December 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 29

stormwater management - conservation can become an integral part
of the placemaking process. When it
does, it can strengthen the community commitment and provide many
new ways to engage volunteers and
make the benefits of placemaking
long-lasting and self-renewing.
The concept of placemaking was
first articulated by seminal thinkers
in the 1960s and '70s, such as Jane
Jacobs, Kevin Lynch and William
Whyte, who articulated key ideas
about what makes certain urban
places attractive and desirable to their
residents. This idea " ...has expanded
to include broader concerns about
healthy living, social justice, community capacity-building, economic revitalization, childhood development
and a host of other issues. "
Placemaking is now also reaching
the mainstream of public understanding and gaining wider acceptance in
cities and communities. The MIT
study authors assert that placemaking
is fundamentally the return of public
space to people. Much of the impetus
for the movement came as a reaction
to top-down decisions by " experts "
in urban planning and transportation
who caused communities to be bisected by massive highway construction
projects and to have eliminated walkable community centers as a result of
urban renewal and revitalization projects. " Present-day placemaking is a
response to the systematic destruction
of human-friendly, community-centric
spaces of the early 20th century, " the
authors state. " The mutual stewardship
of place and community is what we
call the virtuous cycle of placemaking. In
this mutual relationship, communities
transform places, which in turn transform communities, and so on. "
The most important finding of
the MIT study is that the " mak-

ing " of places may be as important,
and in some cases, even more important than the establishment of
the " place " itself. However, placemaking is more than just a planning concept. According to one of
its main practitioners, Fred Kent,
the executive director of Project
for Public Spaces, " Placemaking is
the act of doing something. It's not
planning. It's doing. That's what's
so powerful about it. "

Placemaking strengthens
local leadership and
engages communities
in vital ways by creating
the kind of public spaces
that people value and
want to use.
And this is how conservation can
become an integral part of virtually
every placemaking project. Nearly
all of the projects described in the
case studies cited in the MIT paper,
even if they focused on highly urban
spaces that were already developed,
paved and hardened, had natural
components - planters, gardens,
trees, and in some, such as Discovery Green in Houston, larger natural landscapes within park settings.
Others, such as a project in Guerro
Park in San Francisco, involved the
creation of a green median in the
middle of a traffic-calming intersection with plantings as a natural
component, but in each project, the
infusing of nature into the public
space was critical to the project's

acceptance and success in the community. Each of the examples cited in the MIT paper are relevant in
demonstrating that not only is the
process of placemaking a powerful
force, but also that there are many
conservation best practices that can
be incorporated into the placemaking process.
Parks, by definition, are public
spaces for conservation. Placemaking projects, the majority of which
involve parks or public lands, can be
a golden opportunity to demonstrate
conservation principles and practices. These conservation practices can
include landscaping with plantings
attractive to native wildlife, creating pollinator and butterfly gardens,
planting native plant species that
are adapted to local climate and soil
types, and larger objectives such as
taking advantage of opportunities to
implement green infrastructure projects that manage and control stormwater onsite or including provisions
of alternative energy sources such as
solar and wind.
Improving and strengthening
communities is a fundamental goal
of placemaking, and the process,
even in the face of obstacles and
barriers, will empower residents
and create stronger communities.
" The social goals of building social capital, increasing civic engagement and advocating for the
right to the city are as central to
contemporary placemaking as are
the creation of beautiful parks and
vibrant squares, " states the report.
And adding conservation objectives
to placemaking projects will make
for even stronger communities and
more vibrant public places.
Richard J. Dolesh is NRPA's Vice President of
Conservation and Parks (rdolesh@nrpa.org).

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