The City Artists built

Helping Artists Navigate Their Way Home

Creative Compass

Cleveland, Ohio. While not everyone realizes it, the city is home to one of the largest concentrations of artists in the country. Cleveland’s plentiful industrial warehouses, distinct neighborhoods, low cost-of-living and extraordinary quality of life have drawn a massive concentration of artists to live and work in Northeast Ohio.

At the same time, Cleveland has a nationally recognized network of high-quality community development professionals. Every day, these individuals are working to revitalize the neighborhoods that give our city and our region its unique character.

But CPAC believes that we can do even more to position the city as a national creative hub and an urban laboratory for reinventing “Rust Belt” cities through arts and culture. In 2007, we launched Creative Compass, a multi-year initiative to increase artists’ access to affordable home and business space and to make them more active partners in revitalizing our urban neighborhoods. In the coming years, Creative Compass will educate artists about obtaining affordable space and will educate community development professionals about the unique roles artists can play as neighborhood residents.

Through an innovative series of programming, in partnership with Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), we've launched a new conversation about how Cleveland, and other cities in the industrial Midwest, can serve their artist communities … and how artists can revolutionize how we think of industrial cities.

On Wednesday, May 14, CPAC hosted "From Rust Belt to Artist Belt" a convening of community development professionals working in “Rust Belt” cities.  A national group of presenters and participants discussed the unique challenges and opportunities that such communities face in conducting artist-oriented community development.

Summit Materials & Media Files

From Rust Belt to Artist Belt summit materials & media files can be downloaded below.  If you have difficulty accessing these files, please contact us at 216-575-0331 x121.

• Summit Agenda
• Speaker Biographies
• Stories from the Rust Belt
• Summit Audio Files  (These files are available through the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Evants & Media webpage.  Scroll down to "From Rust Belt to Artist Belt" and click   Listen Now.)

Media Coverage

Read and listen to the media coverage on "From Rust Belt to Artist Belt".

• Ask not what artists can do for you; The Free Times - 5/21/08
• Artists play key role in urban development; The Plain Dealer - 5/16/2008
• Unnatural Resources; The Free Times - 5/7/08
• Around Noon; WCPN/Ideastream - 5/6/08
• Arts, culture advocacy group sees potential in region's blight; Crain's - 5/5/2008
• Conference to explore how to capitalize on arts districts; The Plain Dealer - 3/2/2008

Brought to you with generous support from:

Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), Charter One Bank, Dominion & Cleveland, Ward 13.

Additional support from:

The Abington Foundation, The Eva L. and Joseph M. Bruening Foundation, The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The John P. Murphy Foundation, The Kulas Foundation and The Thomas H. White Foundation.