Placemaking

• Placemaking is a collaborative and creative process to help communities transform public spaces. A placemaking approach to mobility seeks out interventions to make streets and sidewalks feel like places to spend time in, rather than spaces simply to move through.

  • These interventions can lead to improvements in traffic safety and accessibility as well as encourage a sense of community.

  • Placemaking projects are good pilots to test or make the case for policy changes in transportation and community design.

Norwood Outdoor Dining and Commerce Project. Photo Credit: Town of Norwood, MA

• Placemaking interventions can be permanent adjustments to the built environment to change how people move through spaces, interactive additions to encourage social activity or play, or temporary interventions.i

• Some examples of placemaking include:

  • sidewalk expansions, conversion of roadway into pedestrian space, and static pieces of public art

  • exercise facilities, push-button heat lamps, and collaborative digital art

  • events, performances and farmer’s markets.

Citations

i Project for Public Spaces (2020) What is Placemaking? https://www.pps.org/category/placemaking