Placemaking Week: A Community Developer’s View
by Rob St. Mary
The Projects for Public Spaces (PPS) holds an international conference called Placemaking Week every fall. The focus is for leaders creating vibrant and engaged community spaces to come together to share best practices and fresh ideas from around the world. This year’s event was in Amsterdam. Among the invited presenters was Katharine Czarnecki of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). As, Senior Vice Present for Community Development at the MEDC, Czarnecki has been instrumental in creating the first of its kind crowdgranting program called “Public Spaces, Community Places”. The program gives communities and non-profits in walkable Michigan cities and towns a quick and easy way to raise low dollar donations to meet a matching grant while engaging neighborhoods around rehabbed or new spaces.
I sat down with Czarnecki recently to talk about what she saw and learned at Placemaking Week.
How was Placemaking Week?
Amsterdam was amazing. I think, and granted I have not been to Europe in about two decades, so, my perspective on what I saw was mostly just awe. It’s everything we talk about all the time — it’s the people on the street, it’s the building type, it’s the energy surrounding the art, the restaurants, just the day-to-day activities. And, I think I left a little depressed, because I feel like we’re never going to be like that and it’s just the reality of our country and how we have an abundance of land. First thing I noticed is everyone is skinny because they walk everywhere and it’s just a different perspective.
What did you learn from the international speakers?
There were people from Africa, from Asia, from around the States. Nate (Scramlin — Senior Community Assistance Team Specialist for the MEDC) went to a session on placemaking in Asia. They have buildings that house 10,000 people. We have communities that house 10,000 people. So, when you talk about that scale, what we saw from the activities of placemaking, from a European perspective, meshed better (with what is going on in the States). What they were talking about in China, we’re never going to have a building that houses 10,000 people. But, the macro level activities were very consistant with what we have been doing.
What as the reaction to what you are doing in Michigan?
There were a few good audience questions around the political questions of starting up. But, there was a gentleman who came up to me from Brazil, I believe, and he was asking around the legal of how we work with Patronicity. I think the response as not shock but amazement that it could work from a state-level funding source. The other thing that came up was capacity and how only “sophisticated people can go out for grants”, and that was something we specifically talked about from the early days that this was something that is accessible to a lot of people and stripping down that 13-page grant application (for the PSPC program) makes it the easiest money you’ll ever make and the fastest money you’ll ever make. It’s a pretty quick turnaround.
Where they impressed or scared by that change in grants?
I think you could read it either way, to be honest. The guy from Brazil asked “why did you choose Patronicity?” I said, well, we wanted to work with a Michigan-based company, a local start up, so the whole model kind of fit. He asked if we had to RFP it (put out a Request For Proposals to find the vendor). I told him we didn’t have to RFP it because Patronicity was the only vendor (doing that type of work).
Was there any big theme or idea that kept popping up in terms of placemaking?
Some of the public space activities. We talked about activation and how public spaces are used more when there is some sort of activity or programming around it. I feel we weren’t really talking about that (at the conference). I also felt that some of the speakers were a little academic and not practitioners. Before we launched “PSCP”, there was already a theme of placemaking in Michigan around what Michigan State Housing Development Authority had started, but I feel we were the first tangible activity where you could see physical change. It’s one thing to fund a plan. But, unless you’re executing the plan, which is my biggest pet peeve — “we have this and now you sit on it” — that’s just a waste.
When we first got (to Placemaking Week), we seemed to follow along with the people we first met. One of them, puts this bell on a bike, it allows people to provide real time data on “there’s a pothole here” or “this is a really great spot”. So, we talked to him and we thought “could you put this bell on a bike share” and he was very hesitant. Sometimes I feel like placemakers can be purists. I felt that tourists and bike share user information could be just as valuable as the information of the locals (under the bike bell program).
But, I also learned that even in countries you wouldn’t expect there are people like us working on these things and it’s not just the well to do western countries.
The emphasis on the sustainability factor is more important, they think about it more regularly in Amsterdam than we do. We have been trying to push that in community development, too.
Worth the trip?
Oh, yes. Part of it was just being in Amsterdam, right? I’m eager to see where it is next year. I haven’t been to a conference like that in a long time, so, I think it was also good to get perspectives. If you sit in your little office in your building you kind of get in a rut, and things start to slowly narrow you sense of perspective. So, it was good to just get out and see stuff.
Learn more about the MEDC’s program with Patronicity at Patronicity.com/PureMichigan or reach out directly to Rob St. Mary at Rob@patronicity.com.
