Community Placemaking

Does your neighborhood give you a sense of belonging?

It could.

 

Some of our neighborhoods are not as inviting as they might be, especially for foot traffic. In many municipalities, the only places beyond our homes to sit down to rest or visit with people are usually stores and restaurants where we’re required to buy something. There are parks here and there with benches, but there might not be any within walking distance. Also, in many neighborhoods, everything we encounter is the result of commerce as opposed to citizens’ self-expression and interaction. 

It doesn’t have to be that way, and making our neighborhood spaces more welcoming can have a positive effect on the local climate (more on that below). Some communities all over the world have decided to improve their surroundings in ways that make them more inviting, supportive of communication, and reflecting local culture, using a process called placemaking.

 

What is placemaking?

 

Because the process and purpose of placemaking is complex, the way it is defined varies. Common concepts include creating or altering public spaces with the crucial support and input of the wide variety of people who live, work and play in those places (or who will, once a place is created) in order to reflect their values and to support their needs and preferences.¹ Although some placemaking is intentionally temporary, the concept often requires participants to manage a place-making space over time to assure that it continues to provide benefits as neighborhoods change.

To begin, practitioners find a likely space that is either not intended for public use, or is public but not very attractive, easy to use, nor reflective of local values and culture. Then, after thoroughly consulting the people who will use it – and ideally with their participation – they plan and make that space more useful and enjoyable for locals.

Placemaking can help build stronger communities, allowing neighbors to find ways to develop and express a unique community character, tying neighbors more closely together — and making them more likely to support each other in the face of challenges (Ambio: A Journal of Environment and Society), including environmental catastrophes. In fact, there are examples of placemaking immediately after catastrophes. Following a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, neighbors came together to find a way to rebuild where the earthquake had destroyed buildings (Project for Public Spaces). 

Often, placemaking is the result of neighbors wanting to remake nearby unused or underused spaces into public spaces. For example, in Reading, Pennsylvania, a mother was concerned about a local play space that was littered with broken glass. She organized a clean-up with neighbors and, in the process, learned that they could get help and supplies from the city government. Over time, neighbors have held many events in the park and become better acquainted with each other. You can read more about this project here (Center for Community Progress).

The World Bank explains why public spaces are not just nice to have, but a necessity:

“Living in a confined room without adequate space and sunlight increases the likelihood of health problems, restricts interaction and other productive activities. Public spaces are the living rooms, gardens and corridors of urban areas. They serve to extend small living spaces and provide areas for social interaction and economic activities, which improve the development and desirability of a community. This increases productivity and attracts human capital while providing an improved quality of life….” 

 

 

 

 

What is the Placemaking Process?

 

According to the PPS:

“Placemaking is both a philosophy and a practical process for transforming public spaces. It is centered on observing, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work, and play in a particular space in order to understand their needs and aspirations for that space and for their community as a whole.”  

PPS uses a five-step process to get locals involved in planning a new place, and that process can be used to adapt an existing space or plan a new one. Since every situation is different, the steps to creating a public place can occur in a different order or change altogether.

They emphasize the importance of meeting with the community to identify stakeholders and then evaluating the space, as well as its assets or challenges, with those community members. They also suggest an experimental implementation, trying one approach to space transformation without committing too much materials or effort, and then getting community input on the idea before proceeding. After completion, PPS feels it’s wise to keep an eye on the space to make sure it’s serving the community’s needs. If not, further alterations can be made with more community input.

 

How to get people involved

 

Since placemaking is a local project, you have to get local people involved, and that requires planning. If you put out the word on the internet only, some people, particularly those who can’t afford smartphones or computers as well as older neighbors who aren’t familiar with computer technology, won’t get the message, and they’ll be left out. Additionally, most of us are very busy trying to make ends meet, and people may not have time to read messages and consider new ideas, so if you’re trying to get them interested in placemaking, you may have to take extra steps to get them involved. Anyone who’s left out isn’t going to offer support for local changes. The PPS offers guidance here:

“Placemaking can only ensure equitable participation if the process operates with an adequate understanding of the community: factors like age, class, and gender; issues and concerns of nearby cultural groups; language and communication; and existing power dynamics. This type of ‘deep knowledge’ is enhanced through observation, ethnographic research, and above all, listening.”

Consider: if there are a lot of senior citizens in an area where you’d like to create a special community “place,” then the design of the place should take their needs and interests into consideration: for example, is the place wheelchair-accessible? If there are many children in the area, is this a good spot for a playground? If more than one language is spoken in the area around the site, then outreach should be multilingual, too. There are many other possible considerations along these lines. 

 

What qualities create a successful public place?

 

If we’re going to create these spaces, taking the time to get everyone involved and carefully crafting something that everyone will enjoy, it’s wise to consider the qualities that comprise successful public places. PPS explains:

In evaluating thousands of public spaces around the world, PPS has found that to be successful, they generally share the following four  qualities: they are accessible; people are engaged in activities there; the space is comfortable and has a good image; and finally, it is a sociable place: one where people meet each other and take people when they come to visit. [Each bolded word links to more information and examples about that quality.]

 

You can judge the accessibility of a place by its connections to its surroundings, both visual and physical. A successful public space is easy to get to and get through; it is visible both from a distance and up close….Accessible spaces have a high parking turnover and, ideally, are convenient to public transit.

Here’s a PPS diagram that makes this easier to consider:

 

 

How can we tell if our new place is a success?

 

Seeing people use our new place regularly suggests success, but if we value the idea that the place really should serve everyone, we should look closer: how diverse is the new space? Is there a range of ages among the people using it? Are there more men or women present? If our neighborhoods have a mixture of cultures and languages, are all groups represented by the people who are usually there? 

Unexpected answers to these questions may indicate the need to reconsider our project’s success. And we can look at the concepts in the chart above for more values to watch for: is the new space safe, especially for children and women, especially at night? Is it convenient, walkable and comfortable for all? Are there some concepts that participants valued lower at inception that they now wish they had included?

We can find these answers through surveys, listening sessions, and other robust, often professional means that gather participants’ permissions and shield their privacy.  Notice from Figure 2 above that progress is not always a straight line. It’s wise to get feedback as we proceed, and if that feedback calls for changes, we should take that seriously, implement them, then try again, guided by the new information.

Even after completion, PPS suggests continued studies to verify all participants’ needs are being met. If we find the place is falling short, the neighbor connections we created at the beginning of the process make it possible to reconnect, review ,and then renew our place to make it more satisfying for everyone.

By the way, we also want these spaces to support local merchants, if there are any. If our neighborhoods have everything we need, neighbors have less of a reason to travel away from it, and as we’ve pointed out, that cuts down on transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions. So if local merchants are thriving, our new place is a success in that sense.

Example: What is a Parklet?

 

One approach to public placemaking is the parklet, which converts curbside parking spaces in residential and commercial blocks into spaces reflecting the personality and culture of the surrounding neighborhood. Parklets:

• Offer people temporary or permanent public spaces to sit down, rest, and talk to each other. 
• Promote walkable neighborhoods by removing some parking spaces and giving pedestrians a place to rest. 
• Make neighborhoods more attractive, improving home values (Journal of Leisure Research).
• Reduce local greenhouse gas emissions by making it more attractive to stay in the neighborhood instead of  driving out of it.

In San Francisco, parklets are developed by sponsors. According to the San Francisco nonprofit GroundPlay:

• “Each parklet is sponsored by a member of the public who funds, designs, builds, and maintains the parklet and works with their neighbors and the City to bring it to life.”
• “Sponsors live and/or provide services in the neighborhood where the parklet is built.” 
• “Sponsors are a diverse group of makers, entrepreneurs, educators, and green thumbs, and they are volunteering to take on a civic responsibility usually reserved for city employees.” 

Part of the challenge of making parklets is making sure that the people who live near them understand that they’re public — they don’t have to buy anything to sit down, rest, and visit with friends. In 2014, the College of Environmental Design at the University of California in Berkeley did a study (University of California, Berkely) study of several parklets along one street in San Francisco to determine whether the people in the neighborhood understood that they were public as opposed to being reserved for the patrons of a nearby business. They reported that:

“Over a third [of the people surveyed] still believed parklets are reserved for patrons or, if they understand the site is public, still [felt] pressure to purchase an item from the sponsoring business before using the parklet. Further, certain factors—such as signage or parklet familiarity—were important for the ‘public’ understanding….”

 

 

 

Guerrilla Placemaking

 

In some areas, placemaking reshapes local spaces to better reflect the neighborhood’s character without the consent of the local governments and business owners — it’s sort of a guerrilla concept: If the city won’t do it for you, Do It Yourself. For example, some communities have taken actions to make streets temporarily car-free for bike riders. Examples include Milan, Bogotá, New York City, San Francisco, Stockholm, Paris, and Quito. In other cases, you and your neighbors can decide if there should be local art in this new, shared space, or other examples of local creativity. 

But be careful: On one hand, even if the area where you’re creating a public place is publicly owned, your local government may not agree that the public has a right to do whatever they want to with that space, so it may not be strictly legal. On the other hand, assuming you and your neighbors aren’t damaging or destroying public property but instead making public spaces more attractive, it’s not criminal.  It’s a good idea to learn more about how people are experimenting with this idea before diving in (Project for Public Spaces).  And there are other examples of what’s called “guerilla urbanism” here (shareable.net).

 

One More Time:
How does this help climate change?

 

While it’s true that placemaking is an interesting way to make our neighborhoods more neighborly and unique, it also has important climate benefits:

• As neighbors get to know each other and build trust, they may be more likely to share resources like tool libraries, limiting greenhouse gas emissions tied to the creation of new tools (and other items; please check out our Community Finance page’s accordion list for ideas like free stores and “really really free markets”).
• Placemaking often includes planting trees, which draw down carbon and decrease local temperatures (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).
• People will have fewer reasons to travel outside of their neighborhoods if they love them, which could mean less driving, leading to lower local emissions (Journal of Transportation).
• Placemaking promotes small businesses (European Journal of Planning Studies), and shopping local reduces transportation emissions.  

 

Let’s Try It!

 

The kinds of unique places we can make to reflect our community’s special character are an excellent way to make our neighborhoods more enjoyable while fighting climate change. Want more information about placemaking in your community?  Continue your exploration at the Project for Public Spaces’ website.

 

 

¹Placemaking definitions used in this essay came from the Tennessee Department of Health, Placemaking Chicago, MIT’s “Places in the Making” report, and Wikipedia.

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Mark Stewart is an English tutor and writer with a master of arts degree in English literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago and another MA in English education from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. He likes to write about ways that we can fight climate damage and prepare for climate shocks by collaborating with our communities. He has written for Climate Steps’ Community/Social and Communication steps, and he has edited some of the other pages and resources.

Contributor/Editor, Annette Olson