Posts Tagged ‘sense of place’

Will Social Networking make “place” more important?

May 28th, 2009

Last week I raised the question; Will Gen Y, with their infatuation for on-line social networking tools, ruin how people develop a sense of belonging to a community?  Today, I’d like to share a story suggesting that social networking is actually contributing to an increased desire for local.

Titled “Demographic trends now favor downtown,” the article traces the growing demand for retail space in downtown settings and its connection to the “buy local” movement. 

 

Besides offering the economic causes driving people to the downtown setting, the article identifies how on-line computer activities contribute to the importance of place:

Humans are social beings, and all the time we spend at our computers makes us, if anything, even hungrier for real-world interactions. The Internet, paradoxically, is making place even more important. Marrying great online services with appealing real-world presence will be the secret to success for many a company. So pay attention to where you are and to where your community is going.

If we are hungry for face-to-face interaction, and if a sense of place will become more important for businesses, does it not suggest an opportunity for small rural communities?  After all, isn’t “being real” inherent in most small rural communities? 

But it also begs the question, what are we doing to take advantage of this growing sentiment?  If we are not thoughtful and willing to take action, this opportunity may slip through our fingers. 

Note:  Readers may also be interested in knowing that I discovered this article through the Main Street Mitchell and Beyond’s Facebook page .  It pays to be a part of a social network.

Photo Source:  Jordan MacDonald/Flickr (photo of facades in downtown Broken Arrow, OK)

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Posted in Economic Development, In the News, Rural | Comments (0)

Third Places in the blogosphere

May 8th, 2009

As mentioned previously, I believe third places help build social capital within a community, make a community a more attractive place to live, and help develop a sense of place.  It’s probably a stretch to say they can solve every problem in a community, but I think third places are pretty important. 

We haven’t spent much time talking about third places lately, so I thought I’d provide a quick highlight on a couple references that I have stumbled across in the blogosphere lately.

First, Daryl Phillips, Executive Director of the Hickman County Economic Development Association, discovered our original post about third places and writes about the role third places play in his community. 

Second, the eclectic blog titled Our Third Place was launched in February.  To date, seven posts populate the site, providing first hand experiences of third places. 

Third, an older post on The Greater Great Washington blog describes how a third place can help make a community more attractive and walkable. Granted it references Washington, DC, but I think there is still some applicability for rural. 

These are but three of the innumerable posts about third places that have come to my attention.  In the future, I’ll try to do a better job of bringing them to your attention as well.

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design:SD — Team Orientation

March 26th, 2009

Design South Dakota got off to a start last evening with a reception and team orientation session at the 109 Club in Gary, SD.  It provided an opportunity for the design team (made of architects, planners, and community development specialists) to mix with community members and hear details of the following three days. 

Joe Bartmann, the project’s co-leader (along with Tom Reasoner) asked the team to remember two points that I’d like to share:

1.) Design like people matter. By this, Joe meant that “place matters.” And how people interact within places may be different. The team’s job is to capture how people will interact within their place, and then design to facilitate that interaction.

2.) Design Team’s job is to help the community have “new eyes”. From my perspective as a community development specialist, this is particularly important because residents rarely see the whole picture of their community. After looking at their community day-after-day, some elements of the community seem to disappear. We no longer see them, or at a minimum don’t see them the same way outsiders do. It’s the design team’s job to help people see their community in new ways.

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design:SD & “The 10 Principles of Livable Communities”

March 25th, 2009

When the Design: South Dakota process begins tomorrow in Deuel County, South Dakota, the group will rely on the American Institute for Architects’ (AIA) 10 Principles of Livable Communities.  Since most of us non-architects/designer are unfamiliar with the principles, I thought it might be helpful to provide a summary below. 

 

10 Principles of Livable Communities

1. Design on a Human Scale
Compact, pedestrian-friendly communities allow residents to walk to shops, services, cultural resources, and jobs and can reduce traffic congestion and benefit people’s health.

2. Provide Choices
People want variety in housing, shopping, recreation, transportation, and employment. Variety creates lively neighborhoods and accommodates residents in different stages of their lives.

3. Encourage Mixed-Use Development
Integrating different land uses and varied building types creates vibrant, pedestrian-friendly, and diverse communities.

4. Preserve Urban Centers
Restoring, revitalizing, and infilling urban centers takes advantage of existing streets, services and buildings and avoids the need for new infrastructure. This helps to curb sprawl and promote stability for city neighborhoods.

5. Vary Transportation Options
Giving people the option of walking, biking, and using public transit - in addition to driving - reduces traffic congestion, protects the environment, and encourages physical activity.

6. Build Vibrant Public Spaces
Citizens need welcoming, well-defined public places to stimulate face-to-face interaction, collectively celebrate and mourn, encourage civic participation, admire public art, and gather for public events.

7. Create a Neighborhood Identity
A “sense of place” gives neighborhoods a unique character, enhances the walking environment, and creates pride in the community.

8. Protect Environmental Resources
A well-designed balance of nature and development preserves natural systems, protects waterways from pollution, reduces air pollution, and protects property values.

9. Conserve Landscapes
Open space, farms, and wildlife habitat are essential for environmental, recreational, and cultural reasons.

10. Design Matters
Design excellence is the foundation of successful and healthy communities.

 

But what does this mean?

Some of the principles are easier to understand than others.  It will be the task of the designSD team to apply these principles within the context of the Deuel County community.  If you are looking to better understand the principles and how they apply to your community, I’d encourage you to check out the “Reflections on the most livable city:  How Pittsburg measures up to the AIA Principles of Livable Communities” article found on page 9 of the October 2007 issue of Columns magazine (a publication of AIA Pittsburg).  Pittsburg is hardly rural, but I think the short descriptions will help you see the applicability to your rural community. 

   

Other “10 Principles of Livable Community” resources

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Design:SD Heads to Deuel County this Week

March 23rd, 2009

The folks in Deuel County can expect a little extra excitement this week.  A group of 18 architects, landscape architects, engineers, planners, and community development professionals will spend three days in Deuel at the end of this week (March 26-28) for Design: South Dakota. 

Design: South Dakota, now in its third year, is a is a new way to help rural communities across South Dakota create a better future by design, where architects, engineers, planners and community developers volunteer to help South Dakota’s small towns gather and illustrate ideas for their future.

 The 3-plus day design:SD event, called a “charrette,” is described by project leaders as a “mixing bowl” of local knowledge, ideas and visions for the future, with the expertise and experience of professionals from outside the community. 

The Deuel County community has been preparing for the event since the fall of 2008, when they were selected as the next Design: SD community.  Recently, Deuel Area Development (a local non-profit development corporation) has hosted a series of roundtable discussions leading up the charrette.  The topics have included:  agriculture, main street business, healthcare, recreation, young families, and uses for the former school for the blind property.  The information harvested from these conversations was sent to Design team members to help them prepare and understand the community a bit before the three day event.

“The design charrette is the shortest portion of the process, when you consider the work that must be done before and after the event,” said Joe Bartmann, co-leader of the d:SD, Project Deuel County.  “The ideas that are illustrated have, in many ways, been long in the making for a community-and when the design team leaves it is up to the community to follow-through and make the ideas a reality.” 

Mike Knutson and I will be among the Design team for Project Deuel County, so watch for live updates and pictures from Deuel later this week!

If you’re a Deuel County resident, or simply interested in learning more about Design:SD, you’re invited to several community events during the charrette.  Events, times, and locations are listed below.

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Posted in Quality of Life, Rural, Training and Events | Comments (1)

How will the Crash affect Rural America — II

February 17th, 2009

Richard Florida is one of my favorite economists (and I love his blog too).  I like his work because place matters in his analysis of what drives the economy, and I think he’s got his finger on a lot of complex issues surrounding our economy.  But each time I read his work, I leave frustrated at his dismissive attitude towards rural places.    

That’s largely how I felt when after reading “How the Crash Will Reshape America” in the March 2009 issue of The Atlantic.  It’s as if rural places are irrelevant.  That said, there’s a lot of good information for those of us who care enough about rural to think about. 

Some predictions made by Florida include:

 

Where does this leave rural? 

As always, Florida provides a lot to ponder.  Unfortunately, his vision for the rural Midwest is bleak.

But I don’t think we should allow Florida’s vision to demoralize our efforts to build a vibrant future for rural places.  As Eric Abrahamson’s blog, The New Pioneers, suggests, rural America does boast many of the characteristics young, talented, creative types are seeking. (read Eric’s post titled “Dreaming of Small Town Life” for more on these characteristics.)  By focusing on these characteristics and making some adjustments, rural places pose great potential.

The big question in my mind, however, is how will the crash change what people value?  If McMasions, consumerism, and suburbs are out, why can’t inexpensive housing, lower crime, and small town living be in? 

It is far too early to know for sure what the crash will mean for our rural communities.  But I’m a firm believer that some rural communities will work hard enough to recreate themselves to meet whatever changes the crash creates.

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Helping tourists develop a sense of place

January 26th, 2009

Karen Wylie over at Backroads Business picked up on our story about coffee shops and “third places.” She described how a local coffee shop (DT’s Blue Ridge Java) enticed her to join a bridge class at their establishment.

Although intended to bring in customers during a slow time of year, it also contributes to the coffee shop’s “third place” status by encouraging locals to interact with each other.

From what Karen writes, DT Blue Ridge Coffee does a nice job of building community in the town of Spruce Pine, NC where it’s located.  But I wonder if it goes a step further:  does it also serve as a place that helps introduce tourists into the community?

Ireland has become a tourist destination in part because their pubs and other establishments successfully help tourists connect with locals.  In the process, the visitors develop a better sense of place.   They get a chance to feel the uniqueness of each community.

That process is vital to any rural community implementing a tourism strategy.  After all, it’s unlikely that small towns will develop big museums or event centers that larger communities use to attract visitors.  But a lot of people just want to experience a unique place where they can meet special people.   Small towns can fulfill that wish by developing good third places.

Later this morning, I’m going to join a webcast with John Delcante from Smallwander.com.  The subject will be “Third Places”, and I’m sure tourism will be a part of that conversation.

It’s sort of a last minute thing, but we’ll be live at 9:00 am Central.  Feel free to call in or listen live via the link below.

EVENT:  Third Places
DATE & TIME: Monday, January 26th at 10:00am Eastern
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast - it’s your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…
http://instantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=5847438

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Does your community need a coffee shop and other Third Places?

January 14th, 2009

During an economic development planning meeting in 2004, several high school students claimed our community (Howard, SD) needed a coffee shop.  That statement confounded most of the adults in attendance.  “What do you mean? We’ve already got two,” a community leader retorted, referring to the town’s two small cafés. 

Beyond the obvious differences between a coffee shop and a small town café, most of the adults in the room missed the point the students were making:  Younger people enjoyed going to larger communities to hang out in coffee shops.  If we wanted our community to be a place for their generation, we needed a coffee shop. 

To my disappointment, the coffee shop idea didn’t make the final cut on our prioritized list of projects, deferring instead to more traditional “job creation” strategies. At the time, I thought a coffee shop would serve as an excellent “amenity”, making our community more attractive to both Gen Y and newcomers.  I’ve since learned that there’s a lot more going on in coffee houses than coffee and conversation.  And I have sociologist Ray Oldenburg to thank for this discovery.

 

Coffee Houses are “Third Places”

It has been two decades since Oldenburg invented the name “third places” in his influential book The Great Good Place to describe informal gathering places like cafés, pubs, bookstores, community centers and main streets.

To Oldenburg, third places carry out important community building functions that cannot be fulfilled by “first places” (our homes) and “second places” (our places of work).  They become the places where people develop personal relationships and a sense of community.  Without them, families are left to sit at home and watch television by themselves. 

Oldenburg goes into great depth explaining the community building functions carried out by third places.  We’ll talk about them more in later posts, but for now I’d like to focus on helping readers recognize third places in their own communities– not all cafés, pubs, bookstores and community centers meet the qualifications of third places. 

 

Characteristics of Third Places

Third places come in many forms, but Oldenburg identifies eight characteristics that third places share:

 

Howard’s new Third Place

Last summer (2008), three entrepreneurial ladies opened a coffee shop in Howard called Higher Grounds.  I’ve been watching it ever since and have concluded that it is developing into an outstanding third place.  It really seems to be filling the need people have to experience a sense of community, which may explain why it’s a success. 

So, what about your rural community?  Do you have any good examples that you can share?  I’d really like to create a list of unique third places.  Hopefully, these examples can serve as an inspiration to residents in rural communities that currently lack strong third places.

 

Other resources on coffee shops and third places

Note:  Photo courtesy of Elisa Sand of the Madison Daily Leader

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Learning to live in Rural Places

January 9th, 2009

Is it possible that many people who move to rural communities don’t know how to live in rural communities?

That question began to gnaw at me following my introduction to a book titled Get Urban!  The Complete Guide to City Living. Kyle Ezell, the book’s author, is an urban enthusiast who advances the idea that many people who move to downtown, urban centers don’t understand how to live there.  He argues that basic tenants of urban living — like riding the bus, carrying groceries as you walk home from work, and developing friendship among the hustle and bustle of urban streets - are all foreign activities to new urbanites, schooled in the car culture of suburbia. 

Thought Ezell’s thesis may be hard for rural enthusiasts to accept, it has grown on me over time, and I began to wonder if new residents in rural communities were facing the same challenges. Ever since, I’ve been on a quest to answer that question.  I’ve yet to reach a definitive answer, but I’ve identified several conclusions listed below. 

This last point is particularly important, and over the next few weeks I intend to share a great deal more on the subject.  Not only has Oldenburg identified third places as the “anchors of community life,” but he also believes they form a starting point for introducing new residents into a community.  And like their urban counterparts, new rural residents could use a little help learning to live in their rural communities.  I hope third places are a part of the answer.

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The Importance of a Strong Sense of Place

January 7th, 2009

Developing a strong “Sense of Place“ is one of the most important things a rural community can do to attract visitors and residents. 

That key message  was presented by Eric Abrahamson in a report to a group of citizens in Lead, SD last night.  It caught my attention because Eric did a masterful job in explaining why developing a strong sense of community is essential to community branding.

Many towns have, or are currently going through the process of developing a brand for their town.  Often, these brands focus on the attributes of the town that make it special.  Those attributes are essentially the same attributes that help residents develop a strong sense of place.

Unfortunately, the messages developed to articulate that brand are often focused on an “external” market - visitors, new residents or new businesses. What Eric reminded us was that local residents need to hear these message as well.

I believe that is particularly important - especially as a brand is first being developed. If the local residents don’t know and believe the message, others who come to the community won’t either. 

The benefits of messaging are compounded when local residents begin to feel better about their community after repeatedly hearing a message about what makes their place special.

This is particularly vital in a community like Lead, which developed a sense of abandonment after the Homestake Gold Mine shut down. Not only did the mine’s closing result in the loss of jobs, but many community members felt like the community lost its’ identity.  When this happened, they stopped feeling good about the community and its future.

It’s a great observation for any community attempting to develop its brand.  I hope the residents of Lead take to heart.

Note:  Eric is not a professional marketer.  He’s a professional historian - and an exceptional one at that. Through his company Vantage Point Historical Services, he worked with the Rural Learning Center and Jones and Jones Architects to prepare a summary report of year-long community conversation about Lead’s future. He and Joe Bartmann presented that report last night to community residents.

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