Cincinnati MCP Goes to New Harmony

This weekend Cincinnati MCP will feature thoughts and commentary on the Third International Symposium: Cultural Landscapes : Cultural Towns held in the quirky New Harmony, Indiana. UC is sending a delegation of four students to what should be a fantastic experience. The symposium has set as its rather lofty goal the development of a set of principles for defining what it means to be a "cultural town".

As a prelude the symposium's organizers have posted on their website four key qualities to identify a community as a cultural town which are:

Cultural towns are genuine and authentic places that are deeply rooted in the arts and arts education which identify, create, and develop unique qualities of community.

Arts institutions, however organized, are 25 percent or more of the total town population.

A core group of "public entrepreneurs" are actively involved in community building as intensely as private entrepreneurs are in corporation building. These public entrepreneurs, whether lay citizen, artist, musician, restaurateur, architect, landscape architect, historian or community planner, are engaged in community building and are creating with beauty and responsibility. Community cannot be unique, genuine, and authentic without the work of these creative individuals and the individuals will not thrive without contributing responsibly to the community.

Cultural towns are located in a somewhat isolated cultural landscape which isolates the town from typical rapid suburban growth. Respecting the past, living the present, and visioning the future uniquely, cultural towns look forward and back simultaneously. As a result, they become destinations to be experienced.

With this as its starting point and an all-star line up of speakers, the weekend should prove to be as entertaining as it is educational.