The Arts and Urban Development

Dear Colleagues,

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, a number of models for considering the significance of the arts for urban experience were elaborated and expanded, including Richard Florida’s idea of the “creative city”, as well as models of the notions of “creative industries”, which generate urban economic growth and measure the economic impact that arts institutions have on urban environments. While the notions of the contribution of the arts to metropolitan economies is not entirely new, a focus on placemaking and fostering artistic cultures in cities has resulted in the manifestation of these ideas, spreading them to a wide variety of urban forms around the world.

The goal of this Special Issue is to account for the impacts of these new developments, to consider which strategies for urban planning and development have emerged that bring the arts into the picture, and to think about how artists (visual, performing or otherwise) contribute to urban culture. New concepts such as “culture-led regeneration” are on the rise, but artists have been engaging the city in so many ways; it is important to account for both top-down, government- and developer-led initiatives, as well as the bottom-up initiatives of artists on the ground. This Special Issue welcomes investigations of the arts and urban development from a variety of fields and specializations, including those working in urban studies, considering manifestations of the visual and performing arts and affiliated institutions in the contemporary sense. How can we expand our comprehension of the way that the urban and artistic cultures intersect and the impacts that they might have on one another? As the world becomes increasingly urbanized, there is a need to assess the preservation of culture in the urban frame, but there is also much that artists and artist/activists can do to shape the cities of the future. This Special Issue aims to consider these dynamics and the multifarious outcomes that have and will emerge.

If you intend to submit work to this Special Issue, please send a 200-word abstract to John Zarobell ([email protected]) by December 31, 2024. Please note that there is a two-stage submission process. The editor will first collect abstracts of 200 words by December 31, 2024. By January 31, 2025, selected abstracts will be invited to submit full papers for peer review by June 30, 2025. Journal publication is expected in October 2025, depending on the revision time required after peer review.

Prof. Dr. John Zarobell
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• urban arts
• contemporary art
• urban development
• creative city
• creative industries
• culture-led regeneration
• intangible cultural heritage