Saving the City Bi-weekly Update!

With downtown office markets reeling, how can cities stay competitive as desirable destinations? One area of strength is arts and culture, which we'll explore in the Saving the City documentary series about how to make cities better places, as we continue production and fundraising.

While filming in Minneapolis for a story about the Mill City Museum and the remade Mississippi riverfront, we got a sneak preview of the inner workings of the Guthrie Theater. The first regional repertory company in the country, the Guthrie's second home houses three performance spaces and overlooks the river in a striking blue structure that mimics the shape of neighboring former flour mills.

The Guthrie is one of several major cultural institutions in and around downtown Minneapolis that contribute to a sense of vitality even as other sectors in the city center continue to contract.

Cities across North America from Vancouver to Montreal and Boston to San Francisco have been bolstering their visual and performing arts offerings, which have increased in importance as traditional urban mainstays of in-person office work and brick-and-mortar retail continue to evolve.

Check out our Minneapolis preview video. And our newsletter archive is here.

Below is Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Walker Art Center's Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

After watching Saving the City, you will never look at cities the same way again. We hope you will be inspired to make a difference in your local communities.

Check out our work and let us know what you think. We're always hungry for more stories and refer us to people we should know about.

And please share this newsletter with friends and family.

Thanks to generous funding from the William Penn, Packard, Hewlett, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Foundations, Heinz Endowments, an Urban Land Institute leadership group and individuals led by George Miller and Chris Larsen, we have raised over $900,000 to date. A more complete list of contributors is here.

Help us raise the remaining $400,000 needed to complete our introductory episodes as we're expecting to start releasing programs this Fall.

All funds go through the International Documentary Association, a 501c(3) non-profit.

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Thank you to global consulting firm Protiviti for providing production support.