Placemaking Initiatives

To sustain a vibrant, authentic City and downtown district, the Community & Economic Development Division supports place-based economic development initiatives, or Placemaking, to create quality places that people want to live, work, play and learn in. Staff incorporate a variety of creative placemaking and tactical urbanism techniques into project design and implementation to drive long-term, community-driven changes guided by stakeholder input collected during the process. 

Creative placemaking is a process where community members, artists, arts and culture organizations, community developers and other stakeholders use arts and cultural strategies to implement community-led change. This approach aims to increase vibrancy, improve economic conditions and build capacity among residents to take ownership of their communities (source: American Planning Association).

Tactical Urbanism is all about action. Also known as DIY Urbanism, Planning-by-Doing, Urban Acupuncture or Urban Prototyping, this approach refers to a city, organizational and/or citizen-led approach to neighborhood building using short-term, low-cost and scalable interventions to catalyze long-term change (source: Tactical Urbanist’s Guide to Getting it Done).

Below are current or recently piloted placemaking initiatives. Many of the programs and projects listed below were piloted under the Daytime. Nighttime. Anytime. Place Project.

Creative Placemaking & Tactical Urbanism Initiatives