Making Place for Arts & Culture: how arts & culture play into interdisciplinary strategies for community development without displacement

Abstract

This thesis seeks to deepen our understanding of arts & culture in the context of community development at a neighborhood scale. Specifically, it asks: how might arts and culture interventions be used as part of interdisciplinary strategies to bolster marginalized communities dealing with systemic disinvestment without exacerbating development induced displacement? Focusing on el Punto in Salem, MA, it will surface tools used by a Community Development Corporation (CDC) working in a majority immigrant community in the heart of a city. In doing so, it contemplates key tensions inherent in attempting to align a development strategy with community interests. Intersecting with the work of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council Department of Arts & Culture, it will then turn to Boston’s Chinatown—a deeply different context, with certain shared characteristics—as a site of further inquiry.