Blog

Creative Placemaking

The Problem with Calling Neighborhoods with Vacant Properties “Blighted”

Blight is a shorthand term many people use to refer to properties they perceive as problematic in some way.

How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect the Community

Vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties—referred to by some as “blighted properties”—pose significant costs to public health, property values, local taxpayers, and more.

Looking Back at the 2020-21 Community Revitalization Fellowship: Creative Placemaking by Community Leaders from Three Cities

Learn about creative placemaking projects by residents of Birmingham, Alabama; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Meet Kat Guillaume-Delemar, President & CEO of Community Progress

For Kat Guillaume-Delemar, community revitalization is a deeply personal journey.

Transforming Cleveland Vacant Lots into an Urban Farm

How the Cuyahoga Land Bank and a community activist worked together to transform a block one property at a time.

Creative Placemaking in Braddock, Pennsylvania

Community leaders in Braddock, North Braddock, and East Pittsburgh are creatively reactivating vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties.

Creación de espacios creativos en Loíza (Puerto Rico)

A principios de marzo, los cohortes de la Beca de Revitalización Comunitaria (CRF) 2022-23 viajaron a Loíza, Puerto Rico, para su segundo intercambio de aprendizaje. Estos intercambios de aprendizaje, que incluyeron formación técnica y entrenamiento de liderazgo, son oportunidades para que los becarios aprendan de cada uno y de sus…

Creative Placemaking in Loíza, Puerto Rico

As part of the Community Revitalization Fellowship, fellows from Loíza, Puerto Rico shared the creative placemaking working happening in their community.

What Is Creative Placemaking?

Creative placemaking is the practice of enhancing a neighborhood’s quality of life through arts, culture, and intentional community development. This practice can take many forms, like visual art installations, performance events, developing permanent brick-and-mortar spaces, and more. These creative approaches to addressing community challenges often include repurposing vacant properties. What…

Problem to Purpose: The Drug Activity Answer for One Lansing Neighborhood, Get Creative

Empty lots are open opportunities – for safety threats or community innovation. Pegasus Garden, located in the Prospect PLACE neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, is a great example of what happens when communities choose option two.

‘Inside Out’ project shines light on Edison neighborhood and residents

Information provided by Kelly Clarke, Executive Director, Kalamazoo County Land Bank. The ‘Inside Out’ project (Credit: Kalamazoo County Land Bank) What is Inside Out, and how did it come to Kalamazoo? Inside Out is a global participatory art project organized by JR, a winner of the 2011 Ted Prize at…

From a Shipping Container to a Solar-Powered Greenhouse: Arts Meets Agriculture in Detroit

In Detroit, a recycled shipping container will soon become a community beacon for fresh food, job creation, and arts and culture. Part agricultural, part placemaking, the Liberty Harvest project officially launched in July 2017. It is an initiative spearheaded by Resurge Detroit, a nonprofit with a mission to “tackle blight…

From Randyland to grand new plans: Albany and Flint residents learn from Pittsburgh successes

What can dinosaurs teach us about vacant land? Probably not very much. Dinosaurs are long extinct. Even plastic dino-toys – though ironic – have very little to offer us relative to vacancy or community health. I am surprised one would really even ponder this question. But do you know who…

Bridging policy and placemaking to activate vacant properties in the Twin Cities

Placemaking–and creative placemaking–has received a lot of attention over the past few years in community development circles—but what is it? And how does it relate to vacant and abandoned spaces? The Project for Public Spaces defines placemaking in this way: “Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share,…

Celebrating placemaking: The role of arts and culture in community development

Placemaking, wielded skillfully, is a powerful tool to preserve, respect, lift up, and celebrate the culture of a community in ways that go far beyond aesthetics. Giving placemaking and, within that, arts and culture, a seat at the table when community development decisions are made can help to support more…

Why do some cities have so many vacant properties?

Tarik Abdelazim, our associate director for National Technical Assistance, wrote this blog post (cross-posted from Breathing Lights) to begin to unpack the causes of vacancy and abandonment for residents of the Capital Region of New York. Although focused on cities in New York, the general trends described below are…

Vacant Home Tour changes the conversation around vacancy in Wilkinsburg

A creative new project in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, is all about changing the conversation around vacancy and abandonment in the community. In its second year, the Vacant Home Tour tells the story behind several vacant homes and businesses, reminding visitors of the rich history of the neighborhood, and inviting participants to…

President’s Preview: Communities across the country are turning to creative board-ups

Like many of you, I envision a future in which entrenched blight and vacancy in our communities is no more than a bad memory. While we work on the long term, however, communities also need near-term options to keep their residents safe and prevent decline. Lately, several organizations have come…

I Wish This Were a ______: A community re-imagines a blighted building in Lansing

Some chalkboard paint and a bucket of chalk turned a vacant eyesore into a canvas of possibilities in Lansing, Michigan’s Urbandale neighborhood. The abandoned, crumbling Paro Party Store had been a blight on Lansing’s East side for years. “I thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to have a co-op…