I remember seeing the footage, years ago, of the Stari Most—the “Old Bridge”—in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, being painstakingly rebuilt, stone by stone. It was more than an architectural project; it was an act of collective healing. A local saying from that time, as reported in a position paper by The World Bank and UNESCO, captured the feeling perfectly: “A person killed is one of us; the Bridge is all of us.” This single idea gets to the heart of a powerful and increasingly urgent concept: culture as infrastructure. It suggests that the systems that give a city its identity—its arts, heritage, and shared traditions—are as essential to its survival and well-being as its roads, power grids, and water lines.
The joint World Bank and UNESCO Culture in City Reconstruction and Recovery (CURE) Position Paper formalizes a long-held belief among community advocates: arts, culture, and heritage are essential for urban resilience, reconstruction, and recovery. This work, alongside a broader re-evaluation by urban planners and policymakers, highlights how cities have historically undervalued culture, often seeing it as a "nice-to-have" amenity rather than a fundamental asset. Evidence suggests the opposite: culture is crucial for cities facing compounding crises from climate change to social upheaval, proving a city’s soul is, in fact, part of its skeleton.
What is the 'Culture as Infrastructure' Concept?
The concept of 'culture as infrastructure' is a framework that redefines arts, heritage, and creativity as essential public assets, fundamental to a community's social, economic, and environmental health. Instead of viewing cultural elements as separate from a city's core functions, this model integrates them. It treats them as a vital system that provides foundational services, much like physical infrastructure. Think of it this way: if roads and bridges are the city's circulatory system, carrying people and goods, then cultural infrastructure is its nervous system, carrying meaning, memory, and connection.
This "nervous system" isn't just made of grand, historic buildings. It's a complex network of both tangible and intangible assets. It’s the local library that serves as a community hub, the annual street festival that strengthens neighborhood bonds, the public art that sparks conversation, and the oral histories that preserve a community's identity. These elements provide critical services: they foster social cohesion, drive local economies, support mental and public health, and give residents a shared sense of place and purpose. When a crisis hits—be it a natural disaster, an economic downturn, or a social fracture—this infrastructure is what helps hold a community together and provides a blueprint for how to rebuild in a way that is meaningful, not just functional.
- Physical Spaces (The Hardware): These are the tangible places where culture is created, shared, and preserved. This includes everything from major institutions like museums, theaters, and concert halls to more intimate, local venues like community art centers, independent bookstores, artist studios, and public parks.
- People and Networks (The Software): Infrastructure is useless without the people who operate it. This includes the artists, curators, historians, librarians, educators, and cultural organizers who are the lifeblood of the system. It also encompasses the formal and informal networks that connect them, facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing.
- Intangible Heritage (The Operating System): This is the underlying code of a community. It includes the traditions, rituals, languages, craft skills, and stories passed down through generations. This intangible culture informs a community’s values and identity, shaping how its members interact with each other and their environment.
- Policies and Funding (The Power Grid): For cultural infrastructure to function, it needs support. This includes public policies that protect heritage sites, zoning laws that encourage creative spaces, and dedicated funding streams from government, philanthropy, and private investment that keep the system running and accessible.
Why are Arts and Cultural Institutions Essential Infrastructure?
Seven years before a recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared climate change a 'severe threat' to sustainable development. In response, experts developed Climate-Resilient Development Pathways (CRDPs)—strategies that weave together sustainable development, emissions reduction, and climate adaptation. A report from the Climate Heritage Network argues that arts, culture, and heritage are powerful enablers for designing and implementing these pathways, underscoring their critical importance as essential infrastructure in addressing climate change.
What does this look like in practice? It means harnessing local and indigenous knowledge about land and water management to inform climate adaptation strategies. It means using public art and storytelling to communicate climate risks and inspire collective action in ways that data sheets and policy briefs cannot. It means retrofitting historic buildings for energy efficiency, preserving their cultural value while reducing their carbon footprint. What struck me here is the profound practicality of this approach. It’s not just about saving old buildings; it's about learning from them and the generations of wisdom they represent.
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, a global network of over 2,500 local and regional governments, reports that culture is moving from the margins to the center of global adaptation policy. Heritage was formally recognized in the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), a key framework for climate action, with five of the 59 Belém Adaptation Indicators directly supporting its cultural heritage target. Further demonstrating this global shift, the Race to Resilience Culture (RTRC), led by ICLEI USA and ICLEI Africa, established the world's first network of cities actively embedding culture and heritage into their climate resilience planning, confirming a city’s cultural fabric as a source of strength against environmental crises.
Examples of Culture Functioning as Infrastructure
The concept truly comes to life when we look at specific examples of cities that have placed culture at the heart of their recovery and development. These cases show how cultural infrastructure isn't just theoretical but a tangible force for positive change. The reconstruction of the Mostar Bridge in Bosnia and Herzegovina stands as a powerful testament to this. Destroyed in 1993 during the Croat-Bosniak War, the 16th-century Ottoman bridge was more than a crossing over the Neretva River; it was the symbolic heart of a multicultural city. Its deliberate destruction was an attempt to erase a shared history. Consequently, its meticulous reconstruction, completed in 2004, was a project aimed at rebuilding the city's social fabric and multicultural identity, not just its physical form.
Another compelling case comes from Aceh, Indonesia, following the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. According to the World Bank and UNESCO, the post-crisis reconstruction and recovery efforts took a deeply, and intentionally, culturally informed approach. Instead of simply imposing standardized housing models, recovery agencies worked with communities to rebuild in ways that respected traditional Acehnese architecture, social structures, and religious values. This approach not only resulted in more resilient and appropriate housing but also empowered the community by validating their identity and traditions during a time of immense trauma. It recognized that rebuilding lives is about more than just shelter; it's about restoring the cultural context that gives those lives meaning.
These examples highlight a crucial point: local context matters. A qualitative analysis of 71 urban resilience plans from 27 countries, published in Columbia University's journal Consilience, found that for many cities, these efforts are not strongly influenced by national culture. Instead, they spring from a local understanding of needs and assets. The research noted that these urban resilience plans often share a common thread of being inclusive, future-oriented, and prioritizing quality of life over pure profit. This suggests that the most effective strategies are not top-down mandates but are grown from the grassroots, leveraging what a report from the UCLG Committee on Culture calls "local cultural resources and creativity" to inspire and drive change. It’s a model where the community itself becomes the architect of its own resilience.
Why 'Culture as Infrastructure' Matters
So, why should this concept matter to you, in your city, in your neighborhood? It matters because it fundamentally changes how we value the places and activities that enrich our daily lives. It asks us to see the local theater not just as entertainment, but as a public square where diverse voices can be heard. It encourages us to view the historical preservation society not as a niche interest group, but as the steward of our collective memory and a key player in sustainable development. It reframes a mural project in a neglected underpass not as decoration, but as a critical investment in public safety and community pride.
When we adopt this perspective, we start making different decisions. City budgets might prioritize library funding as an essential service, on par with road maintenance. Urban planners might integrate artist live-work spaces into new housing developments as a matter of course. Disaster response plans might include provisions for protecting cultural assets and engaging local artists in the recovery process. Thinking of culture as infrastructure provides a powerful new language for advocating for the arts and humanities. It moves the conversation beyond arguments about aesthetic value and into the realm of public utility, social equity, and urban resilience.
It begs the question: what is the cultural infrastructure of your own community? What are the places, the people, and the traditions that hold your neighborhood together? Recognizing them is the first step. Supporting them—by attending a show, becoming a museum member, volunteering at a festival, or advocating for arts funding—is an investment in the long-term health and resilience of the place you call home. It is an acknowledgment that a city that is rich in culture is also a city that is strong, connected, and prepared to face the future.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some examples of cultural infrastructure?
Cultural infrastructure includes a wide range of assets, both physical and intangible. Physical examples include museums, libraries, theaters, concert halls, artist studios, community centers, and public heritage sites. Intangible examples include local traditions, festivals, languages, craft skills, community arts programs, and the networks of creative professionals who sustain a city's cultural life.
How does culture help a city recover from a disaster?
Culture plays a vital role in post-disaster recovery by strengthening the social fabric. Shared cultural activities can help process collective trauma, foster a sense of solidarity, and reaffirm a community's identity. As seen in places like Aceh, Indonesia, integrating cultural knowledge into the physical reconstruction process ensures that rebuilding efforts are sensitive to local values and traditions, leading to more sustainable and meaningful outcomes.
Is cultural infrastructure only about buildings?
Cultural infrastructure is a broad concept, encompassing not only "hardware" like museums and theaters, but also the "software" and "operating system"—the people, networks, and intangible heritage. This includes artists, cultural workers, the community organizations that support them, and the traditions, stories, and creative practices defining a community's unique character.
Why is this concept gaining importance now?
Global bodies like The World Bank and UNESCO are promoting culture's role in reconstruction and recovery, while climate policy formally recognizes heritage as a key component of resilience. This includes acknowledging local and indigenous knowledge as a critical resource for adaptation, reflecting a growing consensus on culture's importance in tackling 21st-century challenges, especially climate change and urban crises.
The Bottom Line
Cultural infrastructure—theaters, museums, heritage sites, and traditions—are fundamental systems, not luxuries. They provide essential social connection, economic vitality, and the collective resilience needed for communities to navigate an uncertain future. Investing in and protecting this infrastructure is crucial to ensure cities not only survive but truly thrive.
