Municipal Placemaking Mistakes

Sort by Tag
Municipal Placemaking Mistakes

November 26, 2012 | 11:50 am

Municipal Placemaking Mistakes 04: No models for emulation

Emulation is more than just the highest form of flattery. It’s also a key factor in effective placemaking.

Yes, in the course of a meaningful visioning process, the naming of a specific place as a model for emulation is not absolutely necessary, but its benefits are so great that failing to do so constitutes one of the most critical mistakes you can make. Not because you should be identical to somewhere else but, rather, because you’re more effective developing a vision in terms of something real, proven and reliable, employing whatever tweaks or qualifications necessary to make it appropriate for your own community.

Mistake #4: Failing to identify an existing place as a model for emulation.

Category Development, Economic Development, Planning and Design, Public Engagement, Public Policy11 CommentsTags consensus-building, Greenville, Municipal Placemaking Mistakes, Nathan Norris, synoptic survey, visioning

November 19, 2012 | 9:30 am

Municipal Placemaking Mistakes 03: The importance of a meaningful vision

In our last post in this series, we covered the three steps of placemaking. The first of these steps, crafting a meaningful vision, is the most straightforward, yet it is also the most underleveraged.

It is underleveraged because communities do not understand its political implications. As a result they do not adequately invest in getting it right.

Mistake #3: Refusing to do the heavy lifting that is required in order to create a meaningful vision.

Category Architecture, Community Development, Development, Economic Development, Planning and Design, Public Engagement, Resilience3 CommentsTags development, economic development, environmental performance, Envision Utah, health impact analysis, Municipal Placemaking Mistakes, Nathan Norris, NIMBY, Tony Nelessen, visioning, Visual Preference Survey

November 1, 2012 | 8:54 am

Municipal Placemaking Mistakes 02: Context and sequencing FAIL

My first post in this series explored quantity vs. quality and how cities routinely throw their favor in the wrong direction. Today we consider big picture thinking and how the steps you take in the course of your efforts are not the end, but the means.

Mistake #2: Failure to understand the proper context and sequencing of the three steps of placemaking.

Category Back of the Envelope, Economic Development, Planning and Design, Public Policy3 CommentsTags community, Municipal Placemaking Mistakes, Nathan Norris

October 22, 2012 | 9:54 am

Municipal Placemaking Mistakes 01: Quantity over quality

Today we begin a PlaceShakers experiment. Through a series of periodic posts, Nathan Norris will explore how cities hinder their own placemaking efforts, wasting time and money by investing in tools, policies and programs that deliver lousy results. In the process, we’ll be looking to you to help flesh out the content through examples, personal experiences and links to additional resources. The goal? A one-stop, crowdsourced primer for cities and towns seeking advantage in an ever-competitive world.

Mistake #1: Judging urban development projects on their quantity of budget/unit count as opposed to the quality of their functional design details or return on investment.