Converging Streams: The Community Arts and Sustainable Community Movements

In their book "The Cultural Creatives," Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson use the streams metaphor to describe the way in which various movements for social change from the 1960s forward are, in their view, converging to result in a new cultural paradigm that will provide a worldview capable of dealing with the crises of our time.

The focus of this paper is the convergence of two of those streams: the arts-based community-development movement (ACD) and the sustainable community-development (SCD) movement. The former has been practiced for many years, in both urban and rural contexts. In urban communities, mural and public art projects and work with inner-city youth are just two examples of the work that a generation of urban artists has been doing to build on the assets of neighborhoods. In rural areas, theater and the preservation of folk arts are examples of how rural artists have built on the legacy of the WPA. While metropolitan ACD projects have included urban gardens and neighborhood beautification, the work has not primarily been concerned with environmental protection or with alternative models of economic development. It has grown from concern for social and economic justice for those marginal to the industrial power structure. Rural community arts, on the other hand, are built on a strong sense of place and the history of the land and its people.

Sustainable development work, which has grown out of the environmental movement, aims to harmonize human and natural systems so that both can thrive for the long term. Often, sustainable-development advocates emphasize quality-of-life issues and intangible satisfactions in order to promote reduced consumption of resources. Since they tend to find it easier to establish such harmony at the local level, the movement is often called the sustainable community-development movement. However, people active in this field have not seen the arts as central to the work, except perhaps and peripherally in the area of design.

Now, however, a convergence between the two movements is becoming evident. Some artists doing community work are becoming more aware of the need to use their skills to help create a polity dedicated to protecting the environment from which we draw not only sustenance but also artistic inspiration. Some sustainability practitioners are becoming aware of the ability of the arts to help build a sense of community and group cohesion.

Before the modern industrial age, and especially in tribal communities, artists and the arts were an integral part of community life. But the community arts movement, as we now recognize it, was a reaction to the ugliness, increasing inequality and changing character of work that resulted from the industrial revolution. One early manifestation of this reaction was the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England at the end of the 19th Century, a member of which was William Morris, founder of what we now call the Arts & Crafts Movement. The idea was that the artisan should receive the same recognition as the artist, and that items of daily use should be aesthetically excellent and should beautifully and simply reflect nature. His political and environmental ideas had coherence in that he thought that industrial capitalism led to the alienation of humans from nature and from each other. So, the arts, in Morris’ view, would assist people to re-establish their connections to nature and each other necessary for a healthy community. In "The Worker's Share of Art" (1985), Morris said:

This movement was also influential in the United States, although it is perhaps ironic that few middle- or working-class Americans could afford to commission a house, furniture or decorative object by Frank Lloyd Wright or Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Another manifestation of the reaction to early industrialism was the interest in and attraction to “the art of cultures which colonialism had aggressively submerged,”[4] the arts of non-Western cultures. This continues today, of course, and provides a market for the artistic output of non-European artists around the globe. At the same time, the tension between “high art” and “craft,” between art produced in response to the artist’s own intrinsic motivation and art produced as a response to social and community conditions, was established.

Direct participation in the arts was an integral part of the settlement-house movement, another reaction to the dislocations and difficulties caused by urbanization and industrialization. The work of Jane Addams and her colleagues in Chicago at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries is an important example. At Hull House there were an art gallery, a coffee house, a music school and a drama group. While these early examples of community art most often included exposure to the high art of European culture, they nevertheless created the foundation upon which various manifestations of “people’s art” — murals, poetry slams, ethnic festivals, etc. — are built, and established the principle of access to the arts, regardless of background or economic condition.

The Great Depression of the 1930s created the stimulus for a great variety of programs and policies to counteract the widespread unemployment, social dislocations and poverty that occurred. These initiatives included many artistic ones, starting with the Public Works of Art Project. While the initial idea was to put visual artists, actors, musicians to work, the decade eventually saw full-fledged programs through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in visual art, music, theater, writing and history. Oral histories and folk music were collected and recorded. Murals were created to decorate public spaces, and plays were written and performed. Composers were commissioned to write music to be performed by community musicians across the country. Many artists perceived that these programs went beyond ”make-work” and held a substantial potential for progressive social change. Moreover, when such social change was again seen as possible in the 1960s and '70s, artists of all kinds looked back on the WPA as a model of how community-based art might be done.

Another important contribution to the development of the field of arts-based community development was the use of the extension networks of the land-grant universities as a way to produce art meaningful to local communities. Several states were active in using the arts in this manner: North Carolina, Massachusetts and especially Wisconsin are noteworthy in this regard. In Wisconsin, the work of Robert Gard is justifiably regarded as an extraordinary example of how theater can serve a broad constituency. The arts extension service of the University of Wisconsin began in the early years of the 20th Century, but it was the work of Gard from 1945 on that made the “Wisconsin Idea” a dynamic reality. As noted by Adams and Goldbard:

The tradition of using theater and other art forms to celebrate “rural forms, themes, and styles”[6] lives on with Appalshop (founded 1970), Georgia’s "Swamp Gravy" (1990), and numerous other theater companies serving rural communities around the country.

The social movements of the 1960s and 70s for the civil rights of African-Americans and other ethnicities, environmental protection, women’s liberation, and peace were all made richer and more meaningful by the work of visual artists, musicians and theater and dance groups. Through these movements and into the present, the field of arts-based community development has continued to grow and expand the ways in which the diverse communities of our nation find cultural expression. The question of whether the work done in this field is “real art,” of course, continues.

But there are now formal institutions dedicated to advancing the work; for example the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) has created the so-called “Great Wall of Los Angeles,” an extensive outdoor mural depicting the histories of the various ethnicities of California. This work was done with extensive participation by community people from all the various local cultures and has sparked extensive awareness and dialogue about how the present has been created out of the histories of all the peoples of the state. .

Similarly, American Composers Forum in St. Paul, Minn., manages a program to bring composers into communities to serve a residency and to write music for local observances and local performers. Liz Lerman, founder of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in Takoma Park, Md., is one of the foremost international spokespersons for the power of the arts as a tool for community transformation.

Today arts-based community development projects take place in prisons, youth-at-risk programs and community schools of the arts, in rural communities and Indian reservations, in urban community centers, in public housing facilities, etc.

While a history of the sustainable community-development movement is not available, we can speculate that it evolved from several threads present in the environmental movement and in the broader sustainability movement.

During the 1960s and 1970s disillusionment with an ever-more industrialized society grew as it became clear that the process of turning natural resources into consumer goods was limited by the earth’s ability to supply those resources, as well as by its ability to absorb the by-products of industrial processes.[7] This realization gave rise to the modern environmental movement, which appeared most obviously on Earth Day, 1970, organized by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. While environmentalists continued to work on limiting pollution and slowing resource exploitation, other scientists and activists realized that the changes necessary to live within the physical limits of the earth would require significant changes in human culture, and thus, in the 1980s, the interlinking of nature and society became known as sustainable development.[8] Most especially, the concern with harmonizing human economic activity with natural limits gave rise to a growing literature that assailed the single-minded profiteering of global economic integration.[9] The obvious antidote to “globalization” was the movement toward “local economies.”[10]

Another thread of environmentalism that most likely led to sustainable community development is the revision of the basic relationship between humans and nature from one of domination to either dependence or interdependence. This wing has roots in the work of 19th Century Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and others, and later in the philosophical writings of John Muir and Aldo Leopold.[11] The bioregional movement, evident since the early 1970s, is probably the most striking example of this thread. Bioregionalists seek to harmonize human culture with the natural characteristics of a particular, naturally defined, bioregion.[12]

A third thread of environmentalism leading to sustainable community development is the environmental justice movement. This movement seeks “the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process” for all people, especially those who have traditionally been disenfranchised, including the poor and people of color.[13] Although the mainstream environmental movement has found it difficult to keep justice concerns central to its mission, the sustainable community-development movement has emphasized affordable housing and transportation and living-wage jobs, as well as access to local decision making..
The emphasis on the “local” in each of these threads reflects a growing postmodern dissatisfaction with principles and solutions that ignore the particular, the specific and the place-based. Thus, the sustainable community-development movement seems somewhat distinct from the larger-scaled efforts to achieve sustainability at regional, national and global levels. Similarly, the concern for human justice, poverty, education and health, in addition to environmental protection, makes the sustainable community-development movement distinct from environmentalism.

While the threads described above reached back many decades, evidence of the sustainable community-development movement in specific local communities emerged around the time of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, an event that also popularized the general concept of sustainability. A few years earlier, in Seattle, for example, Global Tomorrow Coalition organized a workshop in preparation for the Earth Summit. The challenge of integrating economic, environmental and social values, and the opportunity to define new measurements of progress inspired Seattle citizens to create the civic movement that led, in 1991, to the founding of Sustainable Seattle, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the long-term quality of life in the Seattle/King County area.[14]

In Chattanooga, Tenn., a 1984 visioning effort called Vision 2000 involved nearly 2,000 citizens in a series of public forums that identified 40 community goals and nearly 200 projects and programs. But in 1993 Chattanooga undertook a new community visioning effort called ReVision 2000. This time the community meetings were held in local neighborhoods and communities rather than downtown, helping to deepen the sense that the vision really grew out of the community itself.

By involving groups and individuals from the entire Chattanooga region, the community was able to create a clear and comprehensive community-revitalization strategy. The Chattanooga vision collectively focused on a "cleaner, greener, safer city" with affordable housing and nonpolluting, living-wage jobs. Moreover, the visioning process that evolved over the past two decades has become an integral part of Chattanooga's civic culture. Because Chattanooga's problems had environmental, economic and social dimensions, efforts to address these problems forced its citizens to find integrated, therefore sustainable, solutions.[15]

One of the most cited examples of sustainable community development abroad is the city of Curitiba, Brazil. In 1964, Mayor Ivo Arzua issued a call for proposals to prepare Curitiba for new growth. Architect Jamie Lerner proposed plans to minimize urban sprawl, reduce downtown traffic, preserve Curitiba's historic district, and provide easily accessible and affordable public transit. Lerner's team also proposed adding main linear transit arteries to Curitiba to provide direct, high-speed routes in and out of the city. Their proposal was adopted and eventually came to be known as the Curitiba Master Plan.

The 1970s provided further development. Rua Quinze de Novembro, the heart of commercial Curitiba and Brazil's first pedestrian-only street, was developed. The city also adopted a trinary road design, called the Sistema Trinário, to minimize traffic in the city, whose population had now surpassed 600,000. The new system sandwiched a central two-lane street restricted to buses and local car traffic between wide, fast-moving one-way streets. Curitiba also began developing an industrial zone on the city's outskirts, which they called Industrial City.

By the 1980s, “Green areas" protected from future development were established in Curitiba, and a number of parks were dedicated to the city's different ethnic and immigrant groups. Curitiba's transit system was expanded, and a color-coded system for the various bus lines was created. Regional administrations were established to decentralize government. A citywide recycling program was initiated in which Curitibanos separated organic waste and trash, plastic, glass and metal. The city sold the salvage to cover the costs of operation.[16]

Evidence of the breadth of the sustainable community development can be found in two networks established to assist local communities in their efforts. One is the Minnesota Sustainable Community Network, established during 1997, which supports and connects innovators in the field of sustainability through a monthly electronic newsletter, direct assistance and a Web site (http://www.nextstep.state.mn.us). The other is the International Council for Local Environmental Initiative, which, perhaps to avoid the term “environmental,” now goes by its acronym plus a tag line: ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability. Consisting of more than 475 cities, towns, counties and their associations worldwide, the organization provides technical services to support local governments in the implementation of sustainable development at the local level. [17]

These two movements, the community arts movement and the sustainable community-development movement, have much in common. Not only are their histories somewhat parallel, but their underlying values are very similar. Even though their basic principles, which at their barest and most obvious (“environment” and “art”), seem distinct and different, the deeper values of each are entirely compatible with those of the other.

We reached this conclusion by studying a set of framework documents from each of the movements. These framework documents lay out the basic principles of the organizations with which they are identified. (See Appendix). The following chart summarizes the values of each movement that correlate to similar values in the other. The phrases in the chart are all taken from one or more of the framework documents listed in the appendix.

A further analysis of the values common to both movements is elaborated below. In this analysis, it can be seen that not only are there substantial shared values between these two movements, but also that these values are not in synch with modern culture. However, as we will show in the conclusion, these values are those of a new culture emerging in postmodern times.

Both movements stand firm on a basic commitment to shrinking the distance between haves and have-nots, between the powerful and the voiceless, between those with overwhelming choices and those with few or none. Equity is one of the Three Es (Environment, Economics, Equity) of the sustainability movement and therefore is one of the values that most clearly separates the sustainable community-development movement from conventional environmentalism, which has not considered this value as central to its mission, and also from modern society as a whole. The evidence for this value in the SCD movement comes from criteria used to evaluate development projects, which include issues concerning: “Who get the benefits? Who pays the costs? Does the project unfairly affect people in other parts of the world, or in the future?” The Earth Charter, under the heading “Social and Economic Justice,” mentions principles to guide development including equity, sustainability and the eradication of poverty. It also mentions gender equality and the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.

Similarly, in the community arts movement the CAN Report states that “equitable access to resources for all people and equitable treatment of all people is essential, whether the arena is environmental equity, racial equity, economic equity, legal equity, gender equity or countless others.” Indeed, one of the underlying reasons for the existence of the community arts movement is to “assure that the voices of disenfranchised communities are heard.”[18]

Another value shared by the two movements, but not necessarily by modern culture, is preservation of diversity, of the rich variety present in natural and human resources. Diversity provides stability in times of change, and also provides new ideas when stability is stifling and change needs to be instigated.

The SCD movement values biological diversity, as befits its environmental roots, because biological diversity provides stability in ecosystems. For the same reason it values economic diversity.[19] But second on a list of eleven characteristics of a sustainable community is valuing cultural diversity, something the casual observer might not assume about sustainable community advocates.[20]

In the community arts movement, the justification for valuing diversity is somewhat different, but is equally strong. “Communities, places, and cultures are unique and shape people and their behaviors and relationships; diversity is essential for democracy; and its opposite—the uniform, generic, the monolithic—is a dangerous social state to be avoided.”[21] Similarly, Adams and Goldbard state, among six unifying principles, that “Diversity is a social asset, part of the cultural commonwealth, requiring protection and nourishment.” [22]

Both “equity” and “diversity” are values often shortened simply to “respect,” and several framework documents we studied use the term frequently.

One of the most striking parallels between these two movements is the faith in “bottom-up” practices to bring about a new society. While conventional modern thought assumes that leadership for new ideas comes from elites, both of these movements have staked a healthy human future on the ideas and actions of ordinary people working at the community level. Both movements envision a vibrant, participatory democracy, especially at the local level.

The Earth Charter, a basic, widely circulated document in the SCD movement, for example, supports democracy in the first section of its principles by which the conduct of all individuals, organization, businesses, governments and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed. Under the heading “Respect and care for the community of life,” a guiding principle of the Earth Charter is: “Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable and peaceful.” Another principle is: “Strengthen democratic institutions at all levels, and provide transparency and accountability in governance, inclusive participation in decision making, and access to justice” and “promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence and peace.”

Similarly, in the community arts movement, the CAN Report affirms that “all people’s voices must be heard and dialogue between and among groups is fundamental.” Likewise, the SPARC mission statement claims that public art should promote civic dialogue. Maryo Gard Ewell, quoting Vachel Lindsay, notes that we can be made strong “by the vision of a completely beautiful neighborhood and the passion for a completely democratic art.”[23]

A subtle thread through both of these movements is a sense of humility in the face of change, a sense that we are not yet “there,” that we do not have all the answers and, in fact, never will. This stance of openness to new knowledge that will lead in new directions is evident in framework documents of both movements. The criteria for evaluating the sustainability of new development proposals concludes with a search for improvement over time, seeking adequate feedback mechanisms that will tell citizens whether goals are being met and that will allow for future course corrections. Likewise, the Sanborn principles, developed by leading alternative-energy gurus, support continuous re-evaluation of premises in its work. The well-cited Hannover Principles of William McDonough, also support seeking to share knowledge in order to constantly improve.

While less visible in the community arts movement’s framework documents, the stance is nevertheless present. The communal aspect of the artistic process means that artists “learn from one another”[24] and the ever newness of creativity means that old answers just won’t do. As noted in the principles of the Institute for Community Cultural Development, artists at work in the community need to be “aware that you don’t know where you are, and to be both a learner and a master.”[25] Artists, perhaps more than others in the community, are inherently open to questioning the status quo and to seeking new and more appropriate solutions.

Both movements reflect another value that is distinctly “unmodern”; they seem increasingly comfortable stating that they are engaged in a spiritual journey, not simply one that improves the material or physical world. The arts, of course, have long been associated with the spiritual realm, but not necessarily in the way stated by Maryo Gard Ewell. She sees the purpose of ACD as one which results in “respect and reverence for the sacred in one another.” At a convening of ACD activists in May of 2006, Arlene Goldbard convened a discussion entitled “Community Cultural Development as a Spiritual Practice.”

In the same vein, the outcome of a sustainable world, according to the Earth Charter, is a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, health and spiritual well being. Interestingly, neither of these statements says the purpose of its endeavor is to please or glorify the deity, but rather to raise humans out of the mire of their times to something beyond.

The character of modern industrial society, with its materialism and frenzied pursuit of wealth, has resulted in many people's renewed interest in religious matters and quests for spiritual growth. The role of the arts and artists in this quest is laid out in a recent study by sociologist Robert Wuthnow.[26] He demonstrates that individuals with a higher degree of exposure to and interest in the arts are also more likely to be interested in spiritual growth. Thus, insofar as artistic activities nurture spiritual growth, they encourage the application of creativity in confronting the great mysteries of life.

As an example of the way that concern for the environment, spirituality and the arts converge, Wuthnow quotes Fr. Alexander Golubov of Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in New York City. Fr. Golubov expresses what the place of art in the church should be: “The task of the church is to reintegrate the human being with God, with nature, and with each other. … Reintegration can only be accomplished by understanding and defining a language of symbolism, because essentially what you need to do first is to reintegrate the meaning of things. This can only be accomplished by the arts.”

One of the foremost spokesmen of the spiritual nature of the movement for a change in the way we relate to nature is Thomas Berry, a monastic and eco-theologian. For him, “the Great Work, the task of moving modern industrial civilization from its devastating influence on the Earth to a more benign presence” is as much a spiritual and artistic work as a political or socioeconomic one.[27] Suggesting that the earth is reaching the end of the Cenozoic era and is entering an Ecozoic era, he says:

While American religious groups are not unified in what they see as their mission in the world, many, perhaps most, have adopted statements of concern for the environment and have established environmental-stewardship offices. The threat to the Earth—from climate change, resource depletion, pollution, etc.—is seen by many Christians and Jews as a sinful assault on “God’s Creation.” A belief in the sacredness of creation characterizes other religious traditions as well.

Thus, at their most fundamental, both movements are committed to a high quality of life for everyone. The purpose of each is to assist in creating conditions within which individuals and groups have the opportunity for fulfillment of their human potential. Inherent in this is a concern for beauty—in nature, in one’s surroundings, in the design of the built environment, etc.

While we have demonstrated that the two movements have much in common, we also argue that convergence between them is now evident. The adherents of each group are beginning to recognize these commonalities and to perceive the synergy that may be achieved by closer cooperation. Here are three examples.

Example 1: Chequamegon Bay, Wisc. — Sustainability work moves to include the arts

In the summer of 2005, the city councils of two communities[29] located on the Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior in northwest Wisconsin passed resolutions declaring that they would become “eco-municipalities.” This action was taken following the Natural Step[30] model of sustainable community development that originated in the Scandinavian countries. These two small communities were the first in the United States to do this, joining dozens of towns in Europe that are directing community-development efforts toward a more economically and environmentally sustainable future. Further, organizers of these efforts hope to be joined by the City of Bayfield and the two American Indian tribal governments, the Bad River and Red Cliff Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa, who share the bay as home.

This area, historically a site of resource extraction, lapsed into a rather economically depressed state in the mid-20th Century as timber, stone and ore were exhausted. But, starting in the early 1970s, change intensified, bringing new population, new ways of making a living, and somewhat different values and vision to the region. Significant for the arts was the development of a much more sophisticated tourism economy that brought a number of visual artists, musicians and theater people to the area. In addition, the area’s small liberal-arts college incorporated a broad range of environmental-education initiatives throughout its curriculum. Finally, the passage of the Indian Self-Determination Act in 1972 allowed the two tribal communities to begin to take control of their own affairs in a way not possible under previous Bureau of Indian Affairs strictures.

Through the years, the cultural and tourism communities, area professionals and other citizens, the college faculty and students and the residents of the two Indian reservations have increasingly found common cause. Their points of common vision include:

From this common vision there has developed substantial citizen action to protect the environment and encourage the development of sustainable economic conditions. For example, an Alliance for Sustainability was formed to bring the concept of sustainable development into the public discourse. When the bay at Ashland was declared a Superfund site, members of the League of Women Voters were successful in bringing the issue to public notice, encouraging state and city governments to take action. In 2004, a proposed condominium development in Washburn threatened the population’s traditional access to Lake Superior. In a referendum on the issue, the citizens voted 6:1 against the development and elected a mayor and city council committed to sustainable development and the arts.

In the spring of 2006, some of those influential in the “eco-municipality” action were asked what, if anything, the cultural community had to do with the emergence of Chequamegon Bay on the cusp of substantive change toward a more sustainable future. All agreed that the core value of each group, creating a high quality life for all, makes the actions of each supportive of the other. All agreed, further, that the cultural community and the sustainable-development community are so overlapped in practice that it is hard to separate them. Many of those involved in the sustainability movement are themselves participants in the arts in one way or another. Similarly, the arts organizations and artists have been participants in or have encouraged the public discourse of how the area should develop.

Recent initiatives include a request by the City of Washburn for artists to mount an exhibition that will help the community articulate its sustainability vision. The arts council is providing funds for a summer camp for kids that will be based, in part, on this vision.

Given the number of artists who live in the region and the growing significance of the arts to the local economy, the movement to create more sustainable communities in the Chequamegon Bay area will include the arts.

The Continental Harmony program of American Composers Forum, begun as a Millennium Project of the National Endowment for the Arts, has continued through the present, to date sponsoring over 100 community-based composer residencies throughout the country. Over time, the Forum realized that this work was having an impact on the participants beyond the important artistic value of having music composed and performed for local communities. From the formal evaluations of the projects, carried out by the Forum in partnership with the Center for the Study of Art & Community, and from informal observation, the Forum recognized that Continental Harmony was a specific example of the larger field of Arts-based Community Development. Thus, the Forum recognized the importance of synthesizing the learnings from this program and placing them in the context of the larger field.

Accordingly, on May 6-8, 2006, American Composers Forum convened a group of approximately 40 persons, Continental Harmony participants, both composers and site hosts, and others active in the field of community-based art, to discuss the following question:

The conversation was facilitated by the Center for the Study of Art & Community using Open Space Technology (OST). The Open Space process provides a fluid group environment that enables individuals to explore ideas, network with like-minded colleagues, make decisions and take action. In the introductory session, participants are asked to identify issues, ideas or opportunities related to the organizing question, and then participate in small groups to discuss these topics. In other words, participants self-define the agenda they wish to follow.

In all, 13 sessions were held. In addition to perhaps predictable topics such as funding strategies, several sessions emerged on the following:

In addition to the sessions, participants found many opportunities to get to know one another during meal times and the informal art “show-and-tell” sessions. Specific conversations included information about the development of a community musical to educate citizens about climate change, plans for an arts “bio-blitz” to draw attention to environmental matters, and preliminary discussion of how artists can contribute to “The Great Turning.”

The discussions, both formal and informal, often expressed a sense of urgency and passion surrounding the feeling that the world as we know it is on the cusp of social changes that may alter the very foundation of what we have known as the modern age. The conferees discussed, in as much depth as a brief get-together allowed, what these changes may be and how artists might work to assure a safe and high-quality future for all. The need for alliance with individuals and groups whose goals are similar—environmentalists, community-builders, forward-thinking researchers, etc.—was expressed, as was a wish for ongoing conversation and connection among those like-minded others. The organizers of the convening agreed to do follow-up research to expand the conversation beyond the group present.

A third area of convergence between the community arts movement and the sustainable community-development movement is in the area of ecological design. This broad area includes, or is tangential to, green building, smart growth, the new urbanism, regenerative design[31], biomimicry and other attempts to integrate nature and the built environment.

Ecological design, as the term itself implies, also integrates the concepts of sustainability and creativity, and exhibits the characteristics we have already identified as common to both fields (democratic participation, social justice, learning, etc).

Smart growth, for example, is a form of urban planning that emphasizes compact development to reduce the need for automobile transportation. In addition, however, it aims to promote neighborliness and sense of community by designs that encourage residents to interact socially. While specific developments are sometimes criticized as being too exclusively “high end,” the very fact that this criticism is leveled indicates an assumption that sustainable development should be both diverse and affordable.

In addition, most smart-growth efforts place a high value on community visioning to determine priorities and goals, rather than a “top-down” approach to design. Indeed, one of the five principles of ecological design, according to Sim Van Der Ryn, well-known exponent of the field, is that “everyone is a designer.” So, even though much activity in this area is led by “experts,” trained architects, engineers and urban planners, as a general rule, ecological design aims to be far more participatory than does modernist activity in architecture, urban planning or engineering.

Proponents of the field of ecological design also highlight the need for “creativity,” not only in the work of architects and planners, but also in the general community. The City of Cleveland maintains a Web site[32] with a section on ecological design that proclaims sustainability is “about mobilizing human creativity to make a better world for all.” None have expressed this overarching idea better than David Orr, in his book "The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture and Human Intension,"[33] in which he says:

The connection between sustainability and creativity is closely linked to the concept of learning, that is, of that open-ended process that constantly seeks better solutions. According to an article on regenerative design in DesignIntelligence, a journal of the design community, what is needed to make regenerative design work is “courage and creativity—drawing on what has worked, but creating it anew to fit a specific place.”[35] The City of Cleveland’s Web site, too, says that sustainability is not an end state, but a “process of improvement.”

Ecological design, like both movements out of which we think it rises, hedges toward a cosmic spirituality. “Regenerative design is grounded in the faith that the world is not random, but purposeful, and in the belief that, as a part of a larger order, we humans must act in harmony with those larger patterns.”[36]

It is possible that the convergence of these two movements, which we have just described, is not by happenstance. Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson, in "The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World," describe a new culture being created by people disenchanted with the materialism of modernism. The interests and values of the people Ray describes incorporate the values and the worldview of the two movements we have described. The Cultural Creatives, for example, integrate a concern for the arts and culture as well as interest in global ecological matters. They reflect the social concerns of both movements, including feminism and social justice for the vulnerable.

Many people see this new culture as representing the next phase of human consciousness.

In his book, "The Great Turning: from Empire to Earth Community," David Korten calls on people to work together in local communities and in networks of congruence globally to bring into being a new structure to society based on several principles:

To realize a society based on these principles, Korten argues that we need to recognize that our relationships to each other and to nature are matters of choice, not inevitability. But it often seems that these choices are out of reach, are not possible. Why? Our sense of powerlessness stems from the fact that we have been taught, in various ways, to believe a series of stories about how prosperity, security and meaning are created. These stories, which he calls the imperial stories, favor concentration of power and wealth over more equitable forms of living.

What is needed, Korten argues, are new stories that can serve as the foundation for new beliefs about the origin of prosperity, security and meaning—stories based on the principles of Earth Community. For example, the belief that prosperity is based on an ever-enlarging pie, part of which will trickle down to everyone, needs to be replaced by the recognition that “true prosperity depends on life-serving economies that satisfy our basic material needs, maintain a sustainable balance with Earth’s natural systems, strengthen the bonds of caring communities, and support all persons in the full realization of their humanity.”[38]

Since the mainstream media most often convey the imperial stories and encourage materialism and overconsumption, the new stories will have to come from other centers of social life—churches, community groups, gatherings of neighbors and family, etc. The new stories must be compelling and believable.

We know that simply providing information is not enough to change people’s behavior. Rather an appeal to deeply held values is a stronger basis for social change, whether of individuals or whole societies. Who among us is most skilled at expressing these values in direct and convincing ways? In other words, who are our storytellers? It is the artists among us, those already hard at work in many places working to build “caring and capable communities.”[39] They are important allies because they are the ones to write the new stories, dance them, compose and sing them, and dramatize them.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
This paper was delivered in oral summary during "Interdisciplinary Integration and Practice: Reconciling Humans and Nature," the XIV International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology, held October 18-21, 2006, at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. The original text is downloadable as a pdf at http://www.northland.edu/PDF/ConvergingStreams.pdf. The version appearing here was edited for CAN.

Dorothy Lahtgerroos, J.D., is Professor of Environmental Studies at Northland College in Ashland Wisc. In addition to teaching courses in public policy and directing student community research at the College, she is active in the Bad River Watershed Association, a citizen group working to “promote the healthy interconnection between the human and natural communities of the watershed by involving all citizens in maintaining the integrity of watershed systems for future generations.” She is a church organist and enjoys cooking and gardening.

Patricia A. Shifferd, Ph.D., recently retired as vice-president for community and education programs at American Composers Forum in St. Paul, Minn,, where she directed the community-based composer residency program Continental Harmony. She was the principal researcher of a study of the place of the arts in 10 small Minnesota towns, published by Metropolitan Regional Arts Council; her work now includes research and evaluation services for arts and cultural organizations, including Minnesota Orchestra and Intermedia Arts. She now lives by a rural Wisconsin lake, which she shares with her family and various wild animals and birds.

Notes
(for complete publication citations, see the accompanying Bibliography)

[1] Fr. Thomas Berry, "The Great Work." Summarized in Korten, p. 72, as follows:

[2] This historical overview will follow that of Adams and Goldbard in "Creative Community: the Art of Cultural Development," pp. 40-57.

[8] National Research Council Board on Sustainable Development, "Our Common Journey, a Transition Toward Sustainability," p. 2.

[9] Herman Daly and John Cobb Jr., "For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future" and David Korten, "When Corporations Rule the World"

[19] Minnesota Sustainable Community Network, "Sample criteria for evaluating the sustainability of community ideas and projects"

[20] Ontario Roundtable on Environment and Economy: “A sustainable community is one which … b. Values cultural diversity.” Cited in Edwards, "The Sustainability Revolution"

[25]Intermedia Arts, "Principles of the Institute for Community Cultural Development"

[26] Wuthnow, Robert, "All in Synch: How Music and Art are Revitalizing American Religion"

[30] Sarah James & Torbjörn Lahti, "The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities and Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices"

[31] Pamela Mang, “Regenerative Design: Sustainable Design’s Coming Revolution” Ecological design aims to minimize harm to the environment from human activities, while regenerative design seeks to initiate processes that replace the degeneration resulting from past practices.

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Converging Streams: The Community Arts and Sustainable Community Movements

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