SUMMARY FOR ARTICLE

This report, commissioned by the Global Cultural Districts Network and written by Professor Geoffrey Crossick, is aimed to understand better the ways cultural districts generate social impacts and to explore how those social impacts are evaluated for both cultural districts and their stakeholders. cultural districts need to understand such neighbourhood social impacts if their narrative is to draw on more than anecdote and perception but this requires the availability of data and the resources needed for its analysis. if urban vibrancy and the public realm and neighbourhood and community are themes irreducibly about place targeted social interventions involve a different approach whereby cultural institutions and cultural practitioners use the arts to address the needs of targeted groups in the population. it will be interesting to see the methods that will be used to evaluate the achievement of the outcomes sought within the wide-ranging theory of change. participant observation is a different dimension of this taking on several individuals who are neither professional evaluators nor part of the event or project itself and asking them to engage observe talk to participants and practitioners and write a frank assessment.