Post-Redevelopment Strategies Many California communities received a significant amount of arts investment through their local redevelopment agencies and had to get creative after redevelopment was eliminated. San Francisco found one partnership with the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, launched with a $5 million seed grant from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. The program aims to help long-time arts organizations acquire space and move out of the competitive rental market. For example, the trust supported the acquisition of a former porn theater for a performing arts group that will run a capital campaign and purchase the building back. The funds are then returned to the trust for the acquisition of another asset.
Other strategies include temporary arts. “We’ve seen great success in the idea of a ‘pop-up,’” says San Francisco’s DeCaigny, explaining that collective economic interaction in underutilized areas started with food trucks. “Now we’ve seen it evolve to parklets,” he adds, a concept where neighbors take over parking spaces and build a temporary mini-park with art provided by local residents. Most arts experts support centrally locating creative-economy businesses. Sometimes this happens organically, like the art galleries in Culver City attracted by cheap rents or the creative businesses in downtown San Jose and San Francisco neighborhoods, whose owners and staff like being part of an innovative community. Or consolidation occurs through planning, where artists participate in temporary displays in vacant storefronts during arts events. continued
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opposite page, top Bill Cosby shares humorous insights with a Grass Valley audience; bottom right Antsy McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadours perform at the Palms Playhouse in Winters; bottom left Allen Toussaint entertains at Grass Valley’s North Star House. this page, left Benoit Maubrey performs Audio Ballerinas at ZERO1 Biennial, an international showcase of art and technology in San Jose; above Valerie Troutt’s Moon Candy group sings at the 3rd on Third monthly arts celebration in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood.
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Western City, May 2014
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