Place making incorporates listening, observing and questioning the persons who work, play and mainly live in appropriate spaces. It allows discovery of their desires and needs regarding such a place. Therefore, place making is a strategic approach involved in planning, designing and managing public places. The process occurs after an understanding of persons, needs and aspirations. As a result, a shared vision is created from it. Place making is thus a philosophy, as well as a process employed to help in unifying people living around the larger version in a particular place.
Principal Components of Successful Place Making Initiatives
In place making, it is ideal to possess a deep commitment distinct from both place and quality. As such, the vision should be unique. Therefore, partnership becomes necessary; private, public as well as arts and cultural non-profit sectors come into the place making idea. In addition, it has the potential to cross boundaries, hence leveraging funds and support from various governmental department and functional agencies (Lange 22).
Place making is visionary and community-driven. It also has the following features; adaptability, focused on destinations creations, flexible, ever changing, trans-disciplinary, transformative, context-led, inspiring, collaborative and sociable.
Creative Initiators
A small team or an individual comes up with a creative place making vision. The creative initiators may come from diverse and unique backgrounds with sparkling art revitalization effort and development. In most cases, private sector actors initiate the process; they may be artists or other personnel. They may come from the public sector, as well. Such initiators need to be encouraged, and the best ones adopted.
Distinctiveness Designing
The 20th century witnessed places that aspired to do well; economists describe them as the urban hierarchy intending to move from a rural ranking to a small city, town or metropolis ranking. Just like sports stadiums, it indicated a competition in hosting and expansion of repertory theatres, art museums and performing centers. Most urban architecture and layout by various communities build their initiatives around their unique local social and economic histories. Therefore, there is a buildup of the expertise in existence and place characteristic.
Public Will Mobilization
Strong public sector support brings about reality to the right place making ideas. It explains why most city council members, mayors and responsive agencies embrace initiatives and call upon the public to demonstrate support. When there is local political indifference, mobilized citizens may be incorporated. They make a difference through advocating and actions, which may include inserting cultural and art agendas in the electoral politics (Lange 12).
Garnering Private Sector Support
Lenders, private sector developers, local art businesses, philanthropists and sponsors facilitate arts and culture-led revitalization. These groups have efficient knowledge on neighborhood economy and Real Estate Company. As such, it indicates that the private sector backs place making.
Securing Arts Community Engagement
For an arts-based revitalization, there should be significant input of finance, talent and time by the art community. For creative place making, unusual and smaller entrepreneurs have been observed making efforts. Theatres and artist houses act as key examples. Artistic organizations contribute to place making projects through sponsorships, revenue portions and staff time. As a result, this efforts end up helping massively in securing philanthropic support, as well as the public sector (Whyte).
Partnerships Building
Art organizations, philanthropists, businesses, politicians, city staffers and initiators are key players in the delivery of successful revitalization process that is art-based. For optimal positive outcomes, they should all have a partnership structure forged among them with federal and state government agencies. With different skills and competencies, partnership may be a massive challenge for them, thus, a confirmation of its crucially in creative place making.
Attributes of a Great Place
There are four essential attributes of a great place; they include accessibility, active, comfortable and sociable. For accessibility, the concern is on convenience and workability. The active feature relates to engaging and fun. Comfort entails cleanliness and attractiveness while sociable is about welcoming and neighborliness.
The Place Making Process
The place making process may be approached through a systematic guide. It involves evaluation of the neighborhood, place plan making and its implementation.
Getting Ready
The ten most important places in the neighborhood are identified through key stakeholders especially the local leaders. At this point, a working group may be developed. Reasons for selection of the ten places should be included. Walking into the places to be improved artistically is necessary.
Site selection
In relation to site selection, the local departments involved in planning and development should be consulted. It helps in eliminating restrictions that could affect the artistic plan. A pre visit could help identify qualities of accessibility, engaging, comfort and good image (Whyte).
Stakeholder identification
Stakeholders include friends and neighbors, nearby businesses and stores, long-term residents, non-government organizations, local artistic and community groups, local government professionals and officials and individual experts. Each of the stakeholders has a key role to play.
Evaluation of the Neighborhood
This is about data collection. Artists and other stakeholders should come together in collecting data about a public place. The data should include tracing measures, mapping behaviors, measuring perceptions amongst others to identify the residents’ expectations and vision of their place.
Making a Place Plan
Conducting Place Evaluation Workshop
It entails observation amongst the participants. The artistic and cultural bring on the table common sense, intuition, input and special knowledge. An ordinary place can be converted into and extraordinary place through this consultation.
Translation of Ideas into Action with a Working Group
With stakeholders in a workshop group, several creative and artistic ideas will always come up. The ideas should be evaluated and reviewed. The ideas should be solidified with a vision encouraged by specific recommendations.
Developing a Visual Concept Plan
Public spaces are visible. Implementing short-term improvements to make functional and attractive is important. Through the artistic skills, there should be the creation of a summary reporting and presentation. The artistic skills and the summary product should have employed all available resources to come up with a vision that the public sector would welcome gladly.
Creative Place Making Implementing
Short-Term Actions Implementation
The vision should be put into action. The working group and the public should be kept dynamic. The enthusiasm of the place makers needs to be maintained. Public support should be maintained through energizing them through activities such as letting them paint. The working group regularly meets.
Development of a Long-Term Management and Design Plan
The short-term events should be followed by more complex and longer-term improvements. A design plan and a management plan should be in place.
Assessing Results and Replication
At this stage, expansion of efforts to other sites neighboring communities should be formulated. When a creative place making process is observed by the stakeholders and the community, other communities and municipalities will welcome such projects.
Works Cited
"The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces : William H. Whyte : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive." Internet Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2014.
Harpel, Ellen D. "Services In The Detroit Regional Economy: Implications For A City In Transition." Service Industries Journal 46 (2011): 1-33. Print.
Lange, Bastian. "Place-Making Strategies of Culturepreneurs. The case of Frankfurt/M., Germany." (2002): Print.
Markusen, Ann, and Anne Gadwa. Creative Placemaking. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2010. Print.
