In this city (and other coastal metropolises of such opportunity) developers have commercialized the “grit” of urban living, selling higher income residents on pale images of interactivity, diversity, and the magic of compressed living. There are of course an endless series of narratives on gentrification, homogenization, and displacement. Greater Boston, as well all know, has suffered considerably in the commodification of urban living, or at least the trappings of it. It’s not all doom and gloom today, luckily.
Introducing the Community Land Trust, a nonprofit organization, charged with the stewardship of community assets, including local business, community improvement institutions, and affordable housing. Community Land Trusts are governed democratically, by a board of neighborhood residents, homeowners, and local leaders.
The CLT structure is paradigm shifting, in that it provides a means for neighborhoods to preserve their affordability, and as a natural consequence, economic and demographic diversity. Development, ownership, and long-term planning decisions are not driven purely by profitability, but rather visionary goals that residents and local leaders set for their neighborhoods. The CLT model also provides residents with a sense of stability, guaranteeing affordability into perpetuity. Stability, without the looming threat of future displacement, accordingly motivates individuals to invest more of their time and effort into getting to know the people around them.
Boston has recently seen movement to promote and adopt the CLT structure as a tool to stabilize neighborhoods and preserve their authenticity.For example, The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative has been lauded as a model case study. Of course, CLTs require a degree of public investment. However, it’s arguable that the resulting quality of life benefits would make such an investment very worthwhile.
Governor Charlie Baker has proposed to cut a significant amount of state funding going towards art and culture in Massachusetts. Though the narrative of struggling arts organizations and budgetary constraints is not new, the proposed cuts would roll back funding to levels not seen since 1994, reducing arts funding to the levels of states like Nebraska and South Dakota.
Though large cultural institutions in the City and elsewhere have other steady sources of funding, smaller cultural institutions rely on state funded grants. In the absence of these grants, such grassroots organizations, especially those operating in less-populated areas may lack the resources necessary to provide valuable community services. Ultimately, these cuts will not hurt large, venerated cultural institutions nearly as much as lesser-known artists and organizations that are recipients of small-scale grants.
At the same time, plans are in the works for the state to work with Futurecity, a London based placemaking consultancy to develop a “cultural district” in the Fenway area. Such top-down cultural planning initiatives emphasize economic viability, i.e., the enhancement of property values for developers. The project is being lauded as a means to demonstrate the value of putting money back into arts and culture, a scalable blueprint.
However, ultimately, it is not enough to “support the arts” as a homogenous, monolithic construct. Culture is not ornamental, and should not be thought of a consumable, a plus delta in the scheme of larger economic forces. Beyond the perspective of economic development, culture enables us to think dynamically about our own lives and our immediate environment. It is unproductive to embrace large-scale arts-related real estate projects, while simultaneously cutting funding for small organizations. Policymakers cannot expect that the same type of value added comes from developer-sponsored cultural districts, as the community value that is provided by small nonprofits curating community events, developing youth programs, and supporting independent work.
