Economic Development Recovery and Resiliency Playbook - Flipbook - Page 67
Promote Cultural Initiatives
Cultural initiatives can enhance livability, support creative industries, and encourage community expression of pride and
identity. This section covers two such initiative areas, creative arts and recreation. Economic development eforts in these two
areas contribute to quality-of-life amenities that increase a location’s attractiveness for talent and businesses. These eforts
also directly and indirectly support arts, entertainment, hospitality, design, recreation, and other creative industries and
business activities.
In the 2000s and 2010s, following the creative economy movement ushered in by Richard Florida and others, Ann Markusen
and Anne Gadwa published research based on their creative placemaking eforts.82 In California, they studied and supported
several creative economy projects with the City of San José, including technical support and business services for “creative
entrepreneurs” and a science and arts initiative, Zero1. Given global and national competition for talent, business, and public
and private sponsorship (as well as evidence that creative activity and amenities encourage innovation and entrepreneurship),
many localities and the State of California devoted resources to creative vibrancy as an economic and community development
strategy. Local and statewide initiatives sought to support creative industries, arts organizations, and artists.83
With the support of a National Endowment for the
Arts Our Town grant, Mariposa County adopted a
creative placemaking strategy in the late 2010s and
published a comprehensive strategy document84 in
2021. The document outlines the planning process,
which involved planning and economic development
stakeholders (the Mariposa County Arts Council, the
National Park Service, Mariposa County Planning
Department, and Mariposa Chamber of Commerce),
and community arts and other nonprofit and
community organizations. With an emphasis on the
county’s historic legacy and existing arts and creative
events and organizations, the strategy outlined goals
to use policies, projects, and programs to enhance
livability and cultural expression for community and
economic development. The recommendations
included plans for a mural project, a sculpture park,
site activation, a creek parkway, parks, temporary
and interpretive art installations, artists-in-residence
programs, film and lecture programs, and data and
governance enhancements.
Local students check out the Mariposa Creek Parkway Master Plan,
an element of the Creative Placemaking Strategic Plan. The plan
was a step toward implementing a decades-long vision for active
transportation and linear park along Mariposa Creek.
A national movement is underway to promote local
and regional economic development using outdoor
recreation as a strategy. The California Department of Natural Resources and California State Parks, among other entities,
steer federal and state grant funding to projects that support tourism and recreation development. Like arts-based economic
development, outdoor recreation development ofers a way for communities to rally around parks and trails, public lands
facilities, and open spaces where residents enjoy nature and exercise.
In recent years, the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship, a trails development and management organization in Quincy, California,
led more than a dozen towns in three counties through a planning process to connect hundreds of miles of multi-use trails in
82
Markusen, Ann, and Anne Gadwa, “Creative Placemaking,” National Endowment for the Arts, 2010.
https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/CreativePlacemaking-Paper.pdf
83
Rose, Kalima et. al., “Creating Change Through the Arts, Culture, and Equitable Development: A Policy and Practice Primer,” PolicyLink, 2017.
https://www.policylink.org/sites/default/files/report_arts_culture_equitable-development.pdf
84
“Mariposa County’s Creative Placemaking Strategy,” 2021.
https://www.mariposacounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/89570/Mariposa-County-Creative-Placemaking-Strategy
Harnessing Community Culture for Resiliency Planning and Recovery Response
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