Boston Mayor Details Cultural Planning Initiative

Making good on his campaign promise that the arts will play an integral role in Boston’s future, Walsh is set to announce Thursday the details of his long-anticipated cultural planning initiative, an 18-month survey that will send teams of volunteers deep into the city’s neighborhoods, interviewing thousands of individuals and groups to try to quantify and define what Bostonians want when it comes to the city’s cultural life. The sprawling conversation, known officially as “Boston Creates,” will stretch from Brighton to South Boston, Charlestown to Hyde Park, resulting in a plan that outlines Boston’s cultural priorities and identifies ways the government can enhance the city’s creative life, setting an agenda for the next decade and beyond.

“We take this very seriously,” said Walsh during an interview earlier this week. “There are a lot of individual cultural plans in the city, but there’s no one plan that helps move the arts and culture community forward as a whole. Rather than operating in silos and trying to piece the pieces together, this plan will help us move the entire agenda forward in an even more positive way.”

Spearheading the effort will be Julie Burros, Walsh’s new chief of arts and culture, a cabinet-level position. Burros, who helped create a similar plan in Chicago, said the process will take a broad view of creativity, asking everyone from knitting groups and cooking classes to theater troupes and arts collectives to identify what they see as the city’s cultural assets and needs.