Post by Juanita Hardy, Senior Visiting Fellow for Creative Placemaking

ULI’s Fall Meeting in Dallas featured a range of excellent creative placemaking programming. This was my first ULI conference as the ULI Senior Visiting Fellow for Creative Placemaking, and I was impressed by the keen interest in the topic by meeting participants, and was delighted to both share and gather knowledge about effective creative placemaking approaches.

Joining me was Michelle Johnson, Program Officer for the Kresge Foundation’s Arts and Culture program. I was grateful for her participation, and ULI is for the Foundation’s support of ULI’s new two year Creative Placemaking Project. (Read more about our partnership.)

Kresge defines creative placemaking as the deliberate integration of arts and culture into efforts to stabilize disinvested communities. At ULI, we are exploring how real estate and land use leaders are engaging with arts and artists, and working to lift up best practices. We are also integrating creative placemaking into the Healthy Corridors project.

I shared insights about creative placemaking at the following Fall Meeting programs (click here for a link to a composite PowerPoint of my presentations):

• At the Building Healthy Places Interest Forum with about 40 ULI members, I reviewed “How Creative Placemaking can Transform Communities, Add Value, and Enhance Health”
• At the standing-room only breakfast program, with about 100 participants, I talked about “The Economic Value of Creative Placemaking” with Michelle Johnson and ULI Senior Vice President Rachel MacCleery
• At the Creative Placemaking Pop-Up Café, also with Michelle Johnson and Rachel MacCleery
• And finally at Urban Development and Mixed Use Council – Bronze Flight, where I participated in a panel discussion about “Creative Placemaking and the Art of Real Estate Innovation,” with Monte Anderson, Founder, Options Real Estate Development, Dallas, TX and Michelle Johnson.

In all of my remarks, I discussed creative placemaking as an innovation in traditional placemaking. Creative placemaking brings art and culture to the forefront with community-engaged design during the early planning process.

ULI District Councils have the opportunity to participate in several creative placemaking projects, including advisory activities and activities linked to the Healthy Corridors program. Learn more about these opportunities here.

I was also excited by the excellent general and concurrent sessions which explored creative placemaking projects and books. These included:

• Peter Kageyama’s presentation as part of the ULI Changing the World Speaker Series about his provocative new book For the Love of Cities. Watch his presentation here.
• The Well-Tempered City and the Future of Urban Life, an excellent new book presented by author Jonathan Rose. Watch his presentation here.

I enjoyed meeting so many ULI members who are engaging in creative placemaking efforts at Fall Meeting, and am excited about the next phase of the Creative Placemaking Project. Learn more about the effort, and fill out a survey for ULI members about the topic, at uli.org/creativeplacemaking, and stay in touch with me at [email protected].