The City of Brotherly Love
Excerpt # 4 from
Beyond The Numbers: Inadequacies of Creative Placemaking Criteria
To illustrate that communities can also be defined by different ways in which people group, it is important to look at an example of a community grouped by geography. One of the larger geographic communities that has gained repeated attention is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, the city of “brotherly love,” has not always had a reputation of being a loving place. The historical city, home to important national landmarks is the fifth most populous city in the United States and has gained national attention for some unfavorable statistics, including homicide, household income and poverty levels. It is a city that is described as having a “long-running status as a place for cast-offs, misfits and folks who didn’t (or couldn’t) fit in anywhere else.” However, today it is also considered a landing place for artists and thinkers and has been slated as a hub for informational technology.
One of the most exciting projects occurring in and affecting the larger Philadelphia community, is the Mural Project. Begun in 1984 as an initiative of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network and led by Jane Golden, it has grown into a well-known phenomenon that has gained the attention of major media, including Time magazine. “The results of the program were nothing less than magical. From the beginning, Golden witnessed how mural-making changed lives and how the murals themselves began to mend the aesthetic fabric of the city.” Since the start of the project, it has grown to be more than a project aimed at fixing a problem and rather an everyday part of people’s lives. In Creativity and Neighborhood Development, Nowak in reference to the Mural Project says, “Murals are a contract between people about what is important and how they want to identify their place.” Today the murals are a major tourist attraction and have been added to the list of historical and cultural landmarks, drawing visitors from all over the world.
The Mural Project has beautified the city, helped tremendously with a prominent graffiti problem, and has given the city a renewed identity that has attracted tourists the world over. Due to the Mural Project’s success, it has been an inspiration to other communities to attempt similar endeavors. This in and of itself is a positive outcome. However it also produces some concerns.
The original goal of the Mural Project was to solve a real community problem, making the city more livable for its citizens, not to attract tourists. Tourism was a by-product that then resulted in an economic impact. Those trying to replicate the Mural Project’s long-term success have taken it as a guide for improving a communities’ image, attracting tourists and creating economic gains.
Although the end outcomes of the Mural Project are valid, it is the relationships that were built that paved the way for these measurable outcomes to occur. Working backwards and trying to replicate the outcomes cannot replicate the Mural Project’s success. The development of the project stemmed from a natural need that was addressed in a creative organic manner that reestablished old and built new strands of relationships within the community, thereby strengthening the fabric of the community as a whole. The Mural Project process stemmed from principles of the Gemeinschaft, the communal society; whereas attempts at duplication may result in the forced characteristics of the Gesellschaft.
Copyright 2013