State of Massachusetts collaborates with Futurecity to launch Futurecity\Massachusetts
Press release
July 2016
- Cross-regional transformation of cities using culture is first of its kind in United States
- Invites citizens, artists, urban developers, business leaders, policy makers and creative industries to join ambitious cultural and knowledge exchange between three major cities
Leaders from Massachusetts’ three largest cities – Boston, Worcester and Springfield – joined arts and civic leaders to launch Futurecity\Massachusetts, a new approach to transforming cities that puts art, culture, and creativity at the centre of redevelopment and revitalisation.
Futurecity\Mass is a joint initiative between Futurecity, the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) and The Boston Foundation.
Futurecity Mass will work with city Mayors, urban planners, arts, cultural and business leaders in Boston, Springfield, and Worcester on key real estate projects within state-designated cultural districts in the three cities, targeting areas ripe for development and job growth.
It is the first US effort to advance the strategies of international placemaking agency Futurecity, which has created more than 200 partnerships across the globe that reposition cultural assets from community amenities to marketplace drivers. Futurecity is in Massachusetts this July to begin the work.
Futurecity has been immersed in cultural placemaking projects in different cities for over a decade. It is driven by a belief in the huge returns of investing in cultural capital.
Mark Davy, Founder of Futurecity, said:
“World cities are chasing increasingly similar goals: a distinctive cultural DNA that sets them apart, and a resulting atmosphere to attract further talent and inward investment. Investing in arts and culture pays dividends that sustain a place for generations. Successful places – offering varied, lucid, pleasurable, beautiful, surprising experiences – depend on a serious commitment to culture in order to remain ahead of the pack.”
Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said:
“Arts are at the center of a city’s purpose, and in Boston we are working to integrate arts, culture and creativity into every aspect of city life. Futurecity aligns with the goals identified in our city’s cultural plan, Boston Creates, by providing us with new tools to harness the exceptional creativity that exists in our city, while building on the cultural assets that will continue to make Boston a thriving city now and in the future.”
Joining Mayor Walsh at a City Hall press conference were Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty and state Senator Eric Lesser, Co-Chair, Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts & Cultural Development, representing Springfield and its Mayor, Domenic Sarno; alongside Davy, MCC Executive Director Anita Walker, Boston Foundation President Paul Grogan, and arts and cultural leaders from the three cities.
The Mayors and their partners announced the first phase of the Futurecity\Mass coalition’s work, which will focus on Boston’s Fenway Cultural District, the Springfield Central Cultural District, and the Salisbury Cultural District in Worcester. It comprises:
- Targeting areas within cultural districts where creative assets add significant marketplace value and meet community redevelopment objectives.
- Determining ways to steer development in those districts to both enhance property values and cultivate new resources to support artists and cultural nonprofits.
- A toolkit designed to help all cities and towns in Massachusetts create placemaking frameworks, identify opportunities for collaboration, develop programming concepts and cultural partnerships, and build a compelling narrative for this approach.
Davy, Walker, Grogan, and others will walk through each of the three districts with municipal officials and city planners, meet real estate developers, legislators and media, and join discussions with arts and cultural leaders at public receptions.
Walker has championed Davy’s approach since seeing the impact of his projects in London two years ago. Futurecity\Mass, she said, will build on more than two decades of work by MCC, the Boston Foundation, and many others to grow our state’s creative sector through strategic investment and partnerships.
“This is the next frontier of the creative economy in which the arts assert their value as equal partners in the urban realm,” Walker said. “The Fenway, downtown Springfield, and Worcester’s Salisbury Street are richer in every way because of the presence of artists, cultural and heritage institutions. Futurecity\Mass will help pull the arts out of the back seat and drive development in these neighborhoods.”
“Arts and culture are essential components of a vibrant community,” added Grogan. “Urban and cultural development should be linked closely so that our economic assets enhance, and are enhanced by, our creative assets. That is why the Boston Foundation is so excited to work with Mayors Walsh, Petty, and Sarno, and the MCC to support Futurecity\Mass.”
Futurecity has been immersed in cultural placemaking projects in different cities for over a decade, brokering partnerships between developers, artists, architects, policy makers and communities. Davy believes Futurecity\Mass will secure Massachusetts’ global position as a cultural leader.
About Futurecity
The last decade has shown us that the strength of the knowledge and creative economies are the measure of successful cultural districts. Cities are factories for ideas, producing cultural capital that runs intrinsically through other sectors, from leisure and tourism to transport and infrastructure. Cultural placemaking works best when it is embedded from the outset of new developments, acting as the glue between communities, artists, architects, government, developers and business to build a resilient cultural economy for the future. Our mapping of new places has to work at all scales and in all contexts: finding, understanding and activating the creative DNA, from local neighbourhoods to district-wide cultural masterplans.
Futurecity believes that cultural placemaking is a long-term, exportable investment for cities around the world: it creates important destinations, raises civic esteem in a global context, adds commercial and social value, stimulates new business opportunities and reveals fascinating local stories worth sharing. Futurecity has shown that an embedded cultural identity is the essential ingredient for a successful place. futurecity.co.uk
About the Massachusetts Cultural Council
The Massachusetts Cultural Council is a state agency supporting the arts, humanities, and sciences to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts and contribute to the economic vitality of its communities. The MCC pursues this mission through grants, services, and advocacy for nonprofit cultural organizations, schools, communities, and artists. The MCC’s total budget for this fiscal year is $16 million, which includes a $14 million state appropriation and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources. MCC also runs the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund in partnership with MassDevelopment.
About The Boston Foundation
The Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation, is one of the largest community foundations in the nation, with net assets of some $1 billion. In 2015, the Foundation and its donors paid $135 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and received gifts of $123 million. In celebration of its Centennial in 2015, the Boston Foundation launched the Campaign for Boston to strengthen the Permanent Fund for Boston, the only endowment fund focused on the most pressing needs of Greater Boston. The Foundation is proud to be a partner in philanthropy, with more than 1,000 separate charitable funds established by donors either for the general benefit of the community or for special purposes. The Boston Foundation also serves as a major civic leader, think tank and advocacy organization, commissioning research into the most critical issues of our time and helping to shape public policy designed to advance opportunity for everyone in Greater Boston. The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), an operating unit of the Foundation, designs and implements customized philanthropic strategies for families, foundations and corporations around the globe. For more information about the Boston Foundation and TPI, visit tbf.org or call 617-338-1700.