Page 9 - Toolkit

This is the first iteration of the Tool Kit; a presentation
of resources and the invitation for collective process, feedback, edits, corrections and additions. As it evolves and is customized by many minds and voices, it will become and remain living, useful and relevant. We approach
this Tool Kit with the challenge of embracing complexity, differences, change, critique, dialogue and process. We expect and invite edits to correct errors or omissions and provide new information or points of view.
This Tool Kit shares some of the best lessons we’ve learned about the young field of “Creative Placemaking”. Actually, this work is a dialectical return to the best of ancient practices that put equitable, just, self-defining human culture back in its rightful, rooted place in economic and community development practices.
This Tool Kit is dedicated to the idea that there are ways to fairly allow local people, not profits or systems, to define what constitutes our own neighborhoods, needs, visions and right to determine who defines what is needed for our own health, culture, environment, families, education, work, housing, transportation and other basics.
DEFINITION OF CREATIVE PLACEMAKING
The appreciation for the economic power of cultural entrepreneurship has grown, reaching seminal moments with the simultaneous coining of the term of “Creative Placemaking” (*Markusen, Gadwa 2010), the establishment of ArtPlace America fund (both in 2010) and the National Endowment for the Arts’ “Our Town Grant” to fund Creative Placemaking projects.
Research, project documentation, conferences, organizations, books, articles, TED Talks and field guides abounded as Creative Placemaking took a new place in the minds of City Planners, Developers, Academics and Economists.
Much has been written and enacted under this moniker. It has included everything from transformational, grass- roots benefits in neighborhoods, to misuse by developers that resulted in gentrification and profit for a few; plus, everything in between.
Because the nature of the field is community process oriented, as it is applied and studied, new features are included and new names coined. The field is also known as many other names, including Creative Placekeeping and Arts-based Community Development.
No matter its name, the field is predicated on putting the human story and culture in the center of community and economic development. According to Gadwa, Markusen, Kresge Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Placemaking has core tenants:
1. “Strategic action by cross-sector partners 2. A place-based orientation
3. A core of arts and cultural activities
“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.”
Per Gadwa, in Creative Placemaking “Our frame helps transcend narrow economic impact or art-for-art’s sake justifications that have previously dominated and divided arts advocacy camps.” It emphasizes how arts intrinsically impact community fabric, economically, physically and socially, through celebration and inspiration. (https://www.lisc.org/our-resources/resource/creative- placemaking-101-community-developers)
The definition articulated by ArtPlace America states,“Creative Placemaking is the intentional integration of arts, culture, and community-engaged design strategies into the process of equitable community planning and development. It’s when artists, culture-bearers, and designers act as allies to creatively address challenges
and opportunities. It’s about these artists and all of the
allies together contributing to community-defined social, physical, and economic outcomes and honoring a sense of place. (https://www.artplaceamerica.org/areas-of-work/ introduction)
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