Want to Expand Arts in Sarasota?

Virginia Hoffman wrote (actually continues to write) impassioned pleas regarding support for the arts that is on par with other efforts.   In the June 16^thedition of SRQ Daily (subscribe here) she introduces the concept of the Cultural Stadium – hoping to elevate the arts among the power and money brokers in town by talking in sports metaphors.   Bingo Card from Bike Jax (dot org)

Linking arts to sports is one way to go about it, but there is another game, so to speak, where art is taking center field.  To whit:

• The Project for Public Spaces has a new effort called “Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper” in response to planning fatigue where the patience with endless planning runs out, but money for implementation is scarce.   Opportunistic, short term projects are now popping up all over; think pop-up festivals, food trucks, yarnbombing and tactical urbanism.
• Artspace is a POWERFUL partnership of funders and arts agencies that just gave away over $15 million in 47 cities and rural areas.  Some of the examples: in Boston, money to fund “random acts of culture” and ventures to engage artists to creatively combat urban vacancy in several cities.   
• There seems to already be quite a bit community initiated arts here already.  sARTq, launched by the HuB is a good example, and the Chalk Festival  began as a bootstrap event.  Several local artists have successfully used the crowdsourcing website Kickstarterto raise funds.   Ballet practice takes place downtown in an empty storefront.  Flashmob dances show up on Siesta Key. 

There are a couple of themes worth noting. 

• To borrow words from a Bruce Katz tweet, “The new era in (art) will be crowd sourced vs. close sourced, entrepreneurial vs. bureaucratic, networked vs. hierarchical.”  He was talking about metropolitan areas, but the same applies to the arts.
• Arts have to help solve something, fill a gap, and be related to placemaking.
• Art projects in the age of austerity, if publicly funded, will need to perform double and triple duty.
• If placemaking and the arts are not hierarchical, a new kind of leadership needs to combine the best of the established art community with these new spontaneous random acts.

In Sarasota, what are the opportunities?

Homemade wayfinding signs in Raleigh NC

• Arts and Transit – SCAT’s transit maps, bus stops and other information are pitiful.  Other cities are using information graphics, technology, and better sign posts to help patrons navigate the system.   Asheville, NC transformed its buses into art and performance spaces.

• Arts and Stormwater –Much of our public space is dominated by palm trees and high input (water and fertilizer) landscaping.  We can turn that around as other places have with installations that actually clean water before it enters the Bay.

• Arts and Health – Columbus Ohio’s Department of Public Health sponsors Columbus Art Walks in nine different neighborhoods.  Yes, the Health Department and Public Arts got together.
• Arts and Economic Development – Sarasota has tons of video production talent, but it seems scattered.  Imagine a consortium making a video like this, but instead of “Made in Brooklyn” it’s “Made in Sarasota.”  By the way, like Brooklyn’s Makerbot company, have a growing 3-D printing industry growing here.  Call me if interested because it looks like the early applications are jewelry, art and 3D printing for food.  No kidding.
• Art and Underused space - Imagine all the places in Sarasota where a dusty lot or even cracks in the sidewalk might be transformed.

Let’s cut to the chase here.  Placemaking+arts immerses people in art on a daily – even hourly – basis.  Linking arts to other passions ensure wider support, so someone who loves the idea of a healthier community will be all over arts and walking.  We know who does art - who does place? 

Moving Past Land Use + Transportation

Twenty years ago (when I got started in community planning), the thought of thinking about land use and transportation together was a revelation.  Considering both together is now commonplace, and adopted in some shape, form or fashion at all levels of infrastructure planning.  But a critical look at the equation is needed, especially here in the suburbs.  To whit:

• Land use is just that.  You can plop down unrelated buildings that check the "mixed use" box and still have land use.
• Transportation investments also have a "check the box" feel.  Florida planning, like many other places, still pays more attention to the existence of a facility, rather than the user experience.  Think about all those crazy bike lanes painted on arterials.
• Transportaton is all about how people move from Point A to Point B.  But trace the roots of how communities determine transportation needs, and it rests heavily on "trip generation."  It's based on the building - not on the person.  There's also an obsession (at least in Florida) on "internal capture."  This is intended to describe the number of trips that can be satisfied within a development area.  While internal capture is - in essence - what cities do, in suburbs success can be claimed by placing a deli in an isolated office park.  Internal capture is also - in essence - what prisons do.
• Innovation in transportation is stuck.  Look at the set of modes we have and most gracious way to describe activity is sideways evolution.  Bus Rapid Transit is hailed as a brand new force, but it's really a fancier bus with its own lane.
• We don't have a building boom anymore.  The land use and transportation exemplars from the past decade or so have been big ticket.   The "Best Practices" from the early naughts kind of feel like a luxury item.

So where does that leave us?  How about a new equation?  Instead of land use+ transportation, it seems like we are moving more to a placemaking+mobility+technology world.  To another whit:

• Organizations like Placemakers, Project for Public Spaces, Center for Neighborhood Technology, and others have been building the case for making places, not just an assortment of stuff that "the market" congers up.   In the past, concrete and steel were the focal points of land use and transportation.  While they are necessary components, our landscape is littered with places that simply don't work because we never considered how people fit in.  Placemaking adds the human algorithm to the new equation.
• Mobility helps break through the arguments that car based travel is supreme.  Mobility implies movement and traffic congestion, by definition, is not movement.  Mobility provides a nice platform for talking about all kinds of options which can include cars, buses, bikes and feet.  Actually getting from Point A to Point B, and having an enjoyable experience along the way, is what is supreme.
• Technology is emerging as the bridge to make the place+ mobility work no matter the setting.  Bike and car sharing are examples of this technology bridge,  but there is so much more waiting to happen, especially for suburbs.  Technology will be the fix, not land development, at least in the short run.  This blog will spend a lot of time looking into those technologies, how they fit, and how, politically, those technologies are one of the most important factors for the smart growth movement going forward.

Stay tuned.