On April 26, Charlottesville Tomorrow held its annual community conversation. This year’s topic was “Placemaking: A Blueprint for our Future.” Over 130 community members turned out to hear Dr. Katherine Loflin present her findings from the Knight Foundation's Soul of the Community project on how attachment to place drives a community’s economic vitality – and how understanding those attachments can direct the ways in which we as a community choose to change and grow.

The top-4 attachment factors (full study):

Social offerings
Openess
Aesthetics
Education

If you weren't able to attend, here's a little background: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Gallup recognized that there had long been a connection between employee satisfaction and business productivity, and they wondered if the same could be applied to communities. So they set out to see if there was any connection between people’s general feelings of satisfaction about where they lived and the overall productivity and economic health of a community.

The resulting study of 26 communities, called the Soul of the Community, ended up drawing clear parallels between what they call “attachment drivers” and the growth of a local economy. Purposefully emphasizing those drivers in community-wide decision making and keeping place central to decisionmaking is what they call placemaking. Download the latest results from the project here.

Read more in Charlottesville Tomorrow.

By Penny Balkin Bach

Working in the field of public art automatically puts us in touch with the public, art, and its social context.

In fact, public art may be one of a community’s most overlooked and under appreciated cultural assets; it’s accessible “on the street”, any time, free to all, without a ticket, and diverse in content. It can be enjoyed spontaneously, alone, or in groups, and by culture seekers as well as new audiences.

There is data out there that supports the benefits of public art to the community.

The Knight Foundation and Gallup Corporation’s Soul of the Community study, for example, indicates that community attachment creates an emotional connection to place (which also correlates to local economic growth). They determined that the key drivers of attachment are social offerings, openness, and the aesthetics of place–all potential attributes of public art.

It’s fascinating that these drivers scored higher than education, basic services and safety, and the economy. Also, a local summer visitors survey conducted by the Greater Philadelphia Marketing & Tourism Corporation (GPTMC) found that of the city’s ten most popular outdoor activities, outdoor art ranked second–above hiking, jogging, and biking.

Public art can create community attachment, if we overcome perceived barriers and open pathways for engagement. With this in mind, the Fairmount Park Art Association developed Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO (MWW:AUDIO)—a multi-platform interactive audio experience, available for free on the street by cell phone, audio download, Android and iPhone mobile app, QR code, or online as streaming audio and audio slideshows.

Read the full article at ArtsUSA.org

By Penny Balkin Bach

Working in the field of public art automatically puts us in touch with the public, art, and its social context.

In fact, public art may be one of a community’s most overlooked and under appreciated cultural assets; it’s accessible “on the street”, any time, free to all, without a ticket, and diverse in content. It can be enjoyed spontaneously, alone, or in groups, and by culture seekers as well as new audiences.

There is data out there that supports the benefits of public art to the community.

The Knight Foundation and Gallup Corporation’s Soul of the Community study, for example, indicates that community attachment creates an emotional connection to place (which also correlates to local economic growth). They determined that the key drivers of attachment are social offerings, openness, and the aesthetics of place–all potential attributes of public art.

It’s fascinating that these drivers scored higher than education, basic services and safety, and the economy. Also, a local summer visitors survey conducted by the Greater Philadelphia Marketing & Tourism Corporation (GPTMC) found that of the city’s ten most popular outdoor activities, outdoor art ranked second–above hiking, jogging, and biking.

Public art can create community attachment, if we overcome perceived barriers and open pathways for engagement. With this in mind, the Fairmount Park Art Association developed Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO (MWW:AUDIO)—a multi-platform interactive audio experience, available for free on the street by cell phone, audio download, Android and iPhone mobile app, QR code, or online as streaming audio and audio slideshows.

While our delivery system is comprehensive and impressive, our primary goal was to develop a conceptually sound, content-rich program that could be adapted to new technology over time. In my opinion, getting too caught up in the technology is a trap; it’s like jumping on a high-speed train, without knowing where you’re headed.

MWW:AUDIO was inspired by the idea that there is a unique story, civic effort, and creative expression behind every public sculpture in Philadelphia—and that an ideal way to tell each story is in the environment and context of city life.

 

Read more at ArtsUSA.org

What appeals to you about the neighborhood you call home? Were you born and raised in Minnesota or did you intentionally migrate to the land of 10,000 lakes? What drew you to stake your future here?

The Knight Soul of the Community research project was launched by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Gallup with similar questions, and the findings over time have been surprisingly consistent.

Four main attributes affect quality of life and create emotional bonds between people and their places: social offerings, openness, aesthetics and education.

When people find these attributes, they are more likely to stay and make a life. The Knight results also found that communities with the highest levels of resident attachment also enjoy the greatest levels of gross domestic product growth.

Read more at Minnesota Community Foundation's blog

by Edward T. McMahon, April 4, 2012

Around the world, cities are seeking the recipe for economic success in a rapidly changing global marketplace. Indispensable assets in a post–industrial economy include: well–educated people, the ability to generate new ideas and to turn those ideas into commercial realities, connectivity to global markets, and multi-modal transportation infrastructure. Another critical—but often forgotten—asset is community distinctiveness.

If I have learned anything from my career in urban planning, it is this: a community’s appeal drives economic prosperity. I have also learned that, while change is inevitable, the destruction of a community’s unique character and identity is not. Progress does not demand degraded surroundings. Communities can grow without destroying the things that people love.

In 2010, the Knight Foundation teamed up with Gallup pollsters to survey 43,000 people in 26 cities (where Knight-Ridder had newspapers). The so-called Soul of the Community Survey was designed to answer questions such as: What makes residents love where they live? What attracts people to a place and keeps them there?

The study found that the most important factors that create emotional bonds between people and their community were not jobs and the economy, but rather “physical beauty, opportunities for socializing and a city’s openness to all people.” The Knight Foundation also found that communities with the highest levels of attachment also had the highest rates of gross domestic product growth and the strongest economies.

Place is more than just a location on a map. A sense of place is a unique collection of qualities and characteristics – visual, cultural, social, and environmental – that provide meaning to a location. Sense of place is what makes one city or town different from another, but sense of place is also what makes our physical surroundings worth caring about. 

Author Wallace Stegner once said, “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” We all need points of reference and orientation. A community’s unique identity provides that orientation, while also adding economic and social value. To foster distinctiveness, cities must plan for built environments and settlement patterns that are both uplifting and memorable and that foster a sense of belonging and stewardship by residents.

Planners spend most of their time focusing on numbers – the number of units per acre, the number of cars per hour, the number of floors per building. In the future, they will need to spend more time thinking about the values, customs, characteristics and quirks that make a place worth caring about. Unfortunately, many communities are suffering the social and economic consequences of losing their distinctiveness.

When it comes to 21st century economic development, a key concept is community differentiation. If you can’t differentiate your community from any other, you have no competitive advantage.

...

More at URBANLAND: http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2012/April/McMahonDistinctive 

 

Photo Credit: Flickr user Chris M

Recently, the Center for the Future of Arizona announced the winners of a contest that sought five big ideas for bringing Arizonans together and taking action on issues they feel strongly about.

The effort centers on a resident-driven agenda for the state, one spurred by the Knight-funded Soul of the Community study. The research looked at why residents loved where they live - and how that relates to a community’s economic growth. 

Inspired by the Soul findings, the center designed a similar Gallup poll for Arizona that looked at residents’ views on community life and what they want for their state’s future. 

The poll captured a comprehensive picture of resident thinking and found a surprising amount of consensus among Arizonans on issues. Based on the poll’s findings, Dr. Lattie Coor, Chairman and CEO of the Center for the Future of Arizona, established The Arizona We Want Institute, in order to implement the people’s agenda for the state.

The winning projects from the Five Communities Project contest, which is based at the Center for the Future of Arizona, all focus on improving life in Arizona. In its inaugural year, the contest encouraged the community to propose ways to increase connections between residents and fund projects that address issues that people feel strongly about.

The contest winners, who represent communities statewide, were chosen by a national selection panel that included Paula Ellis, vice president/strategic initiatives at Knight Foundation, and several of the country’s other top thinkers on civic engagement.

The winning ideas focus specifically on job creation in the community, addressing environmental issues and increasing civic involvement. The projects will jointly apply with the Center for the Future of Arizona for $1.5 million in funding from national organizations to implement their proposals. 

More information about the Five Communities Project’s winners can be found online.

 

“Place Matters,” a weekly radio program, is being featured in The Atlantic as among one of the “best venues to tell the story” of placemaking and community engagement.

Profiling the innovating placemaking work of various cities, the Knight-funded program also showcases successful ideas from everyday citizens who are involved in making their communities a better place to live.

In the article “Place Matters: How One Radio Show Makes the Case Every Week,” Charles Wolfe writes:

“Based on my review of several of the podcasts, Loflin's common themes show important sensitivity to the specific context of a place, from the Detroit renaissance to technological opportunity to inventory place in Chicago, and she is most fond of a very key point: Soul of the Community findings show that Generation Y will often move to a city without guarantee of employment, if the place has draw for other reasons.”

The radio show is hosted by Dr. Katherine Loflin, the lead consultant on the Knight-funded Soul of the Community project, a groundbreaking study that explored what makes people love where the live and why it matters.

Dr. Loflin helped identify a strong correlation between how citizens feel about their local community and the economic output of that community.

The Atlantic article also appeared on My Urbanist, an Atlantic partner site.

About hosting the program, Loflin says:

“Through the show, I wanted to raise the placemaking conversation, reflect that conversation back to the field and provide a platform to show the wide range of sectors coming to the same conclusions about the importance of place. I think I am off to a good start, but there is more to do and many more stories, ideas, research findings, and thought leaders to showcase in order to move the field forward.”

“Place Matters” airs Thursdays at 11 a.m. EST on Miami’s WZAB, 880-AM. It is also available for download as a podcast on iTunes.

Knight Foundation blogged about the launch of Place Matters earlier this fall.

By Erin Rowley | Cross-posted from COFinteract.org

There are a lot of things to love about Centre County, Pa. Beautiful natural features. Ample opportunities to socialize. An open and accepting attitude among residents.

And according to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, qualities like that create a sense of attachment that inspire Centre County residents.

The Knight Foundation’s Soul of the Community project found that there is a strong, positive correlation between residents’ attachment to their community and economic growth in that community. It also found that the qualities that most attach people to the place they live are aesthetics (the natural and manmade beauty of a place), social offerings (exciting opportunities to socialize with old friends and make new ones), and openness (how welcoming a place is to diverse groups of people).

The Centre County region was ranked highest in terms of attachment among the 26 communities that Knight studied. But there is always room for improvement.

We’re using the Soul of the Community project to get people talking: what do they love about their community? What could be changed to make them love it even more? We believe that community foundations are uniquely positioned to take on projects of this scale, which is why we would like to take the time during Community Foundation Week to encourage people at community foundations across the country to examine how aesthetics, social offerings, and openness impact their community, and how they can improve on those qualities. The potential rewards of this endeavor (a more attached, more economically prosperous community) are too good to miss out on.

Erin Rowley is a program assistant at the Centre County Community Foundation, a member of the Council on Foundations.

Stockholm Subway Image via Wacky Owl

This post, written by Knight Foundation Arts Program Associate, Tatiana Hernandez, was originally published on the Americans for the Arts' Blog.

The Animating Democracy blog salon on ARTSblog.org sought answers to a very big question: what will it take to move and sustain arts and culture in community development, civic engagement and social change? The 21^st century is all about intersections, networks and hybridity. Our goal should be to ingrain arts in community development through cross-cutting projects that seek to anchor people to place. Carol Atlas nailed it by highlighting Arts & Democracy’s new book: Bridge Conversations, People Who Live and Work in Multiple Worlds.

The Stockholm metro is not only informally known as “the world’s longest art gallery” but it’s also a leader in energy conservation - harvesting body heat from passengers to help ease heating requirements. This is a creative solution that puts people (literally) at the heart of the work. Erik Takeshita said it best, “the importance of culture – not just art – is critical.” To Takeshita’s point, the Stockholm metro isn’t art specifically, its culture; a way of expressing the values of a society. 

The Stockholm metro also borrows a tech industry idea by focusing on a human centered approach to creative placemaking. Sara Bateman highlighted this concept through Julie Keefe’s Hello Neighbor Project. Keefe understood that neighborhoods are about people, infrastructure and the space in between. Often, it’s the space in between where the arts and creativity can play the biggest role.

In the past, the arts were perceived as an embellishment to the community development process.

In the midst of the Great Depression, the U.S. government created the Public Works of Art Project, through which participating artists produced pieces that adorned government buildings. A Smithsonian Magazine article on the 2009 Public Works art exhibit ends with the question, “What abandoned subdivision, its streets choked with weeds, would convey the 'American scene' to artists today?"

Thankfully, artists are being asked to move beyond the depiction of the “American scene” to the co-creation of it.

Today we have opportunities like ArtPlace insisting that creativity be central to the neighborhood development process, not simply a vehicle for adornment. In that context, we are moving the needle in the right direction.

I reference the Stockholm example to show how creativity is currently being embedded in placemaking. What I see as the key to others successes is the concept of hybridity.

We must look at artists as agents of social change, city planners as visionary futurists, and transit commissioners as curators. Our societal challenges are interwoven, yet solutions thus far been narrowly focused. We will have the greatest impact when we work as a coalition, of people, from broad fields of expertise towards the common good.