Creative placemaking, though only gaining awareness recently as an approach, is showing exciting results already in regions as diverse as the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Los Angeles and Nashville. While new and “cutting edge” in some ways, it’s a logical extension of how regions already practice community engagement and participatory design strategies.
We can see a full picture of the evolution of this approach, and the potential benefits from it, in a longer case study detailing the recent experience of the Twin Cities in the building of their Green Line light rail connection between Minneapolis and Saint Paul. This longer case study is a great way to see what creative placemaking in transportation looks like from beginning to end in a specific context, and shorter stories from five other regions help illuminate other aspects of the process.