Supporting Community Arts & Culture with Local Data

In this plenary session at the NNIP Partners’ Meeting in Detroit, we heard from partners and their collaborators in Detroit, Los Angeles, and Boston on how local data are being used to support community arts and culture. Speakers shared that arts data are often underutilized but are critical for advancing equity and sustainability. Detroit Excellence in Youth Arts mapped cultural opportunities for youth in Detroit, revealing disparities: half of the young people in participating in arts programs lived outside the city, while the five ZIP codes with the highest density of youth lacked access to most programs. These findings are now guiding strategic funding and advocacy for equitable cultural infrastructure. In Los Angeles, the University of Southern California collaborated with community members in the South LA Promise Zone to identify and celebrate “cultural treasures,” countering top-down narratives about the area and highlighting assets under threat of displacement. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston is helping municipalities map and protect creative spaces as part of broader regional planning. These efforts demonstrate how data collection and community involvement can inform targeted investments, build trust, and sustain arts ecosystems.