Creative Placemaking

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What is creative placemaking?

Creative placemaking is the practice of enhancing a neighborhood’s quality of life through arts, culture, and intentional community development to meet the visions of the people who live, work, and play in the space. This practice can take varying forms including, but not limited to, temporary visual art installations, performance events, and developing permanent, brick-and-mortar spaces.

Creative placemaking is about more than just creating artistic attractions, though. Creative placemaking strategies also connect to the resources of a community’s own arts, culture, and identity, and in doing so can help communities understand its past, examine its history, and together look ahead toward a more just and inclusive future. For many communities, an examination of shared history is not easy. Community development in the United States is interwoven with racist and unjust policies that benefited some communities at the expense of others. When done equitably, creative placemaking can be one way for communities to leverage creative expression to reshape a community, reverse the systemic silencing of residents, and spur investment. In the last decade, philanthropic and government entities have invested millions of dollars into creative placemaking endeavors. Within this broad, growing field exists a subset of creative placemaking efforts: those taking place on vacant, abandoned, and underutilized properties. Community Progress’ work over the last several years offers insight into how communities across the country are using creative placemaking to address problem properties and advance community-centered revitalization—and the challenges that sometimes stymy these efforts. You will find these pages full of resources to inform you, inspire you, and ultimately help you implement creative placemaking. We look forward to growing our collective knowledge and helping communities revitalize vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties through arts and culture.

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Creative Placemaking Resources

Project Database

Get Inspired! What would you think if you encountered performance art, led by young people, on a vacant lot? Incorporating the arts into place-based community development can spark fresh interest in vacant property. See what others are doing by exploring creative placemaking projects from across the country or share your own project to be included!

Front and Schiller Park

By Rob Wilson | October 26, 2021

Starting in 2020, Ashely DeJesus Santiago, a young mother of three, started organizing the themed clean up at the Front and Schiller Park. DeJesus lives across from the Front and Schiller Park, a pocket park located on the northwest side of Reading. Neighbors have been concerned with the safety of the park because it is…

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Leap Year Lights Festival

By Rob Wilson | October 26, 2021

Riverfront Park is located on the Nashua River in downtown Fitchburg. Throughout the 1900s, paper manufacturers dumped dyes and other industrial byproducts into the river, and the river was named one of the 10 most polluted in the nation in 1960.[1] Residents fought for new and improved water treatment plants and today the river is…

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South of Penn Community Lot

By Rob Wilson | October 26, 2021

On a Friday in September 2021, a 110-pound turtle was walking along a patch of grass while children learned about reptiles and insects. The reptile show was part of a series of programs such as movie nights, cleanups, porch concerts, and art workshops that have been taking place at the South of Penn Community Lot.…

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Alleyway Concerts

By Rob Wilson | October 20, 2021

The Alleyway Concerts were born out of the desire to activate underappreciated spaces while also gathering community members through music. Concert locations have ranged from abandoned lots to bodega fronts to inside a laundromat. Using simple portable speakers and microphones the program engages local artists and businesses to see the beauty of their community through…

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Vacant Homes Tour

By Rob Wilson | October 20, 2021

Wilkinsburg is community just outside Pittsburgh with a population of 15,000 residents. In 2014 a community artist, Dee Briggs, purchased a vacant house slated for demolition in Wilkinsburg. She painted it gold and used media channels to shine a light on the history of the house and the people who once called it home. In…

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The Yes! House

By Rob Wilson | October 20, 2021

Leading the project is the Department of Public Transformation (DoPT), an artist-led nonprofit focused on rural revitalization and civic engagement through the arts. The organization is fueled by a belief that arts-based interventions have the power to address some of the challenges rural communities face and strengthen social cohesion among community members. Leaders of the…

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Union Station Revival

By Rob Wilson | October 20, 2021

As a city that has lost more than half its population in the last 50 years, Gary, Indiana, faces significant challenges with vacancy and abandonment, including that of its historic Union Station. The Beaux-Arts building was built in 1910, but sat forgotten and left to the elements for nearly half a century. In 2016, a…

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The Exchange House and Backyard

By Rob Wilson | October 20, 2021

The Exchange House is located in North Akron, an international neighborhood home to people from Nepal, Bhutan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, and more. Beyond providing a gathering space and lodging, the Exchange House is also working to build a coalition of multicultural leaders in North Akron. The organization that initiated the effort was Better Block Foundation,…

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Steps at Main

By Rob Wilson | October 20, 2021

From the library’s perspective, staff were seeking a way to make the library more relevant for the low-income Latino community who live nearby. As part of this work, the library established an outreach coordinator position to develop non-traditional programming, starting with baseline surveys to identify obstacles that prevent folks from using the library. Respondents expressed…

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Sprinkler Beach

By Rob Wilson | October 20, 2021

On an underutilized municipal parking lot in Monticello, New York, youth painted an ocean and beach to kick off a day spent splashing in sprinklers while their parents brainstormed downtown commercial district revitalization. The Sullivan County Planning Department, Village of Monticello Department of Public Works and Fire Department, and Center for Workforce Development’s Youth Program…

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For more information on how Community Progress can support your creative placemaking initiatives, check out: our services, or send us a message to request help.

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of creative placemaking projects on vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties builds community among residents.