The NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) has spent the last year encouraging the use of creative placemaking in cities throughout the U.S.  Based on their panel discussion in D.C. in fall 2010 their definition of creative placemaking is “a shared vision from the ground up.”  They advised mayors to “jump start creative placemaking” in their cities by doing the following:

♣Respond to the unique challenges of the community.

♣Embrace the people who live there and what makes them distinctive.

♣Partner across missions.

♣Involve the artists and creative people in the community.

♣Use the approach developed by Project for Public Spaces (utilized in Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park, and cities throughout the world).

Two questions remained unanswered however:

♣How can we be intentional about bringing a successful community into being?

♣What metrics and measurements are needed to track the success of creative placemaking?

OUR GOAL IS TWOFOLD:

To create an intentional creative placemaking model that can be replicated in any community so that the shared vision for Baltimore is one that embraces all its citizens, and to address the NEA’s two unanswered questions. To that end, the model has two components:

♣Formally trained in placemaking by Project for Public Spaces, ARTblocks will train five to seven community leaders to direct creative placemaking workshops in their communities, resulting in a list of ten inexpensive, easily realized short-term projects and ten long-term goals for each of the communities. ARTblocks will provide support and assistance by connecting communities and their projects to community artists and local organizations.

♣ARTblocks’ domain, www.creativeplacemaking.com, will be used to track the entire process in two ways. First, in terms of the projects, it will be a resource for potential funders, community artists, volunteers, and organizations. Second, by collecting data, we will monitor the effects of placemaking on these communities by tracking educational, economic, and crime data points.

Please help us realize our goals for Baltimore communities by contributing generously. Thank you!