can also filter search results by various graphic and demographic characteristics.

This guide provides practical strategies, precedent, and best practices for municipal and community leaders to use creative placemaking for equitable social and economic development, celebrating community identity, governance, and physical design. Each chapter contains articles and case studies written by different practitioners around the US.