{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Stop & Talk","title":"Jonathon Glus: Embracing San Diego as a Creative City ","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3369,"description":"Editor’s Note: This episode was recorded in March 2026, before the City of San Diego released its initial FY27 budget proposal. That proposal has since raised urgent questions about the future of public arts funding in San Diego, making Jonathon and Grant’s conversation about arts, culture, and downtown’s future especially timely. Jonathon Glus is the Prebys Senior Art & Design Fellow in Residence at the Downtown San Diego Partnership, working to help shape a bold vision for a more creative, vibrant, and connected downtown. A longtime arts leader, Jonathon brings national experience and a deep belief in the role artists, creative businesses, and cultural infrastructure can play in the life of a city. In San Diego, his work is focused on what it would take for downtown to become not only a place of business, but a civic and creative center worthy of the region’s talent, beauty, and binational identity. This Episode: What role do arts and culture play in helping a city thrive? Jonathon and Grant explore why downtowns still matter, not just as business districts, but as civic centers where people gather, connect, experience beauty, and feel part of a shared life. Jonathon makes the case that arts and culture are essential to that work. They bring people into public spaces, support creative workers and small businesses, strengthen local identity, and help make a city feel alive. Together, they look at what San Diego can learn from other cities that have used creativity to reimagine their urban cores, while also naming the ingredients this region already has, from Balboa Park and historic buildings to its border-region identity and creative talent. At a moment when public arts funding is under serious threat, the conversation is a reminder that arts and culture are not extras. They are part of the civic infrastructure that helps communities build belonging, opportunity, and shared pride. If San Diego wants to be a global and inviting city, arts and culture need to be...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/E50UwUZbhBWosolTVbD7jMIdqqQxUsyZGfLc3NjRiXE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzQ1MTAwLzE3MDg5/ODY0MTQtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}