Just Planning: The Marriage of Culture and City Planning
Tom Borrup, Ph. D.
This paper argues that an appreciation of culture in the anthropological sense in both cultural and urban planning practices can bring about a hybrid of Just Planning – a culturally informed approach to urban planning that promises greater civic engagement and move towards cultural, social, and economic equity. The emergence and evolution of cultural planning over the past four decades in many parts of the world has been steady but neither ascendant nor as widely impactful as scholars such as Bianchini (1999), Mercer (2006), Mills (2003), and Stevenson (2005) anticipated. Meanwhile, urban planning as practiced by towns and cities of all sizes fails to acknowledge dimensions of human culture that impact patterns of behavior, livelihood, settlement, social practice, recreation, and other activities resulting in policy choices and physical development patterns that privilege some while denying others equitable access to resources and to conduct ways of life that respect and accommodate their cultures. Two research studies, one in 1993 by Bernie Jones, another in 1994 by Craig Dreeszen, represent the only primary research on the explicit practice of cultural planning in the U.S. This paper sets the stage for new research underway with Americans for the Arts to assess the trajectory of cultural planning in the U.S. over the past 25 years. While interest among municipalities in cultural planning has not declined, scholarly research has been eclipsed by topics such as creative cities, creative economy, cultural districts, and creative placemaking, what Jamie Peck (2005) calls “urban fragments.”
Festivals Crossing Borders: Influence of the Edinburgh Fringe on North American Fringe Festivals
Xela Batchelder, Ph. D.
On this 70th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I want to ask how the Edinburgh Fringe has, and has not, influenced North American fringe festival organizational and management models. The past year, 2016, also marked the 25th anniversary year of the Orlando Fringe, the longest running Fringe festival in the US, the 20th anniversary of the New York Fringe, and the 35th anniversary of the Edmonton Fringe Festival in Canada. From a management perspective, Fringe Festivals in the United States in particular exhibit a remarkable diversity in their underlying organizational structures. In my paper, I will explore this remarkable diversity and trace the influence of older, influential fringe festivals on the structures of current North American fringe festivals. This paper will concentrate in particular on the influence of the Edinburgh Fringe. My research draws on 20 years of field work in Edinburgh, including interviews and archival recordings of Edinburgh Fringe venue managers and directors, and attendance at Edinburgh Fringe Society board meetings. It also includes my own archival interviews of festival directors and managers from around the world, as well as attendance and archival notes and recordings at the first three international fringe management conferences. My research, which is particularly directed at understanding US Fringe Festivals, also draws from archival notes and recordings made at annual US Association of Fringe Festivals conferences, as well as interviews and consulting sessions with multiple US fringe festivals and Canadian fringe festivals. My conclusion is that the structures of the original Edinburgh Festival Fringe no longer define what fringe festivals are in North America. Instead, fringe festivals in North America, and particularly in the United States, organize themselves in diverse ways while defining themselves according to remarkably elastic criterion.
Arts in Small Communities: Festivals in Provincetown, Massachusetts & Stornoway, Scotland
James C. Marchant, J.D. Ph. D.
My research focuses on how art is used to develop, strengthen and revitalize small communities that have been impacted by a decrease in industry in various forms. I am currently researching artists, the arts and arts organizations in Provincetown, Massachusetts in the United States and in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The arts play an important role in both areas and have done so formally in Provincetown since the early part of the 20th century and formally in the Outer Hebrides since the 1980’s (outside of the production of Harris Tweed). This paper is a part of that continuing, larger research project.
In this paper, I investigate, examine, analyze, and compare how the Provincetown International Film Festival and the Hebridean Celtic Festival affect the small communities of Provincetown, Massachusetts, United States and Stornoway, Scotland. My methodology is a multiple case study with auto-ethnographic aspects as I volunteered extensively with both organizations as a part of my research. I also relied heavily on formal and informal qualitative interviews with paid staff, paid contractors, board members, volunteers, artists and audience members as well as reviews of financial documentation and public materials used in managing, funding, marketing and operating each festival.
Although the arts have held a role in both communities for a longer period of time, the Provincetown International Film Festival and the Hebridean Celtic Festival were both founded in the late 1990’s and have each grown significantly since then in terms of budget, production value and audience size. Both organizations rely heavily on volunteers and bring in large numbers of tourists to the areas. Each festival engages the local communities to a significant degree, but they also bring in significant numbers of tourists and artists from around the world. Although both organizations also have significant differences, both organizations have positively affected their communities.
Chair: Dr. Anthony Schrag