We asked all of you to join in on this conversation as well. Mary Means works as a consultant for her firm Mary Means + Associates and has extensive experience in community-based strategic planning. Prior to entering consulting, Mary was Vice President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where she is best known for having created the National Main Street program. The following are her answers to our questions posed on creative placemaking.<\/i><\/p>\n
It depends on where and what I am working on.\u00a0 I\u2019m a community planning consultant with more than 40 years of experience, first as a non-profit provider of no-cost technical assistance to communities, then as the owner of a boutique consulting firm known for \u201cbuilding bridges between plans and people.\u201d\u00a0 Community engagement runs throughout every assignment.\u00a0 Back to where and what.\u00a0 In the case of a historic African American educational institution on a South Carolina Sea Island, community includes the Gullah people of that island and vicinity, alumni and children of alumni.\u00a0 At a secondary level community also includes Caucasian residents of the area who believe in the institution\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n In the case of a distressed community in South Florida that is 95% African American and Latino, community includes the residents of the municipality and those engaged in improving their quality of life. How do you see your role in the community?<\/strong><\/p>\n As a consultant, usually \u201cfrom away,\u201d\u00a0 I view my client as the fiscal agent and sponsor of my work, and I honor this relationship fully.\u00a0 But in my heart the true client is the community: all who will benefit in the long term from the revitalization work we are engaged in.\u00a0 Not infrequently, I am an advocate for the latter in my dealings with the formal client. Talk about the work you\u2019re doing in your community. What was the catalyst for this work? What started you on this journey?<\/strong><\/p>\n I began my professional life in the Midwest in the 1970s, charged with helping communities form preservation organizations or otherwise preserve historic buildings.\u00a0 I could see that downtowns of small towns and medium sized cities were dying as business fled to greenfields and highway corridors.\u00a0 Looking back, I felt the downtown was the center of more than commerce, it was the traditional crossroad of community life \u2013 and the lights were going out. It was a lot more than historic architecture at stake.<\/p>\n So I conceived of an experiment to see what might help keep Main Street alive.\u00a0 Working in three pilot towns for three years we learned what worked and what did not.\u00a0 We\u00a0 synthesized it into a conceptual framework called the Main Street Approach, developed training materials and courses, conferences and a film\u2014and unexpectedly took it to scale.\u00a0 There are now more than 1500 towns and urban commercial corridors that have used these materials and approach to bring life back to their communities.<\/p>\n Each Main Street \u2013 or Elm Street or whatever the name core public heart of a town or city \u2013 is a distinctive place, or was before engineers arrived with pedestrian malls or one-way pairs for streets, and siding salesmen pitched the newest \u201ccover up\u201d for familiar buildings. Factors that contribute to this distinction include the presence of civic institutions, cultural gathering places that might be theaters or a town square,<\/p>\n In my consulting practice I work with places that retain some degree of authentic character and that seek to build upon it for enhanced economic opportunity and quality of life.\u00a0 Often this involves aspects of downtown revitalization. It can also involve heritage or cultural tourism, but with a bent towards local benefit rather than doing things for the sake of tourists. What is the driving force? What continues to motivate the work?<\/strong><\/p>\n I love it when my efforts help the community\u2019s leaders achieve a) a shared vision, b) understanding of what needs to be done to achieve it, c) momentum that overcomes inertia, and d) results.\u00a0 It is personally and professionally fulfilling.\u00a0 I feel like my work has made a difference in people\u2019s lives and their connections to their community. Who is it for? Who benefits from this work?<\/strong><\/p>\n The larger community, the youth who may be able to return or remain there and raise families thanks to improved economic competitiveness. When you hear the terms \u201ccultural sector\u201d or \u201carts and culture field\u201d do you feel that includes you? Why or why not?<\/strong><\/p>\n I try to use words that regular people can understand and relate to.\u00a0 \u201cCultural sector\u201d and \u201carts and culture field\u201d are not among them.\u00a0 Personally, I cannot identify with either of these.\u00a0 I am a community planning consultant whose strategic perspective and ability to engage with the grasstops as well as the grassroots has helped retain and enhance authentic places. Sometimes this involves cultural programming (ethnic festivals, performances, exhibits, food truck rallies, etc.) or public art installations, or artist involvement in public improvements, but I would never call myself a worker in the arts and culture field. Why do you think people are talking about creative placemaking so much now?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Festival market place was the \u201cin\u201d term in the 1970s, 80s.\u00a0 Creative placemaking is the current term for an amazing new discovery:\u00a0 one can design new environments that learn from the best of historic ones (witness lifestyle centers in revamped shopping centers being reborn as mixed use neighborhoods), and one can repair sagging older town centers with the \u201ccreative\u201d insertion of pocket parks, bicycle lanes and racks, sculpture, occasional musical performances or puppet shows or other events.<\/p>\n When well done, it can be magical.\u00a0 I just spent part of my morning in downtown Bethesda MD, where everything comes together and people are drawn to be there on a weekday morning \u2013 strolling, sitting over coffee under shady street trees, pushing strollers, etc. It is creative placemaking (AKA urban design, very well executed) at its best.\u00a0 When it is slapped on like a kit of parts, or plopped down to gussy up a failed plaza, it\u2019s an euphemism for \u2018we tried, but not very hard.\u201d Finally, fill in the blank: Creative\/cultural work makes communities<\/strong>\u00a0_______.<\/p>\n Stronger for bringing people together in ways that bring out the best in them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We asked all of you to join in on this conversation as well. Mary Means works as a consultant for her firm Mary Means + Associates and has extensive experience in community-based strategic planning. Prior to entering consulting, Mary was Vice President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where she is best known for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,478,32],"tags":[25,104,476],"coauthors":[21],"class_list":{"0":"post-2323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation","8":"category-creative-placemaking-events","9":"category-events","10":"tag-community","11":"tag-conversation-2","12":"tag-creative-placemaking","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2323"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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