New York City should amend its environmental review process to recognize cultural organizations, cultural businesses, creative production spaces, and artists’ housing as community facilities. This would make cultural displacement and neighborhood cultural needs visible in land-use decisions.
Environmental review already considers whether development displaces neighborhood-serving resources or creates new demand for them. This recommendation makes the case for applying that same planning logic to culture, drawing on research on cultural assets and social well-being and outlining how the change could be implemented within the existing CEQR framework.