"Uptown"-Shaw-Mid City-Heart of the City Arts District meeting tonight

"Uptown"-Shaw-Mid City-Heart of the City Arts District meeting tonight
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I had intended to write more about this project, although I've written about it in the past.

I think that it's an earnest effort, but I don't think they are "planning" in the right order. Part of that is a fault of how the "Neighborhood Investment Fund" is structured, in that it focuses on doing "quick and dirty" projects that might not really be the right thing to do, or the most important thing to do, but are one of the funding areas specified in the grant announcement.

The other is that the issue of "branding" vs. positioning-identity is a more serious question that treads on advertising-marketing vs. the kinds of values that propel the nonprofit world.

Branding is a problem when you haven't first figured out your purpose. Now, I have come to believe that this effort in Shaw, although not planned the way I would do it, is worth going forward with, because the City of Washington needs to see stuff before it begins to do the right thing in terms of planning or destination development or arts and culture planning.

At the ASLA conference, there was a great presentation on Friday, "Creating a Great Street: The Regeneration of West Main Street" covering the process for improving West Main Street in Louisville, Kentucky (a place I happened to visit in 2004).

The online presentation is visuals only. You needed to hear them speak, and they focused on the three part planning and implementation process they developed there:

1. Planning and Design
2. Implementation and Financing
3. Programming and Maintenance

I would probably term it a little differently:

1. Scoping and identification of assets
2. Planning and Design
3. Financing and Implementation planning
4. Infrastructure and asset investment (assets include the Louisville Slugger baseball plant and museum, an arts museum, the Ali Museum)
5. Management structure and programming
6. Operations

The reason that the Shaw effort is problematic is that it is focused on a logo and idea and banners, but most of the steps of an overall process are missing.

What's needed is an arts district management plan. Just how the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority requires that Maryland's heritage areas have a management and development plan before they can be designate.

Closest to DC is the Anacostia Trail Heritage Area, designated by the State of Maryland, which has a management plan and an evaluation (oops, their website seems to be down) online.

Similarly, the Gateway Arts District in Prince George's County started with a management plan. (Although I don't think there's been an evaluation.)

Start with a plan, and have it be nuanced, with separate sub-district plans for different parts of the districct (14th Street, U Street, 9th Strete, etc.).

But throwing up banners and coming up with a logo are only a couple of deliverables from what should be a more complete planning and implementation process for the maintenance and strengthening of the arts and culture programs in the Greater Shaw neighborhood.