Arts, Culture, & the Creative Economy
Transition Policy Committee Summary of Findings
Committee Name
Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy Committee
Committee Members
Jenn Harrington, Emily Beattie, Ami Bennitt, Susan Berstler, Becky Donner, Ethan Dussault, David Jubinsky, David London, Annis Sengupta, Ajda Snyder
Key themes and trends:
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Somerville’s Creative Future:
Make It or Break It
Somerville’s artists and cultural workers are being pushed out faster than new opportunities emerge. Rising rents, redevelopment pressures, and shrinking affordable spaces are not just threatening livelihoods—they are erasing our city’s cultural identity and weakening the local economy. The urgent, unifying crisis: Without affordable, stable opportunities, Somerville cannot sustain its creative life. Talent and ideas alone are not enough—urgent, coordinated action is required now to preserve and grow our vibrant arts ecosystem.
The economic stakes are clear. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2023 the arts and culture sector in Massachusetts contributed $29.7 billion to the state’s economy and supported 130,263 jobs. Protecting artists and cultural spaces is not solely about culture—it’s about igniting a dynamic, resilient local economy.
Somerville must act decisively to ensure that creativity continues to evolve and flourish. The time to protect our artists—and our city—is now.
This narrative provides an overview of the key problems and proposed solutions. See our appendices for a full picture of the Committee’s recommendations.
I. Arts in City Governance
Arts are often treated as optional rather than foundational. Years of planning without execution have eroded public trust, and repeated studies have failed to produce visible, measurable outcomes for artists, organizations, or communities.
Key Insight: The Somerville Arts Council (SAC) is widely trusted and effective within its limited scope, but it is structurally under-resourced and lacks the authority needed to drive cross-departmental action. Without clear decision-making power, mandatory collaboration with planning, zoning, and economic development, and enforceable timelines, arts policy remains aspirational rather than operational.
Despite extensive research—including the Creative Displacement Report, Cultural Capacity Plan, and Community Spaces Report—there is no centralized system to track implementation, report progress publicly, or hold departments accountable for follow-through. Arts representation is inconsistent at city decision-making tables, and artists are often engaged only after plans are effectively finalized.
Conclusion: Arts must be a core function of city governance, with clear authority, interdepartmental accountability, and transparent, measurable benchmarks.
II. Arts and Economic Development
Arts fuel Somerville’s economy but are underfunded and overlooked. When cultural infrastructure fails, so does the local economy.
Key Insight: Zoning pressures and inconsistent enforcement threaten creative spaces. Artists need stability, not just project funding.
Conclusion: Treat the arts as essential infrastructure. Integrate cultural preservation, funding, and business support into economic development.
III. Cultural Infrastructure and Access
The social structures that sustain creative labor remain fragile or absent. Festivals and public programming benefit the economy, but artists themselves face financial precarity, limited access to space, and few clear pathways into sustainable creative careers.
Key Insight:
Cultural vitality depends on equal parts social structure and physical space. Without mentorship networks, paid opportunities, intergenerational pathways, and institutional partnerships, participation in the arts is limited to those with privilege.
Public art, youth programs, and creative workforce initiatives are the connective tissue that links artists to resources. Dedicated galleries, residencies, and learning opportunities create shared platforms where artists can develop professionally, collaborate across disciplines, and remain rooted in Somerville’s evolving cultural landscape.
Conclusion: To ensure equitable and meaningful opportunities for the creative economy, the city must invest in social infrastructure by building pipelines and cross-sector partnerships to stabilize creative careers.
IV. Stabilizing the Arts Economy Through Ownership
Short-term leases and project-based grants cannot offset ongoing displacement.
Key Insight: Ownership models and long-term leases are critical for resilience.
Conclusion: Prioritize permanent, affordable, community-managed cultural assets to ensure autonomy, financial stability, and continuity.
V. Community Empowerment and Cultural Equity
Effective cultural policy depends on treating artists as partners in shaping the city’s creative ecosystem. The City must recognize creative work as legitimate labor, enforce fair compensation, and embed equity into governance and public spaces.
Key Insight: Equity ensures that historically marginalized communities, emerging artists, and underrepresented groups have access, voice, and agency within the cultural ecosystem. The arts cannot be a realm of privilege. Failing to actively pursue equity limits the potential of innovators, community leaders, and the role of the arts to foster diverse perspectives.
Conclusion: By ensuring fair labor standards, expanding access, and advancing equity through city governance, Somerville can build a vibrant, inclusive arts ecosystem where diverse perspectives, innovation, and community leadership thrive.
The Bottom Line: Somerville boasts remarkable creative talent and energy, but its creative economy faces mounting challenges in affordability, execution, and structural support. Addressing these issues requires decisive action grounded in stability, accountability, and equity. The city must choose between acting now or continuing to perpetuate a decline in its creative economy.
Existing initiatives:
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What Works
Somerville has several successful models that support arts, culture, and the creative economy:
Somerville Arts Council (SAC): Demonstrates that targeted investments generate important cultural, social, and economic returns. Programs, grants, and festivals are engines of cultural vitality.
Fabrication District (FAB) and Arts-Supportive Zoning: Protects affordable creative spaces and resists profit-driven redevelopment. It serves as a model for how proactive city policy can safeguard creativity.
Artist-Run Buildings & DIY Spaces: Provide stability, peer support, and cultural continuity Community stewardship works and should be preserved.
Signature, Accessible Festivals and Cultural Events: Build civic pride, energize local businesses, and reinforce Somerville’s creative identity.
Planning and Policy Work: Strong foundations exist, but their value depends on implementation, transparency, and follow-through. Reports such as Somerville’s “Anti-Displacement Task Force - Creative Displacement Report,” “Cultural Capacity Plan,” and related research have clearly identified the issue. What’s missing is sustained action to turn recommendations into results.
Regional Collaboration: Strengthens leadership and data-driven decision-making and ensures the city remains a leader in cultural and economic innovation.
City-Supported Creative Space Initiatives: Projects like the Armory illustrate potential; the real challenge lies in executing efficiently and delivering on these plans.
Independent Advocacy: Centers community voices, challenges gaps in city processes, and strengthens the creative ecosystem. When creatives are included early—before decisions are locked in—they surface risks, inequities, and missed opportunities while solutions are still possible. They also help move work forward efficiently instead of getting stalled in process. Welcoming independent advocacy shifts creative voices from late-stage public comment into the rooms where decisions are actually made.
The Bottom Line:
Effective initiatives are artist-led, community-focused, and resource-efficient. They should guide future investments in a thriving, resilient creative economy.
Gaps:
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What’s Missing
Affordable Studio Space and Permanence: Rising rents and redevelopment pressures outpace city efforts. Without permanent, affordable studio space, Somerville risks losing its creative core.
Affordability Beyond Studio Space: High housing costs accelerate artist displacement.
Arts Voice in Government: Planning, economic development, and capital decisions often overlook cultural priorities.
Limited SAC Integration: SAC expertise rarely informs land use, policy, or capital planning.
Implementation Gaps: Strong plans exist but implementation lags, eroding trust.
Armory Governance Issues: Opaque decision-making threatens confidence.
Underfunded Arts Infrastructure: Limited resources create unnecessary friction, power struggles, and other vulnerabilities.
Lack of Music & Performance Infrastructure: Affordable rehearsal and small performance spaces are scarce.
Permitting and Bureaucracy: Complex, inconsistent processes hinder cultural activity.
Equity & Representation: Marginalized artists face fewer opportunities.
Accessibility Gaps: Many arts spaces are not ADA-compliant.
Communication Failures: Lack of a centralized arts portal hinders participation, visibility, and equity.
Underutilized City-Owned Assets: Empty City-owned buildings could host arts and cultural activities but remain unused, creating missed opportunities to maximize public assets for community benefit.
Transparency and Data Gaps: Tracking, planning, and accountability are inconsistent.
The Bottom Line: Talent and a multitude of ideas exist, but weak implementation, disappearing space, underfunding, and limited transparency threaten Somerville’s arts ecosystem. Addressing these gaps will allow Somerville to be a truly creative, inclusive, and equitable city, where artists thrive, cultural organizations endure, the creative economy drives real impact, and bold ideas can take our breath away. Stability, investment, and meaningful inclusion cannot wait.
Opportunities:
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How City Leadership Can Act Now
Nine strategic opportunities emerged from surveys, committee input, and recent research:
Integrate Arts into City Governance: Make arts foundational (rather than symbolic) in planning, economic development, communications, and capital investments.
Monitor the Arts Ecosystem: Track studio space, cultural participation, and economic impact for data-driven planning.
Support Arts via Zoning and Ordinances: Protect and expand affordable, permanent cultural spaces.
Enhance Arts Business Development: Provide operational support, entrepreneurial training, and business development resources.
Expand Funding Sources: Diversify and stabilize funding to encourage growth and creative risks.
Annual Economic Summit: Center the arts in economic planning and public dialogue.
Expand Public Art and Programming: Strengthen community engagement and accessibility.
Cultivate Creative Space: Prioritize permanent, community-managed, and accessible creative spaces.
Guarantee Artist Rights and Representation: Recognize creative labor, ensure fair compensation, and embed equity in governance.
Recommendations for action:
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Delivering Results for Somerville’s Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy
Recommendation for Urgent Action
Awareness of Immediate Crises: Before outlining the recommendations, the Committee calls attention to several arts communities that are facing immediate uncertainty and risk. These losses would impact not just buildings, but decades of cultural investment, organizing, and creative labor. As the Wilson Administration develops its strategic plan, these communities—and the lessons they represent—must be kept firmly in view:
Joy Street Studios: Facing imminent displacement.
The Burren: Threatened by redevelopment.
Washington Street Studios: Ongoing uncertainty even while in the Fabrication District.
ArtFarm: A decade-long project that is losing promise.
Central Street Studios: Requires continued city commitment.
The Armory: Stability depends on forthright, transparent city leadership so this partnership can move forward collaboratively.
Brickbottom: The City should not rely on Brickbottom as a long-term stronghold for the arts, as it remains a temporary placeholder that could be sold at any time.
Strategic Recommendations Overview
While this list of 40 recommendations may seem ambitious, it is necessary to catch up after decades of neglect. Preserving and growing arts, culture, and the creative economy isn’t optional—it requires bold, intentional action, commitment, and genuine partnerships with the communities who create and sustain our cultural lives.
In Appendix A, we provide a nuanced breakdown of the recommendations, including the urgency of each, sub-actions, and resources to guide next steps. Sub-actions should be carefully reviewed, even though they are not included in this narrative and are left in the appendix without specific timing for three reasons: 1) Implementation decisions and scheduling remain the responsibility of City leadership; 2) Determining timing could serve as a team-building exercise to encourage cross-department conversation and collaboration; and 3) Our committee only had three weeks—we need to call it a day. Appendix B provides a concise, easy-to-browse overview of all recommendations organized by timeline and urgency.
The following recommendations are designed to guide Mayor-Elect Jake Wilson and his Administration in strengthening Somerville’s creative ecosystem. Each recommendation is categorized by timeframe: ★ Immediate Action, ★★ First-Year Priority, ★★★ Multi-Year Commitment.
I. Incorporate the Arts into City Government
Somerville must embed arts and culture into core city systems, governance structures, and decision-making processes. This includes formal representation, transparent accountability, and consistent public leadership that treats the creative economy as essential civic infrastructure.
★ Immediate Action:
Adopt a Citywide Statement of Values for the Arts.
Leverage existing tools to assess and integrate arts and culture space inventory data into planning processes and share this information with the community.
★★ First-Year Priority:
Build Arts Representation into Government.
★★★ Multi-Year Commitment:
Include Arts in City Communications.
Partner with the arts community to maintain and update an arts and culture space inventory, tracking changes over time with public transparency.
II. Prioritize Arts in Economic Development: Creative Economy First
Arts and culture are foundational to Somerville’s economy, shaping neighborhood identity, supporting small businesses, and fueling tourism. To protect and grow the city’s creative ecosystem, economic development strategies must treat cultural infrastructure as essential civic infrastructure, integrating zoning, city ordinances, and targeted funding to prevent displacement and strengthen organizational resilience.
★ Immediate Action:
Refine Arts and Creative Enterprise (ACE) Zoning.
Implement an Agent of Change Policy to protect cultural spaces.
Pursue external grants and partnerships.
★★ First-Year Priority:
Preserve and expand the Fabrication District (FAB) and Arts and Creative Enterprise (ACE) compliance.
Reduce regulatory barriers to cultural activity.
Expand SAC Grant Programs in addition to Mass Cultural Council contributions.
Allocate 50% of the Short-Term Rental Community Impact Fee to arts and culture.
Convene artists, cultural organizations, developers, small businesses, city leadership, and experts to align economic development, cultural infrastructure, and community benefits.
★★★ Multi-Year Commitment:
Address ACE Set-Aside Affordability.
Establish Creative and Cultural Districts.
Establish a Somerville Arts and Culture Assistance Collective/Task Force.
Create Artist Entrepreneurship Programming.
Explore district-based financing mechanisms.
Launch a Patrons for the Arts program.
Explore a property tax surcharge dedicated to arts funding.
Implement a Percent for Art program.
III. Build Cultural Infrastructure and Access
Somerville must invest in the physical and social infrastructure that enables meaningful cultural participation. Strengthening venues, youth pathways, public programming, and accessible resources ensures the city’s cultural ecosystem is equitable, sustainable, and resilient.
★★ First-Year Priority:
Partner local industries with creative professionals to broaden arts engagement.
Advocate for local colleges, universities, public health organizations, and vocational programs to support the Somerville arts ecosystem.
★★★ Multi-Year Commitment:
Establish a Dedicated Municipal Gallery.
Connect artists and youth programs to expand creative opportunities.
Create Youth-to-Artist Career Pathways in collaboration with the School Board.
Launch Paid Visual Arts Residencies in City-Owned Buildings.
Establish a Creative Materials Reuse Center.
IV. Stabilize and Strengthen the Arts Economy for Long-Term Resilience Through Ownership
Long-term stability for Somerville’s creative economy requires control over space and ownership models that protect artists and cultural organizations from market pressures. Temporary solutions and short-term leases cannot substitute for permanent, affordable, and community-managed cultural assets.
★ Immediate Action:
Establish a Cultural Trust.
Expand Affordable Artist Housing.
★★ First-Year Priority:
Implement a First Right of Refusal Policy for Cultural Space.
Implement an Arts and Culture Property Tax Reduction Program.
Enable Temporary and Short-Term Artist Use of Vacant Spaces.
★★★ Multi-Year Commitment:
Build on the 2020 Somerville Community Spaces Report of City-owned and private spaces available for community use.
V. Advance Community Empowerment and Cultural Equity
Somerville’s creative community consistently emphasizes that true cultural vitality depends on empowerment, equity, and representation. Artists seek partnership, not oversight, from the City, developers, and other stakeholders. Meaningful collaboration—where creative professionals are active decision-makers—strengthens the ecosystem, fosters trust, and ensures the city reflects the diverse voices of its residents.
★ Immediate Action:
Advance advocacy and public education recognizing creative work as legitimate labor.
Establish Safe and Equitable Community Space Standards, including anti-harassment policies and equity accountability measures.
★★ First-Year Priority:
Implement Minimum Pay Standards for all City-Funded Arts Work.
Amend the City Charter to establish the Arts and Culture Office as a permanent function of local government, with clearly defined authority, resources, and representation in City decision-making, reinforcing the City’s commitment to cultural life beyond aspirational language.
★★★ Multi-Year Commitment:
Create paid, department-wide contract opportunities for artists.
Share policy wins and strategies with regional partners to strengthen the Greater Boston arts ecosystem.
(We believe the following shouldn't require additional staffing/budget. —Ami Bennitt & Ethan Dussault)
Short term recommendations:
Further integrate Somerville Arts Council with planning and economic development processes in the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development
Submit Arts & Creative Enterprise (ACE) in-lieu and in-kind policy via Zoning Text Amendment to City Council
Track ACE space owed to the city; how current is space is being used (cost/square foot/discipline)
Create ACE Fulfillment Enforcement policy
Create Percent for Arts policy and funding stream for an Arts and Creative Economy Stabilization Fund to support arts needs including preserving current affordable artist workspaces, supplementing LCC grants (starting one for organizations), public art
Establish "Somerville is an Arts City" branding/campaign: amplify this via LCC grantees, festivals, and all arts activities across the city
Medium term recommendations:
Submit Brickbottom Arts Overlay District
Establish Municipal Creative Space Cultural Trust (requires home rule petition)
Increase stock of affordable artists housing
Amplify artist opportunities and resources via SAC: MCC, ABCB, A4A, MAPC*
Create new space for arts and culture when City-owned property is redeveloped
Develop capacity-building programs for individuals and organizations to grow in Somerville as already recommended in the Cultural Capacity Plan
Long term recommendations:
Work with SAC and Armory Advisory Board to transition Armory operations to an independent governance structure such as a non-profit or municipal trust
Create arts space database; track losses/gains ongoing
Continue projects with MAPC including commercial affordability
Work with newly Activate Arts Somerville stakeholders on long-term arts policies
Expand existing and develop new arts and culture spaces, especially ones that support nightlife as already recommended in the Cultural Capacity
Consider expanding an increase of the ACE requirement from 5 to 10% and increase in FAB District zoning map to further incentivize the preservation of naturally occurring existing arts workspace and the creation of new workspace
*Massachusetts Cultural Council, Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston, Assets for Artists, Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
Appendix
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The following appendices provide essential context and support for the Committee’s recommendations. They include a detailed framework for implementing recommendations (Appendix A), an easy-to-browse overview of recommendations (Appendix B), a summary of invaluable community input and ideas (Appendix C), and a compilation of key resources (Appendix D) reflecting the considerable effort of individuals and organizations across Somerville and the Greater Boston area in stabilizing and supporting the arts.
Appendix A: Recommendation Matrix and Implementation Framework
Appendix A presents the Committee’s recommendation matrix. It includes implementation steps to operationalize the report’s recommendations and ensure accountability. The matrix highlights alignment with prior advocacy by city staff and the arts community, including:
Anti-Displacement Task Force – Creative Displacement Report
Cultural Capacity Plan
Making Space for Art
Arts Space Risk Assessment
Cultural Trust Strategy, Phase One Memo
Page references from the Creative Displacement Report support deeper exploration of next steps. This crosswalk demonstrates that the recommendations build on past work, emphasizing execution, follow-through, and measurable outcomes.
Appendix B: Recommendations Overview
Appendix B provides a quick overview of the Committee’s recommendations, organized by timeline and urgency. This appendix is intended for easy browsing and does not include detailed implementation steps.
Appendix C, Community Engagement Survey Responses
Appendix C summarizes community engagement survey responses, public comments, and qualitative feedback that may not be represented in the full report. It captures:
Recurring themes raised by artists, cultural workers, and residents
Specific policy suggestions and lived-experience insights
Emerging issues
These responses provide critical context and reinforce the urgency of the Committee’s recommendations.
Appendix D: Resources
Appendix D provides a list of key resources the Committee utilized in developing its recommendations. These resources reflect the extensive efforts of our community and supporting organizations in addressing the growing challenges facing arts, culture, and the creative economy.
