Creative placemaking may look different from one community to the next, based upon where and how its infused in a neighborhood or community, what it is working to address, and the strategies leveraged.

The Kresge Foundation, which has worked deeply in this area for years, has released a new white paper: Rethinking Neighborhood Change and Tracking Progress  to share lessons learned from creative placemaking in low-income communities and to spur conversations in the field.

The foundation’s insights are informed in part by a few of its creative placemaking grantees who are working in low-income communities.

Kresge shared that among their grantees, this work looks different in each community it serves, whether it is creating a physical structure, embedding artists and designers in community organizing or creating a new business which leverages community talent and heritage.

But at the root of any creative placemaking work in a low-income community should be a comprehensive understanding of urban inequality.

Kresge shared an example of this work led by its grantee NewCorp, Inc. in New Orleans which revitalized historic buildings “while simultaneously addressing unemployment training and placement needs, blight and vacancy.”

NewCorp offers neighborhood residents with apprenticeship training and will provide the renovated housing to residents at subsidized pricing.

Kresge provides a few ideas for the field to consider in placemaking work:

• Community development and urban planning: New developments should preserve affordability for residents, their culture, their community and connect the existing community with opportunities. Kresge adds, “Creative placemaking strategies are integrated with a suite of related interventions that, at minimum, mitigate displacement and, at best, truly expand opportunity.”

• How can we reimagine systems and address barriers? Kresge writes, “What role can artists or designers working with residents play in reimaging systems that are exclusionary? How might culture-bearers help design programs that are most effective, relevant and culturally appropriate” for the community?

• Neighborhood change and contributions of creative placemaking: Transformative neighborhood change may take longer than a typical grant cycle to be apparent. But there are changes that can be seen sooner such as a greater sense of community, a community’s control of its own community narrative and beyond. These are all important to telling the story of creative placemaking. Kresge writes, “Current ways of working and assessing progress do not adequately account for how community change happens and the range of ways in which art, culture and community-engaged design can have impact.”

When it comes to evaluation of creative placemaking work the foundation acknowledges the absence of quantitative data but says that doesn’t mean you can’t measure outcomes. The white paper points to the use of trying out “new and innovative ways of understanding community conditions and change processes.” For instance, at Kresge the foundation “has encouraged collaboration among consulting teams with different methods, experiences and areas of expertise.”

Want more?

Read Rethinking Neighborhood Change and Tracking Progress.  

Check out a preview white paper from The Kresge Foundation: Creative Placemaking and Expansion of Opportunity.