Group items tagged

Place Capital, which posits that the economic value of a robust, dynamic place is much more than the sum of its parts.

Great places are created through many “investments” in Place Capital–everything from individual actions that together build a welcoming sense of place, all the way up to major physical changes that make a space usable and accessible.

At its core, Place Capital is about re-connecting economy and community.

public space projects

tend to fall into one of four types of development

project-driven processes; top-down, bureaucratic leadership

Project-driven processes generally lead to places that follow a general protocol without any consideration for local needs or desires.

design-led process.

eliance on the singular vision of professional designers and other siloed disciplines can often make for spaces that are lovely as objects, but not terribly functional as public gathering places.

place-sensitive. Here, designers and architects are still leading the process, but there is concerted effort to gather community input and ensure that the final design responds to the community that lives, works, and plays around the space.

Finally, there are spaces that are created through a place-led approach, which relies not on community input, but on a unified focus on place outcomes built on community engagement. The people who participate in a place-led development process feel invested in the resulting public space, and are more likely to serve as stewards.

They are involved meaningfully throughout the process

turn proximity into purpose

concept of Place Capital is ideally-suited to guide the cooperation of so many individual movements that are looking for ways to work together to change the world for the better. Place Capital employs the Placemaking process to help us outline clear economic goals that re-frame the way that people think not only about public space but, by extension, about the public good in general.

surge of interest in Placemaking in the United States over the past few decades.