Where Is Your Happy Place(making)?
This did not look like a happy place.
Bleak and blasted seem more apt ways to describe the seven acres of asphalt, crushed rock, dirt, cement I was touring on a frigid January day in Rhode Island.
But I had fun on my mind anyways.
And innovation.
The Brookings Metropolitan Institute recently provided a set of recommendations to Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo about building an innovation economy in the Ocean State. In a state that has clung to 60-year old concepts of production, creativity, labor, capital, and taxation it is a tough order to flip a procedural switch or two and expect to see patents double overnight. Brookings is fair and honest in its assessment: Rhode Island sits in the middle of a strong regional economy, lacks strong business leadership in advanced industries, retains excellence in design, and has strong quality of place.
That last part is no accident. Since 1980 the State of Rhode Island has worked hard and invested a considerable amount of money in quality of place. The amazing coastline, villages, and urban neighborhoods that make the state a “cool” place required tens of millions of public and private dollars. That is what it took to beat back the suburbanizing frenzy of the period.
Brookings says building an innovation economy is helped through creative placemaking. Since suburbanizing is taking an extended hiatus (thank you Millennials!) that means we can put Rhode Island’s design chops to work converting unused places into active, community places. This means planning for these places, funding their activation, protecting them (even temporarily), and creating busy, fun, safe places that make the state’s urban neighborhoods more liveable.
If Boston is any example creative placemaking will might like the Rose Kennedy Greenway. If Chicago is any example it might look like The 606. If New York is any example it might look like The High Line. Or, closer to home, it might look at pop-up parks like that Providence itself has toyed with on Parking Day.
Expanding creative placemaking in Rhode Island wouldn’t just be fun, it would create a great little cottage industry. It would generate millions of dollars in design, engineering, and construction activity. It would promote socially resilient neighborhoods, reduce stress, and enhance real estate values. It would further enhance that great quality of place that gives the Ocean State a competitive advantage.
Here is my to-do list to supercharge this overlooked activity in metro-Providence:
- Define what creative placemaking is (and what it isn’t)
- Show people what it looks like (have you seen the Greenway)
- Map out the opportunities (where are the vacant places?)
- Build some pop-up parks
- Track their impact
- Make them eligible for public support
- REPEAT
Rhode Island could do much worse with the thousands of acres of urban vacant land in the Providence metro area than activate some of them through creative placemaking partnerships. Redeveloping the I-195 lands in Providence is the most high-profile opportunity, but the best opportunities may lie in more obscure corners of our neighborhoods.
Like my frigid seven-acre brownfield.