The Art of Placemaking Podcast

Ann Markusen leads a discussion in an attempt to answer the following important questions: What are the missions of creative placemaking? How can we monitor progress over short periods of time? What research methods are best suited to the challenge? Who are the audiences for evaluation? What's your best story about how research and evaluation led to better outcomes, and for whom?

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Ann Markusen is Director of the Arts Economy Initiative and the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Principal of Markusen Economic Research. She is a researcher, frequent public speaker, and advisor to public agencies, policymakers, businesses, economic developers, and nonprofit organizations across the US, in Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia and Brazil. Her expertise is in economic development at the state and local level, where she brings analytical skills to bear on the ways that industries and occupations shape possibilities for creating good work. Markusen is currently serving as research and writing consultant for the Minnesota House of Representatives' Select Committee on Living Wage Jobs.

In recent years, Markusen's research and consulting has focused on artists, arts organizations, and creative placemaking. Her publications include "The Arts, Consumption, and Innovation in Regional Development" (2013), City Creative Industry Strategies: the State of the Art (2012), California's Arts and Cultural Ecology (2011), Nurturing California's Next Generation Arts and Cultural Leaders (2011), Creative Placemaking (2010), Los Angeles: America's Artist Super City (2010); Native Artists: Careers, Resources, Space, Gifts (2009), San Jose Artists' Resource and Space Study (2008), Leveraging Investments in Creativity Artist Data User Guide (2008), Crossover: How Artists Build Careers across Commercial, Non-profit and Community Work (2006), Artists' Centers (2006), and The Artistic Dividend (2003). In addition, she is the author of leading edge op eds and policy papers published in Grantmakers for the Arts Reader, the Createquity blog, and in international publications, including Japan, UK, Australia, Slovakia, Portugal, and Brazil.

Markusen's research and policy work has also been directly toward pressing economic development issues at national and local scales, including business tax incentives (Reining in the Competition for Capital, 2007), minimum wage legislation, military industrial conversion (Arming the Future: a Defense Industry for the 20th Century, 1999; Dismantling the Cold War Economy, 1992; The Rise of the Gunbelt, 1991) high tech job growth (High Tech America 1985), energy boomtowns, and state/local public finance. Over the years, her op eds have been published in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor and many regional dallies, and she has been a frequent radio and television commentator.

In recent accolades, Markusen's 2006 study, Crossover, was showcased by Grantmakers in the Arts Reader in the Fall of 2012 as one of five "Landmark" research studies. Markusen was featured in WESTAF's Barry's Blog as among 2012′s Fifty Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the Nonprofit Arts. Markusen and Ann Gadwa Nicodemus' "Arts and Culture in Urban and Regional Planning: A Review and Research Agenda" was honored as the most downloaded of Journal of Planning Education and Research articles published in 2009 and 2010.

Markusen holds a Bachelor's Degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University. She has served on the University faculties of Minnesota, Rutgers, Northwestern, California Berkeley, and Colorado. Winner of the 2006 Alonso Prize in Regional Science and the 1996 Walter Isard Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement, she has served as President of the North American Regional Science Association, as a Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow, and AAAS Science, Engineering and Public Policy Committee Chair and Member. Markusen served as UCLA's Harvey Perloff Chair, 2005-8; the UK Fulbright Distinguished Chair, Glasgow School of Art, 2010-11; and A. D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University, School of Art, Architecture and Planning, 2007-14. She is a member of the National Advisory Board of the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project. She has been a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow, Fulbright Lecturer in Brazil, and has directed large research projects funded by the Ford, MacArthur, McKnight, Irvine, and Hewlett Foundations, among others.

Company:University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public AffairsWebsite:

Sunil Iyengar, Director, Office of Research and Analysis, National Endowment for the Arts, will present the NEA’s latest research and thinking on creative placemaking in America and will be joined by Jason Schupbach, Design Director who will provide and update on NEA creative placemaking programs.

Sunil Iyengar, Director, Office of Research and Analysis, National Endowment for the Arts, will present the NEA’s latest research and thinking on creative placemaking in America and will be joined by Jason Schupbach, Design Director who will provide and update on NEA creative placemaking programs.

Bert Crenca, , Barnaby Evans,  and Clay Rockefeller,  and Lynne McCormack, Director of , City of Providence share their experiences in building and supporting creative cultural institutions that helped redefine a city. This panel was moderated by Anne Gadwa Nicodemus.

Creative communities: what are the ingredients of building a creative community? What can cities and state governments do to encourage creative development? How do we break down the silos and encourage collaborations? Come listen and discuss with a panel of creative placemakers working inside government to connect and navigate the landscape of planning, economic development, education, transportation and the arts.

In this panel discussion moderator Jack Becker, the publisher of , asks creative placemaking civic leaders to talk about how city, state, and even federal government agencies can work with artists and community organizers to foster creative initiatives that will help develop creative and resilient communities. Panelists for this discussion include: Gülgün Kayim, Director of Arts, ;  Kip Bergstrom, Deputy Commissioner, ; Marty Pottenger, director, ; Lynne McCormack, Director,  and  Erin Williams,  and Executive Director of the .

A presentation by Marty Pottenger 

Arts projects that focus on engagement and collaboration outside the arts sector are sometimes the most successful, but are often the most difficult to complete successfully. A practitioner’s seasoned perspective on creating work that engages and transforms communities, we will learn about projects with New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection/Local 147 Sandhog’s Union, a city-wide gathering at Union Square four days after 9/11, and a national arts project with 30 minimum wage workers and 30 multi-millionaires. Presentation will also include Art At Work is a national initiative to improve municipal government and the communities they serve through strategic arts projects with municipal employees, elected officials, residents and artists. Creative Placemaking with people at the center, AAW strengthens community resilience and generates cultural, civic and economic vibrancy by engaging people in making and experiencing art that matters.

While it's great to attend a conference and hear from all the experts from within your field, it can be even more useful to hear from experts who work in other fields. At we invited Jed Pearsall, founder and president of , a global leader in marketing and sponsorship research for Fortune 50 brands, to share his experiences in working with companies who sponsor the Arts. Performance Research's mission is to help clients capture and measure the value of sponsorship and experiential marketing and reveal the essential truth about the impact.

Sarah Lee, Vice President for Arts & Culture, Sharon Yazowski, Executive Director,

Placemaking begins and ends with people. While current creative placemaking vibrancy indicators focus primarily on economic impact, we believe there's more to the story: social impact.

Join Sharon Yazowski, Executive Director of Levitt Pavilions, and Sarah Lee, Vice President for Arts & Culture at Slover Linett Audience Research, to learn about how they are working together to develop tools and methodologies to measure the social impact of creative placemaking projects, using Levitt Pavilions as a case study.

When you ask Mayors or community organizers what their biggest challenge is, often they say "helping people believe that change is possible." This session will use the Irrigate project in St.Paul, Minnesota as a case study to share how many small, locally-grown, creative placemaking projects can contribute to a change in neighborhood narrative and lead to greater agency and equity in the community.

Rhode Islanders know they can count on Sheldon Whitehouse to fight for the middle-class values that matter most to us. Sheldon believes that every child deserves the opportunities provided by a good education, and that anyone willing to work hard should be able to find a good job. He believes in the promise of Social Security and Medicare to provide a basic measure of dignity for seniors when they retire.