The Cultural Economy Planning Map is an interactive web-based map program that allows the user to view a large variety of cultural, cultural economy, infrastructure, and social data, separately or in combination, throughout New Orleans.
The CE Planning Map includes cultural and cultural economy data in addition to standard planning data such as zoning, streets, and community assets (i.e. churches, schools and libraries). The tool also includes place-based programs, such as the Cultural Product Districts, historic districts, and zoning overlay districts. For the purposes of this Map, the cultural economy is defined as it was in the 2005 Louisiana, Where Culture Means Business report:
...the people, enterprises, and communities that transform cultural skills, knowledge, and ideas into economically productive goods, services, and places.
The six segments of New Orleans' cultural economy used in the Map include: Culinary Arts, Entertainment, Design, Literary Arts and Humanities, Preservation and Museums, and Visual Arts and Crafts. In order to truly capture as much of the people, enterprises, communities, and places in the City's cultural economy as possible, the Cultural Economy Mapping Tool uses a multi-faceted definition of each of the six sections so that the wide range of businesses, non-profits, community groups, cultural places, and more could be included.
The Cultural Economy Planning Map will allow planners of all types to effectively and strategically integrate arts and culture into their planning projects, whether public or private. The Map can be used for planning not only developments, business locations, and public projects, but also for planning a wide range of programming that may need to locate a target population (artists, musicians, film workers) more effectively or locate potential program partners (cultural non-profits). The Cultural Economy Planning Map provides the means for a diverse array of planning and place-making activities to be effectively executed and to reach the largest portion of the target audience as possible.
The data for the Cultural Economy Planning Map will be updated annually in December and January, and will reflect open businesses and active organizations from the year ending in December.
Each of the 35 data categories included in the Cultural Economy Map is based on official databases and public directories, supplemented with primary research to confirm data points. For example, open cultural business data is based on the occupational license database from the City's Bureau of Revenue, and then primary research on the web, including the Louisiana Secretary of State's website, interactive business review sites like Yelp and Google, personal knowledge of whether a business is open or not, and finally, even a phone call if necessary to confirm that the business was open during the previous year.
Other layers, such as the zoning districts layer, are sourced from the City's Information Technology and Innovations' Geographical Information Services (ITI GIS) and maintained year-round for accuracy. Finally, some data sets are static, or unchanging, such as the Historic Jazz Homes identified by the Preservation Resource Center or the list of the city's historic cemeteries.