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Panel Discussions

Inclusive Planning for Social Change

Engagement as Offering: Boston's Chinatown Cultural Plan

Thursday, April 24, 2025
2:30 PM - 3:15 PM CT
Location: Channel 1
CM: .75
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Chinatowns — among the most recognizable historic centers of cultural expression and identity in American cities — are at risk of disappearing due to ongoing displacement pressures. In Boston, a cultural plan employed innovative, artist-led engagement methods to ensure Chinatown's continuation as an historic cultural district and generate strategies to preserve the neighborhood. Artists and working group members led community meals where participants shared stories and memories and provided portraits as part of an interview-based engagement. The resulting Chinatown Cultural Plan provides a framework of engagement-as-offering and a model for centering arts and culture in anti-displacement strategies. This presentation offers both inspiration and practical approaches to tackling some of the thorniest challenges in delivering inclusive planning processes to achieve more equitable outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

  • Explain the importance of arts and culture as a strategy for preserving Chinatowns as historic centers of Chinese and Asian American culture.
  • Understand how framing engagement as an offering leads to more inclusive engagement strategies to inform planning that mitigates displacement.
  • Understand the value that an artist team can bring to planning for social change.