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City of Philadelphia Unveils New Arts-and-Culture Planning Web Site

By Mike Dunn

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia officials today launched a new, free web site that helps arts, culture, and community groups make decisions.

Mayor Nutter launched the new site, dubbed cultureblocks.com, explaining, "Cultureblocks is a free mapping tool that supports people making decisions about placemaking, creativity, and culture in Philadelphia."

Moira Baylson, of the mayor's Office of the Arts (at left in photo), says the site grabs a long list of primary data from other public and private sources, making research one-stop shopping.

"We will give you access to over 50 data sets on cultural assets, cultural activity, arts investments, economic investments and designations, other cultural resources, and city resources such as parks, recreation centers, libraries, bike racks, transportation lines, and more.  All of the data is searchable, printable and downloadable to .pdf or Excel."

The cultureblocks site is mainly aimed at organizations and institutions, but it is open for use by anyone.

One person who plans to use the site is Meryl Levitz of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.

"We're really excited that we can have a tool like this that will help us on a continuing basis to reveal how creativity is growing and growing within the city," Levitz said.

The site is supported in part through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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