Featured Resources on Cultural Economic Development

National Endowment for the Arts White Paper on Creative Placemaking summarizes two decades of creative American placemaking.

ArtPlace grants put art at the center of economic development. The initial round invested $11.5 million in 34 locally initiated projects across the country, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

The Upper Peninsula Art Map is an online interactive guide to the events, galleries and art studios of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The Sunrise Side Coastal Highway Heritage Route spans 200 miles along the Michigan shore of Lake Huron from Standish to Mackinaw City. It was designated a "Recreational Heritage Route" by the Michigan Department of Transportation in 2004.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Dozen Distinctive Destinations is a list compiled from 2000-2011, that annually showcased twelve cities and towns with best practices for creating an authentic visitor experience.

The Arts & Humanities Touring Program awards grants from the Michigan Humanities Council and the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs for touring arts and humanities programs.

Reach Studio Art Center, located in Lansing's REO Town district, offers art activities to residents of surrounding mixed income neighborhoods and the greater Lansing area. Read the “Reach for Community” feature on capitalgainsmedia.com.

Southwest Solutions works to provide affordable housing and support services that reintegrate the mentally ill and homeless into the community.

The National Arts Index is compiled annually by Americans for the Arts, measuring the health of the arts using 76 national-level indicators of arts and cultural activity.

Michigan Cultural Data Project is an online data management tool for arts and cultural organizations. The tool creates standards for reporting financial, programmatic, and operational data that can be used to track trends and increase management capacity.

The Michigan Production Alliance provides professional and educational resources to individuals and organizations in Michigan’s growing film industry.

The Washtenaw County Cultural Master Plan addresses the impact of the creative economy in Washtenaw County, Michigan. are available on the Art Alliance’s website. The county-wide plan is “the result of an 18-month, community-based planning effort that includes 34 Actions to be implemented over a five-year period.”

A3Arts is a predominantly user-generated social networking and promotional website launched by Ann Arbor's Arts Alliance for Washtenaw County’s creative economy.

Art Works: Creative Invention/Reinvention is a "collaborative cultural economic development plan for Greater Lansing’s urban center” resulting from an intergovernmental collaboration between the cities of Lansing and East Lansing.

Ford Foundation Grants support "fresh thinking and innovative people and organizations" in artistically innovative and culturally diverse endeavors.

Preserving Wisconsin’s Civic Legacy: A Guide to Rehabilitating and Reusing Local Government Properties is a free PDF guide to rehabilitating and reusing local government properties, based on examples from Wisconsin, from The National Trust for Historic Preservation.

MSU’s Land Policy Institute hosts the annual Michigan Land and Prosperity Summit.

Living Cities is a philanthropic collaborative of 22 of the world’s largest foundations. It has awarded $17 million to support development along the Woodward Corridor in Detroit.