C&CPF Grantee-Partner Asian Arts Initiative called on cultural power to push back against the 76ers’ proposed arena.
Developers had presented the city with a survey that shone a positive light on their arena project. Neighborhood organizers were skeptical of the survey and said it didn’t fully represent the neighborhood’s community. So they sought to conduct their own survey.
“We had to find funding to put together a different community survey that C&CPF ended up helping us with,” said Dave Kyu, director of programs for Asian Arts Initiative. “This community survey found that 70% of Philadelphians did not want to see this basketball arena.”
Ultimately, the Save Chinatown Coalition grew to include more than 240 groups, and the plan to build the new arena was canceled, replaced by a plan to build a new arena in the city’s existing stadium district in South Philadelphia.
“For Asian Arts Initiative, culture is the shared resources, beliefs, and practices that define the character of a community, a neighborhood,” Kyu says. “We use this culture as a lens for equitable development, and for all issues beyond our field.”