Youth Arts as Civic Infrastructure: A Detroit Opportunity and Call to Action is a white paper authored by Christian G. Stoehr of Grumpy Lemon Enterprises, commissioned by Detroit Excellence in Youth Arts and supported by Connect Detroit with additional funding from The Kresge Foundation. The paper challenges the common tendency to treat youth arts as enrichment, extracurricular activity, or optional cultural programming. Instead, it argues that youth arts should be understood as civic and developmental infrastructure: a durable system of creative practice, skilled adults, relationships, belonging, cultural identity, and public value.

Drawing on research across education, health, workforce development and community development, the paper makes a cross-sector case that sustained, relational, high-quality youth arts experiences build the very capacities every sector now says young people need, including attention, emotional regulation, collaboration, confidence, creative judgment, public voice and adaptability. These capacities, the paper argues, are especially urgent in a post-pandemic, AI-shaped, and socially fragmented environment.

The paper recognizes Detroit’s rich creative history and its existing assets, from school-system restoration efforts and community-rooted providers to cultural institutions, mapping projects, and philanthropic investments, while emphasizing that isolated excellence is not the same as citywide infrastructure. Its central recommendation is that Detroit recognize, measure, fund, and coordinate youth arts as civic and developmental infrastructure, with a focus on permanence rather than short-term projects, support for both large institutions and grassroots providers, and youth voice at the center of design.