Macro Practice: Locality Development

1. “The Annual Autumn Artwalk Festival was first
introduced in 2004 by Our CommonGround, a
Greenville-based non-profit that works to promote
and cultivate local and regional artists. Initially started
as a means to connect the residents of Bond County
and surrounding cities with the art community,
Artwalk now draws thousands of visitors to Greenville
each year (Brittingham, 2014).”
Brittingham, M. (2014, September 15). 10th Annual Art Walk. Retrieved from Our Common Ground: http://ocgart.org/artwalk

2. 1) Human: Supporting Greenville (Private Fine Arts)
College students in their creative professional aspirations,
be it various types of art, music, dance, poetry, culinary
tastes, or crafts by means of exposure, professional
networking and even financial income; advancing the
students, community and local businesses.
2) Financial: College students and small businesses
receive huge boosts in revenue streams as a result of this
event, supporting the communities overall financial stability.
Additionally, the networking of these students, small
businesses, community members and consumers, while not
directly quantifiable is often-times as beneficial, if not more
so than the revenue generated. The growing populations
also yield an increasing amount of advertisement for these
groups; all of which continues to help grow the
infrastructure of the community.
3) Social: Bringing the once estranged sub populations of
Greenville and the surrounding area together (as more than
60% of Greenville is over the age of 65; there is a community
of 1,200 or so college students with the remaining 25-30%
families with young children) has served to bridge the gap
and unify the community. It is a small town (of around
7,000) and the community has began to thrive as a result of
this newfound communal pride, which had been stagnant
for more than a decade.
4) Physical: This event creates an enormous amount of
art, poetry, food while transforming the small towns entire
downtown area which is situated around the courthouse
built in the late 1800’s, into a bustling energetic crowd of
artists, vendors, music, consumers and community
members.