The Social Impact of Cultural Districts

This report, commissioned by the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN) and written by Kiley Arroyo describes diverse tools that cultural districts can use to spur investment and create new revenue streams while protecting the local character and neighborhood identity. It is the first consolidated source of advice on finance mechanisms, public policies, and equity-centered practices — known as value-capture tools — that can be used to recover and reinvest increases in real estate value that benefit communities as well as property owners and developers.

Across the globe, the transformative powers of cultural districts have been widely noted, particularly with respect to how they add value to the lives of individuals and to society as a whole. Yet the ways in which cultural districts deliver and evaluate their social impact have yet to be fully explored. Importantly, there is a stark absence of rigorous methodologies and assessment frameworks to assist cultural districts in articulating, planning, delivering, and evaluating their social value proposition. Based on findings from a follow-up study to our 2019 report on Social Impact, untimely terminated due to Covid-19, this publication highlights there is much to be learned about the social impact of cultural districts.