Infrastructures
Excerpt # 7 from
Beyond The Numbers: Inadequacies of Creative Placemaking Criteria
What then, is the ecology of a thriving community? Artscape, a leader in cultural community development for the last twenty-seven years, explains a community’s ecology from a cultural perspective in this way:
“The concept of a cultural ecology – a dense, connected system of interdependent, multidimensional and dynamic infrastructure – is useful to understand and leverage the potential of clustering creative activity in a city. Cultural ecologies comprise a distinct and evolving blend of community, educational, recreational, cultural, entrepreneurial and entertainment venues and environments that generate “thickness” within the creative fabric of a city. They provide the necessary infrastructure that promotes cross-fertilization between a varied mix of stakeholders and interest groups, cultural producers, artists, entrepreneurs and residents.”
Artscape goes on to further define the difference in the infrastructures,
“Underpinning the formation and growth of a cultural ecology, or “soft” infrastructure, is the mix of “hard” infrastructure – the workspaces, galleries, theatres, cafés, streets and public spaces that provide critical social and economic spaces for interaction. These tangible elements of urban form combine the functional with the aesthetic and the symbolic to provide vital conduits for inspiration, connectivity and expression. Infused with a mix of uses, meanings and experiences, these places reveal themselves as authentic, distinctive, permeable and diverse habitats that attract and sustain a diverse range of creative activity.”
Distinguishing the two different infrastructures reveals the visible and invisible and indicates the importance of the network that spans them. In this way it allows one to see the whole in reference to its parts. Artscape aptly explains, “Successful regeneration enhances the cultural ecology’s sustainability and resiliency by focusing on the critical intersections of creative people and unique places, a dynamic that serves to unlock the potential of both.”
Copyright 2013