anne gadwa nicodemus – indicators, metrics and evaluations, oh my!
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Anne Gadwa Nicodemus, founder, Metris Arts Consulting As a researcher, writer, speaker, and advocate, Anne Gadwa Nicodemus tells stories through narratives and numbers. Her favorite muse is creative placemaking. She’s fascinated by all kinds of places—their form, their people, their change. A choreographer/arts administrator turned urban planner, Nicodemus is a leading voice in the intersection of arts and community development. Nicodemus co-authored Creative Placemaking, the report for the Mayors’ Institute of City Design (2010) that defined the field. Her journal article “Fuzzy Vibrancy” (Cultural Trends, 2013)and forthcoming book, The Creative Placemakers’ Playbook, look more deeply at creative placemaking as cultural policy and its ethics and practical challenges. Nicodemus has also contributed to the intersection of arts, culture, and community development through other works. Her How Art Spaces Matter reports (for Artspace Projects, 2010 and 2011) reveal the benefits of art spaces to artists’ careers and communities, including anchoring arts districts, expanding arts access, and boosts to safety, livability, tax rolls and property values. Nicodemus and Ann Marksuen’s “Arts and Culture in Urban and Regional Planning: A Review and Research Agenda” (Journal of Planning and Education Research, 2010) was the most downloaded of that journal’s articles in 2009 and 2010. They also recently contributed a chapter to Creative Communities: Art Works in Economic Development (Brookings Institution Press, 2013). Nicodemus’ short writings have also appeared in publications including Grantmakers in the Arts: Reader, Createquity.com and Minnesota Public Radio News. Nicodemus speaks widely on creative placemaking and artist spaces, giving frequent talks at universities and professional conferences nationwide, and as far-flung as Macau, China. She was recognized as one of the nation’s fifty most influential people in the nonprofit arts in 2012 and 2013. Nicodemus holds a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a B.A. in dance and biology from Oberlin College. Nicodemus grew up in suburban Connecticut; went to college surrounded by the cornfields of Ohio; and lived, danced, and worked in New York City and Minneapolis for years. Her family hails from central Long Island’s north shore, where she grew up spending summers on one of its last remaining farms. Recently, she’s laid down roots in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. She lives in Easton, PA with her partner Julia Frances Nicodemus, dog Bogart, and cat Phoebe.TRANSCRIPT
November 7, 2013 Anne Gadwa Nicodemus@MetrisArts metrisarts.com
Indicators Metrics and EvaluationsOh My!
Coastal East Lothian; The Circus Comes To Winterfield Park, Dunbar by Richard West;; http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/46914
Why does evaluation matter?
Why is evaluation tough?
Why is Evaluation Tough?
• Bias
• Conceptualization
• Causality
• Methodology
• Resources
Measure what you value.
Don’t value what you measure.
Not everything that counts can be counted.
Not everything that can be counted counts.
Photo from Artspace collection
Photo © Sean Smuda, seansmuda.com. 2009
Photo from Artspace collection
Community informant interviews (62)
Group interviews (36 artists and arts organization tenants)
Arts tenant survey (135 returns, 46% overall response rate)
Artist income records (149 artist households)
Trends in socio-economic data (Census, ACS, County and Zip Code Business Patterns)
1980 1990 2000 2005-20090%
50%
100%
150%
200%
250%
300%
350%
400%
450%
100%87%
287%
383%
133%
179%
Population Growth: Riverside's Neighborhood vs. Reno and Washoe County
Riverside Neighborhood Reno Washoe County
Community informant interviews (62)
Group interviews (36 artists and arts organization tenants)
Arts tenant survey (135 returns, 46% overall response rate)
Artist income records (149 artist households)
Trends in socio-economic data (Census, ACS, County and Zip Code Business Patterns)
Hedonic modeling to estimate property value impacts
Estimated Property Value Impacts due to 1999 investment at Riverside site
Benefits to In-house Artists
The space “works” – affordability and meeting needs
Co-location – more than the sum of its parts
Strengthening reputations and identities
Enhancing ability to create art
Modest boosts to income
Photo from Artspace collection
$9 million investment 45% increase in taxable value From delinquent taxes $13K (’10)
Riverside Hotel 1964. Photo courtesy Nevada Historical Society (WA-1511)
Estimated Property Value Impacts due to 1999 investment at Riverside site
Neighborhood and Regional Impacts Transforming buildings and tax rolls
Influencing neighborhood change, increasing property values
Few “red flags” on gentrification led displacement
Social Benefits – fostering livability, bridging divides
Larger arts impacts – providing anchors and models, expanding offerings
Strengthening, attracting and retaining arts entrepreneurs
Bolstering other area business
Gordon Square Arts DistrictPhoto © Detroit Shoreway Community Development
Cleveland Public Theater, Gordon Square Arts DistrictPhoto © Cleveland Public Theatre
Gordan Square Arts DistrictCleveland, Ohio
Weekly fiddle jam. Photo © Tom Pierce, 2009
Photo © Dan Bertrand
NuNu’s ExperimentArnaudville, Louisiana
Paducah Artist Relocation ProgramPaducah, Kentucky
High n’ Low Rider by Ruben Ortiz-Torrez. Photo © Everett Taasevigen
01SJ BiennialSan José, California
Ann Northrup and inm
ate artists at Riverside Correctional Facility celebrate Going H
ome, the m
ural on which they collaborated.
Photo by Clem M
urray for the Philadelphia Inquirer
Design in Motion © 2009 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program/Desiree Bender & Big Picture Youth. Photo by Steve Weiinik
Philadelphia Mural Arts ProgramPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Ingredients
• Prompted by an initiator with vision and drive
• Tailors strategy to distinctive features of place
• Mobilizes public will
• Attracts private sector buy-in
• Garners support of local arts and cultural leaders
• Builds partnerships across sectors, missions, and levels of government
Challenges
• Countering Community Skepticism
• Forging and Sustaining Partnerships
• Assembling Adequate Financing
• Clearing Regulatory Hurdles
• Ensuring Maintenance and Sustainability
• Avoiding Displacement and Gentrification
• Developing Metrics for Performance & Evaluation
Anne Gadwa Nicodemus [email protected] metrisarts.com @MetrisArts
Creative placemaking:
* partners from public, private, nonprofit, and community sectors
•strategically shape
•the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, tribe, city, or region
* around arts and cultural activities
Creative Placemaking:
Cross-SectorPartners
Creative Placemaking:
Cross-SectorPartners
animates public/private
space
brings diverse peopletogether to
celebrate, inspire + be inspired
rejuvenatesstructures +streetscapes
improvesbiz
vitality
improvespublic safety
Alternative definitions:
A means of investing in art and culture at the heart of a portfolio of integrated strategies that can drive vibrancy and diversity so powerful that it transforms communities.
-ArtPlace
Active participation in arts and creative expression that give places meaning and authentic identity.
-Kresge Foundation
An evolving field of practice that intentionally leverages the power of the arts, culture and creativity to serve a community’s interest while driving a broader agenda for change, growth and transformation in a way that also builds character and quality of place
-Artscape