Celia Smith, Executive Vice President, Artscape

Cities and municipalities across Canada and internationally are taking an increasingly collaborative approach to arts and cultural facilities development, one where the burden, responsibilities and opportunities are more equally shared with the arts and cultural community, with senior tiers of government and with an ever-widening pool of potential partners in the public, private and third sector. This collaborative approach offers civic government the potential to address its social, economic and cultural ambitions in a more consensual way. It also acknowledges the complexity of many of the issues it is grappling with, and seeks to widen the pool of problem-solving experience and talent.

This is taking place at a time when local governments across North America and Europe are undergoing a process of change from planner-provider-deliverer to enabler-convener-catalyst-broker. More and more, local governments are positioning themselves as “strategic place-shapers”, organizing but not necessarily leading collaboration across whole localities.

In this context, funding may only form a small part, if at all, of the ways in which a city can support cultural facility development. Cities can provide very significant enabling support in a number of other ways: facilitating the development process by coordinating and easing the path of a project through the myriad departments and committees that will need to get involved, forwarding and coordinating access to financing and support from other tiers of government and with financing support.

Watch this video to learn more about the 4 Fs and how cities can support cultural space development.

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