Cultural Policy and Cultural Planning Glossary

Community Arts | A particular kind of community-based arts practice in which professional artists work with community members to create work that addresses specific local issues or concerns. 

Community Cultural Development | The use of collaborative, creative and innovative problem-solving approaches and tools to leverage cultural resources in resolving planning issues and concerns of the community. The process provides the opportunity to enhance the quality of life and unique sense of place among residents. 

Creative Cities | A city that encourages a culture of creativity in urban planning and in solutions to urban problems. It has become a global movement that inspires a new planning paradigm for cities related to innovation and the concept of learning cities. 

Creative Occupations | Performers, Design and Applied Creative Professionals, Media Screen and Audiovisual Occupations , Cultural Production and Technical Occupations, Cultural Heritage and Memory Occupations , Cultural Management and Administration, Cultural Education and Knowledge Transmission, Creative Business and Media Roles. 

Creative Industries | Advertising and Marketing, Audiovisual and Interactive Media, Cultural Heritage, Design and Creative Services, Digital and New Media, Music Industries, Performing Arts, Publishing and Print Media, Visual Arts and Crafts.

Creative Clusters | A geographical concentration (often regional in scale) of interconnected individuals, organizations and institutions involved cultural and creative industries, digital media, design, knowledge building and/or other creative sector pursuits. 

Creative Hub | A multi-tenant center, complex or place-based network that functions as a focal point of cultural activity and/or creative entrepreneurship and incubation. 

Creative Placemaking | An integrated and transformative process of community engagement that connects cultural and creative resources to build authentic, dynamic and resilient places. 

Culture | Culture means many things to many people. In the broadest sense, culture is anything that defines the unique identity of a community or social group. Those characteristics often include social customs, seasonal traditions, geography, cuisine, oral traditions, fashion, literature, music and religious expression. However, culture also includes less obvious aspects of our lives such as heritage (both built and natural), community initiatives and the creative economy, which can include film & video industries, advertising, design & fabrication, performing arts and much more. 

Culture-Led Regeneration | A multi-dimensional approach to the re-use, renewal or revitalization of a place wherein art, culture, heritage and creative enterprise play leading and transformative roles. 

Cultural Assessment | Involves quantitative and qualitative analysis of cultural resources, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Cultural assessment helps communities understand the local cultural ecology, identify what is needed to strengthen the management of culture resources and how they can be leveraged to address community priorities, inform planning and decision-making, and target investment. 

Cultural Identity | Refers to those shared beliefs and characteristics that distinguish a community or social group, and which underpin a sense of belonging to that group. Ethno-cultural background is one important, though not sole source of identity. As cultures interact and intermix, cultural identities change and evolve. 

Cultural Landscapes | Cultural landscapes are historically significant landscapes. Like other heritage resources, cultural landscapes connect us with our past; help to tell the story of how our cities developed and how our society evolved. Cultural landscapes are vital to contemporary society; they contribute to great communities by enhancing character, identity and a sense of place. 

Cultural Mapping | A systematic approach to identifying, recording and classifying a community’s cultural resources. 

Cultural Resources | Cultural resources encompass both tangible and intangible cultural assets that fuel economic prosperity, quality of life and contribute to defining a community’s unique identity and sense of place. 

Cultural Round Table | A strategic leadership group formed for the purposes of implementing cultural plans and ongoing cultural planning and development. Membership ideally includes Council member(s); municipal staff; wide representation from the cultural sector; the business community; important community agencies such as the United Way and Community Foundations; and postsecondary institutions.

Municipal Cultural Planning | A municipal government-led process for identifying and leveraging a community’s cultural resources, strengthening the management of those resources, and integrating cultural resources across all facets of local government planning and decision-making. Cultural planning is part of an integrated, place-based approach to planning and development that considers four pillars of sustainability: economic prosperity, social equity, environmental responsibility and cultural vitality. 

Cultural Resource Framework (CRF) | Is a consistent set of categories of cultural resources used to organize cultural information in a consistent and coherent way. The CRF grounded in Statistics Canada’s Framework of Cultural Statistics by which the Federal Government defines the cultural sector in Canada. Digital Media | Digitized content (text, graphics, audio, and video) that can be transmitted over the internet or computer networks.

Diversity | A state of difference in a community or social group that can include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, and religious or political beliefs. 

Heritage | All that our society values that provides the living context – both natural and human – from which we derive sustenance, coherence, and meaning in our individual and collective lives. 

Heritage Resources | The following framework recognizes both the distinctiveness of the individual categories of cultural heritage resources and the overlap between these categories. The three broad classes of heritage resources are: Immovable Heritage: land or land-based resources such as buildings or natural areas that are ‘fixed’ in specific locations. Movable Heritage: resources such as artifacts and documents, that are easily ‘detachable’ and can be transported from place to place. Intangible Heritage: such as community stories, place names, traditional skills and beliefs. 

Indigenous | means ‘native to the area’ and includes First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. 

Place-Based Cultural Tourism | Place-based cultural tourism is more than just attractions but also the destination’s history and heritage, its narratives and stories, its landscape, its townscape, its people. It is about discovering what makes a community distinctive, authentic, and memorable. It is about the experience of place.