In their book "The Cultural Creatives," Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson use the streams metaphor to describe the way in which various movements for social change from the 1960s forward are, in their view, converging to result in a new cultural paradigm that will provide a worldview capable of dealing with the crises of our time.

The focus of this paper is the convergence of two of those streams: the arts-based community-development movement (ACD) and the sustainable community-development (SCD) movement. The former has been practiced for many years, in both urban and rural contexts. In urban communities, mural and public art projects and work with inner-city youth are just two examples of the work that a generation of urban artists has been doing to build on the assets of neighborhoods. In rural areas, theater and the preservation of folk arts are examples of how rural artists have built on the legacy of the WPA. While metropolitan ACD projects have included urban gardens and neighborhood beautification, the work has not primarily been concerned with environmental protection or with alternative models of economic development. It has grown from concern for social and economic justice for those marginal to the industrial power structure. Rural community arts, on the other hand, are built on a strong sense of place and the history of the land and its people.