Taneisha Duggan wants The Arts in Hartford to be like pants – an essential put on daily – not like an earring, an optional accessory.

“We’re world building in government,” said Duggan, head of Hartford’s Office of Arts, Culture and Entertainment. “City planning is a creative process, right? A vision is an imaginative, creative process. If we can get artists into the process, we can actually world-build.”

That’s what artists do: create.

One potential tool we can leverage are cultural districts. “Cultural districts recognize [that] cultural assets support community – whether it’s a park, whether it’s a theater – and being intentional about making sure that we [artists] are at the table as decisions are being made around economic development and real estate.”

“America is an ownership-based country. If the arts and culture sector doesn’t own spaces, we don’t have a real seat at the table in these conversations.”

And that’s how the arts go from being an elective accessory to a must-have.

Cultural districts also allow neighborhood identities to shine. “[Cultural districts] amplify our different identities and let [these identities] be the reason to visit,” said Duggan. “What would it mean if the South End could actually encompass and look like the people who live there?”

Hartford’s proximity to larger cultural hubs is another strength. The city flexed it last summer by bringing local filmmakers to the African American Film Festival on Martha’s Vineyard. Networks grown and lessons learned there were then brought back to Hartford to grow our city’s film scene.

It’s not about leaning on these lustrous locales; it’s about reaching out as peers.

Affordable housing is one of the biggest challenges to incorporating artists into the city’s fibers, especially housing that lets people lay down roots. “One thing New York did right in the 60s and 70s was they built these apartment complexes that went from studios to three-bedroom apartments, and you could literally grow your family, your life in one neighborhood,” said Duggan. “That kind of longevity of residency is how you build a community.”

Idea inertia must be overcome, too. We have to think big and new if the arts are going to be a daily affair. “The creative process is a disruption to the status quo; it’s an agenda, as opposed to a way of being.”

One last thing to overcome: size anxiety. “People say, ‘Hartford has the most theaters or the best culture for a medium-sized city,’ and I’m always like, ‘Get the asterisk out of there! We have the best – period.”