THE SCENIC ROUTE

Getting Started with Creative Placemaking

Our Eight Approaches

Great places rely on good infrastructure combined with a meaningful mix of programming, public spaces and diverse economic opportunity for the people who then inhabit and bring them to life. The eight approaches outlined below represent proven avenues to improve partnerships while better knitting together all of the above.

By using these approaches for tapping into the social networks built around arts and culture, you can earn the trust of your community. By identifying sites of cultural significance, you can be mindful and inclusive of them in planning infrastructure and redevelopment projects.

In The Scenic Route, we outline eight basic approaches to creative placemaking to help you get started. Each approach consists of three things: an intro page with some basic information about the approach, a section called “Get Inspired: Local Examples” that typically provides at least one local, concrete example to provide some inspiration, and a section called “Go Deeper” which provides more detailed resources. The eight approaches we unpack in this resource below are not a linear list, nor do they represent the limit of what’s possible for you and your region or community.

Click on any approach below to jump right in.

 

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“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed a turpis nec velit blandit sollicitudin. Donec lacinia, ligula quis ultrices sagittis, augue nisi.”
  • What is Creative Placemaking?
    • A View From the Field
  • Start Here
    • New tools for a new era
    • What are the benefits?
    • What makes creative placemaking different?
    • Where did creative placemaking come from?
    • Development without displacement
    • How do I do it?
  • Our Eight Approaches
    • Identify the Community’s Assets
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Integrate the Arts Into Design, Construction and Engineering
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Marketing to Cultivate Ownership and Pride
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Leveraging Cultural Districts and Corridors
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Mobilize the Community to Achieve Your Shared Goals
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Develop Local Leadership
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Organize Events and Activities
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Incorporate Arts in Public and Advisory Meetings
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
  • Placemaking in Practice
    • The Green Line (Twin Cities)
      • Grassroots efforts transformed the project
      • How arts improved the construction process
      • Building identity with light rail stations
      • The Green Line altered the rules of engagement
      • Conclusion: Better projects and places
    • Los Angeles
    • Detroit
    • San Diego
    • Portland
    • Nashville
  • Featured Places
  • Appendix
    • Appendix – Measurement in practice
You are here: Home / Our Eight Approaches / Identify the Community’s Assets and Strengths / Go Deeper

Go Deeper

Inventory assets, gain feedback, and craft a cultural plan

Decatur, Georgia was an early adopter of cultural arts master planning. The city began by conducting an inventory of its creative assets, and then holding focus groups with local citizens to determine what types of arts and culture people prioritized. As a result of responses in those focus groups, the city chose to prioritize emerging artists and participatory arts practices, and developed a cultural master plan to shape how it would do so. www.decaturga.com/index.aspx?page=154

Encouraging locals to incorporate arts and culture

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), the region’s metropolitan planning organization, offers an Arts and Culture Toolkit. This roadmap is available for municipalities in and beyond Northeastern Illinois to incorporate arts and culture into their communities. The toolkit includes definitions, planning steps, case studies, external resources, and model regulatory language.

Developing more helpful indicators

While sites of culture can be mapped, it’s still a fairly two-dimensional picture of a region’s assets. Developing a more comprehensive set of indicators — while a more experimental approach at this point — can provide a fuller picture about those opportunities, who participates, and a region’s level of overall support. All of these together constitute a region’s cultural vitality according to The Urban Institute. 1

In a case study, the institute shows how leaders in the San Joaquin Valley of California have used cultural indicators to transform segments of Route 99 through freeway improvements and beautification efforts that point people towards arts and culture venues. www.urban.org/projects/cultural-vitality-indicators/caseexample.cfm

Related resources

  • The Creative City Network of Canada has a step-by-step cultural mapping toolkit designed to take you through the entire mapping process, from creating an inventory to drawing up and presenting your map.
  • Americans for the Arts offers an overview of cultural planning and how to develop a cultural plan, with links to several examples and case studies.
  • The Creative City Network of Canada offers a Cultural Planning Toolkit
    — The toolkit includes an adaptable model and practical checklists for charting and tracking progress.
  • Healthy City offers a Participatory Asset Mapping Toolkit for communities. http://communityscience.com/knowledge4equity/assetmappingtoolkit.pdf (pdf)

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  1. Chapter 5 on page 40 and chapter 7 on page 57 have examples of this practice, though it’s still somewhat experimental and brings a new set of challenges as a more groundbreaking approach.  www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/311392_Cultural_Vitality.pdf 

Eight approaches to creative placemaking

Develop Local Leadership & Capacity

Menu: Eight Approaches

  • Our Eight Approaches
    • Identify the Community’s Assets
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Integrate the Arts Into Design, Construction and Engineering
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Marketing to Cultivate Ownership and Pride
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Leveraging Cultural Districts and Corridors
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Mobilize the Community to Achieve Your Shared Goals
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Develop Local Leadership
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Organize Events and Activities
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples
      • Go Deeper
    • Incorporate Arts in Public and Advisory Meetings
      • Get Inspired: Local Examples

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Master Cultural Planning

At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad … Read More...

Identify the Community’s Assets and Strengths

Identifying the existing arts and cultural assets — whether places, people, artists, groups or institutions — provides local leaders with invaluable opportunities to build powerful relationships in … Read More...

Leveraging Cultural Districts and Corridors

A cultural district is a labeled area of a city in which a high concentration of cultural facilities and programs serve as the main anchor of attraction and are marketed together. This is one of the … Read More...

Mobilize the Community to Achieve Your Shared Goals

Local units of government can tap local nonprofits or area organizations to identify and showcase support for projects or related community improvements. Who can do it: Metropolitan planning … Read More...

Develop Local Leadership & Capacity

Support community-led visions and let the community work for you Local nonprofits can use arts-based tools to bring attention to and build momentum for desired plans, projects and development … Read More...

Organize Events and Activities

Events and activities provide a draw and bring positive attention to an area. And they can also be a forum for gathering new ideas and public involvement. Who can do it: Local units of government … Read More...

Incorporate Arts in Public and Advisory Meetings

Almost nothing gets built today without some level of public engagement and most large-scale planning efforts engage the public to some degree. But whether this input is truly inclusive, timely or … Read More...

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Transportation for America

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

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Thank You

This report was made possible through the generous support of the Kresge Foundation.

The Kresge Foundation “focuses on the role arts and culture play in re-energizing the communities that have long been central to America’s social and economic life,” believing that “arts and culture are an integral part of life and, when embedded in cross-sector revitalization activity, can contribute to positive and enduring economic, physical, social and cultural change in communities.” Kresge also supported projects detailed in this report in Nashville, Portland, San Diego and Detroit.

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Visit the new version of the Scenic Route!

Visit our new updated, refreshed, and re-conceived version of The Scenic Route at http://transportation.art, released in April 2021. We revisited and updated many of the stories in this old version, in addition to adding brand new profiles and stories about more recent developments. (Nothing worth reading here has been excluded from the new version!) Check it out!

This older Scenic Route guide (v. 1.0) will be eventually retired, though still available for archival purposes.