Creative Placemaking
Excerpt #10 from
Beyond The Numbers: Inadequacies of Creative Placemaking Criteria
Cultural community development is development that seeks to improve a community by addressing social issues and improving the overall quality of life through a process steeped in arts and culture. The term most utilized in the field today to define this particular line of development is called creative placemaking.
The initial definition of creative placemaking, still used by the NEA, that was developed by Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa in their 2010 white paper Creative Placemaking:
“In creative placemaking, partners from public, private, nonprofit, and community sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, tribe, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. Creative placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired.”
Others in the field have penned different definitions that highlight different elements, indicating the broad spectrum creative placemaking covers and the fact that it is very much a newly developed term still in need of further refining.
Three prominent organizations that each have their own definitions are ArtPlace, Artspace, and Artscape. The first, the funder ArtPlace, is a collaborative effort amongst banks, foundations and the NEA and is currently a leading national funder of creative placemaking. ArtPlace defines creative placemaking as “a means of investing in art and culture at the heart of a portfolio of integrated strategies that can drive vibrancy and diversity so powerful that it transforms communities.”
Artspace, began in 1979 in Minneapolis’ historic Warehouse District, as an advocate for artists’ need for maintaining low-priced space in the light of gentrification. With its success and the continued need, Artspace changed from advocate to developer ten years after its inception. Today, Artspace is America’s “leading nonprofit real estate developer for the arts.” Artspace defines creative placemaking as “the leveraging of cultural assets to strengthen the social fabric of a community.”
Similar to Artspace, Artscape, established in 1986 in Toronto, has developed from a studio provider to a creative urban development group. They gained a reputation as an international leader in the fields of culture-led regeneration and city-building through the arts.” Artscape’s definition of creative placemaking is: “Creative placemaking is an evolving field of practice that intentionally leverages the power of the arts, culture and creativity to serve a community’s interest while driving a broader agenda for change, growth and transformation in a way that also builds character and quality of place.”
In their book Placemaking on a Budget, Al Zelinka and Susan Jackson Harden define placemaking as, “The process of adding value and meaning to the public realm through community-based revitalization projects rooted in local values, history, culture, and natural environment.”
Kip Bergstrom of the Connecticut Office of the Arts says “great art makes great places. Great places attract great talent. Great talent creates great jobs.” And Connecticut’s official definition is:
“Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public and private space(s) and the people who use them, that leverages the assets of the creative sector — artists, arts and cultural organizations, arts-related business —along with residents, schools, businesses and local governments, to improve the community’s economic conditions and quality of life. It creates artistic communities with a rich variety of participants and events involving large cultural institutions, small emerging organizations with fresh ideas, community and educational organizations, and artists who flourish in a supportive environment.”
As can be seen by the differing definitions, creative placemaking is an evolving concept. It is considered a field of practice, means of investment, a process and an approach. It is said to animate, leverage, improve and transform various aspects of community. One reoccurring word is leverage. The general concept appears to be the use of cultural assets to leverage improvement by adding value to a community. The use of the word leverage implies that something is being used to influence, sway or bring about a certain desired outcome. It also implies that the final results will outweigh the initial investment. No matter how it is defined, its charges are filled with responsibility.
Copyright 2013