Indianapolis Revitalizing Neighborhoods Through Arts & Culture
As historian Mark I. Gelfand has noted: “No federal venture spent more funds in urban areas and returned fewer dividends to central cities than the national highway program.” A micro example of the devastating effect of the highway system developed through the core of Indianapolis is Cruft Street, with a dead end abutting I-65 near the I-65/I-70 split (completed in 1976) in the Garfield Park area of Indianapolis. Forty-two percent of houses in the area have incomes below $25,000, and 13.5 percent live on less than $10,000 a year. The low income demographic of the area results in 22 percent of adults over age 25 having no high school diploma and 81 percent with no college degree.
An examination of the Cruft Street neighborhood has spurred many nonprofit organizations in Indianapolis to question how the public sector can support the role of arts and culture in revitalizing the Cruft Street neighborhood.
