Collaborating with community-engaged artists can be transformative for mayors, city staff, and the communities they serve. From addressing infrastructure needs to building trust with residents, bringing arts and culture into city design work brings rich layers of opportunity. MICD’s series on Arts & City Leadership highlights some of the creative ways mayors and their staff can partner with artists to create transformative change in their cities.
This series features projects in Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Fargo, ND; Gretna, LA; Juneau, AK; Lancaster, PA; and Tulsa, OK.
A sample of the lessons learned:
- Mayoral leadership in infusing the arts into city departments, supporting staff in seeking creative solutions, and hiring artists within City Hall can help build equity and elevate the democratic process for residents.
- Supporting native and other cultural heritage unique to a city can aid in key mayoral goals of increasing the authentic profile of a city, rectifying past harms, and increasing the tax base to pay for city services.
- Structural changes to city government, such as merging legacy authorities into more centralized, coordinated departments, can pave the way for more effective community collaboration and focused experimentation.
Photo: Walter Soboleff Building (Photo courtesy of Sealaska Heritage Institute)