Culture as Infrastructure

When culture is treated as public infrastructure, its civic, social, economic, and educational benefits are produced, distributed, and sustained by design. This project examines how cultural resources reach New York City neighborhoods, and what it would take to provision them the way a city provisions its other public goods.

The Problem

Culture is largely funded one organization, artist, or project at a time. This sustains cultural work, but does not ask whether neighborhoods have the cultural assets they need. As a result, gaps in cultural infrastructure remain largely invisible.

The Approach

The project asks how culture could be planned around neighborhood need, sustained over time, and accountable to communities.

We examine five funding streams together—direct public dollars, tax subsidies, capital and real estate, private giving, and earned revenue—to understand how cultural resources are distributed at the neighborhood level and where underinvestment compounds.

PROVISION

Identify tools used in housing, small business, and other policy areas that could be adapted to sustain cultural assets.

TEST

Use the planned Interborough Express connecting Brooklyn and Queens to test how culture could be incorporated into major infrastructure and neighborhood planning.

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