Earlier this week, I took my class on one of our usual field trips. We travelled about 60 miles of two-lane roads through sparsely populated country. There’s nothing like driving over miles and miles of two-lane road without seeing another car to help you think about place. I wasn’t day dreaming, I was driving carefully while re-observing the familiar landscape.
We passed through three distinct landscapes. One was the clay lake plain, dominated by open hay fields. Another was closely managed jack pine forest – essentially variously aged patches of jackpine. The third was aspen, spruce, fir forests that have grown up after heavy logging of decades ago. All of these landscapes are attractive in their own way, all show the signs of extensive human activities, and all inspire a sense of place for me. Part of that sense is that they the fields and forests are currently well-managed and thus engender positive feelings about the human activities.
In this case, the sense of place isn’t about a specific spot, it’s a more general context, in this case the landscape and the people in that landscape.
When thinking of landscapes as places, some people might think of idealized settings. Small villages interspersed in rolling hills of forest and farmland patches. A cluster of houses facing a harsh coastine. Snowcapped peaks in the background of broad valleys. Miles of open Great Lakes beaches. Those are all great landscapes, but probably for most of us, they’re places to see on a vacation. Our everyday landscapes are cities and towns. Our neighborhoods may be iconic, rows of brownstones with people sitting on their porches talking with passers-by. It may be a downtown setting, it may be apleasant subdivision with people on their daily strolls. Or it’s just your plain old everyday neighborhood made special by your memories of it and your interactions in it, kept attractive and tidy by people who care about such things.
People round out the context. I asked a friend of writer-type colleague of mine who s to put together something about his sense of place regarding our town. He said “ all I can think of to say is that it’s a place with lots of nice people who help each other out.” That actually says it pretty well. Talk of sense-of-place should incorporate the context people create through their positive interactions. People who do awful things can make an otherwise ideal physical landscape not worth living in; people who do great things can help make an otherwise ordinary landscape well worth living in.
SIDEBAR
Landscape contrasts
I grew up in Kansas. I like prairies and plains. I get a special feeling standing on a high point, viewing a distant horizon in each direction. No longer in the plains, I rely on the Great Lakes to provide that visual outlet for me. I’m not sure I’d like to live deep in the woods and have my visual sweep so limited. When our relatives began visiting us after we moved up here, we’d ask them ‘what did you see on your way up?’ They’d only half-jokingly reply ‘we couldn’t see anything, too many trees in the way.’ Likewise my students from up here who end up traveling out to the plains and prairies say ‘I couldn’t see anything, it was all just open country.’
Friday, May 20, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Word Gets Around
Thanks Northwest Earth Institute for running in their anewsletter an essay based on the post "Sense of Place: Is It Really a Thing?" from this blog.
www.nwei.org
www.nwei.org
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Under a big tent
Like other conservation and sustainability work, place-making draws an interesting mix of people. One day a few weeks ago, that point came to me as I attended two separate meetings that had to do with sustainability projects.
One meeting consisted of the usual suspects. I live in a small town and tend to know most of the people who are engaged in the usual civic affairs and pitch in in a positive way. That’s one of the advantages of a small town – when you want to do something, you know who to bring together. In fact, meetings for different types of projects often have many of the same people.
The other meeting was in a way more interesting. It had a much more diverse group in terms of outlook. There were people who live off the grid, people who wanted to see a major overhaul of the political landscape, people who were more concerned with working toward the global community rather than local issues. They were all nice, sincere, articulate people. They were not hot-heads. They were idealistic enough to be interesting but none live in la-la land.
I was just reading a wonderful book, “Looking for Hickories: The Forgotten Wildness of the Rural Midwest,” by Thomas Springer. It’s a great collection of essays about the renewing role of the nature that’s at our doorstep. I recommend it highly. In one essay, Mr. Springer describes the diversity of people in the local land trust he belongs to. I belong to a local land trust but it sounds like it’s a more homogeneous group. All the active people in our land trust see the goals of the land trust fairly similarly. We might disagree on some specific management activity, but we’re mostly in agreement overall. I also belong to a citizen’s advocacy council for specific, local environmental issues. Again, members of the council may disagree on some specific approaches, but we’re all pretty similar in our overall goals for the project.
It occurs to me that I have not had the opportunity to work on an ongoing basis with a group of people with strongly varying conservation and sustainability goals. I’ve certainly hosted meetings where opposing opinions are expressed stridently, even by some hot-heads, but I have not had to work closely over a long period of time with people of strongly differing points of view. Achieving a synthesis of opposing viewpoints can result in a powerful organization and would be quite an accomplishment. (Visit sustainablenorthwest.org for an example of some skillful coalition building.) But not being able to accomplish that synthesis would be quite frustrating. Should I feel fortunate that I haven’t had to form difficult coalitions or should I feel deprived of such an experience?
One meeting consisted of the usual suspects. I live in a small town and tend to know most of the people who are engaged in the usual civic affairs and pitch in in a positive way. That’s one of the advantages of a small town – when you want to do something, you know who to bring together. In fact, meetings for different types of projects often have many of the same people.
The other meeting was in a way more interesting. It had a much more diverse group in terms of outlook. There were people who live off the grid, people who wanted to see a major overhaul of the political landscape, people who were more concerned with working toward the global community rather than local issues. They were all nice, sincere, articulate people. They were not hot-heads. They were idealistic enough to be interesting but none live in la-la land.
I was just reading a wonderful book, “Looking for Hickories: The Forgotten Wildness of the Rural Midwest,” by Thomas Springer. It’s a great collection of essays about the renewing role of the nature that’s at our doorstep. I recommend it highly. In one essay, Mr. Springer describes the diversity of people in the local land trust he belongs to. I belong to a local land trust but it sounds like it’s a more homogeneous group. All the active people in our land trust see the goals of the land trust fairly similarly. We might disagree on some specific management activity, but we’re mostly in agreement overall. I also belong to a citizen’s advocacy council for specific, local environmental issues. Again, members of the council may disagree on some specific approaches, but we’re all pretty similar in our overall goals for the project.
It occurs to me that I have not had the opportunity to work on an ongoing basis with a group of people with strongly varying conservation and sustainability goals. I’ve certainly hosted meetings where opposing opinions are expressed stridently, even by some hot-heads, but I have not had to work closely over a long period of time with people of strongly differing points of view. Achieving a synthesis of opposing viewpoints can result in a powerful organization and would be quite an accomplishment. (Visit sustainablenorthwest.org for an example of some skillful coalition building.) But not being able to accomplish that synthesis would be quite frustrating. Should I feel fortunate that I haven’t had to form difficult coalitions or should I feel deprived of such an experience?
Monday, May 2, 2011
It's Official - You can now have fun at this site
Building a sense of place can include adding features that help people interact with that place and each other. This place-making is typically the stuff of city planners working to create public spaces or designers of park sites. The places typically show off some natural or cultural feature but also further interactions.
As someone mostly involved with natural sites, I sometimes wonder how much ‘improvement’ needs to be done to an area. But I know we sometimes need to entice people to a spot by adding human-made features. Signs, benches, boardwalks, kiosks, roofs over picnic tables, foot bridges, paths, and more make an area more enticing to more people. My previous thought was ‘it’s water front, make your own fun,’ but now I realize that most ‘normal’ people are attracted to areas with some additional human-made features. I’m sure I knew that all along , I only just recently stopped to think it through.
Similarly, when I hear people complain about ‘there’s nothing to do around here,’ I’m usually tempted to tell them to lace up their hiking boots, learn some bird songs, learn some of our native plants, put on their snowshoes or XC skis, swim in the lake or river (might want to buy at least a shorty wetsuit first!), get on the bike and so on. But I realize not everyone wants to strike off on their own that way. We do need to provide easy, convenient ways for people to interact with each other and our environment (natural and human-dominated). Even in more natural settings, we need marked trails not only for safety but also to let people know it’s OK to walk through here. It’s official – you can do it. Maybe it used to be that you needed a 'No Trespassing' sign to keep you from going into an area; now we might need an 'OK to Enter' sign so that we know we can go into an area.
When I was a kid, we rode our bikes along unofficial pathways in vacant lots, finding challenging hills and turns on our own. We would not be able to do that now because of liability issues and all kinds of other things that have changed over the decades. Now we need officially designated bike parks. I'm not saying that it was better back then. Officially designated bike parks probably are better than dispersed unsafe trails. Aside from safety, there is a need for officially designated places for adults and kids to play. One cannot just tell people ‘go have fun,’ we need to help them have fun to some degree.
I’ve started working with a group that wants to establish an official walkway along a local water feature. There’s nothing to stop people from walking along that feature now, and some people do, but we can work to improve it so it isn’t muddy in parts, and, again, just to make it official so that more people will realize they can use the route. Having that officially designated, improved route will help foster appreciation for that water feature and the environment in general and will help others see that we do have a special place here.
As someone mostly involved with natural sites, I sometimes wonder how much ‘improvement’ needs to be done to an area. But I know we sometimes need to entice people to a spot by adding human-made features. Signs, benches, boardwalks, kiosks, roofs over picnic tables, foot bridges, paths, and more make an area more enticing to more people. My previous thought was ‘it’s water front, make your own fun,’ but now I realize that most ‘normal’ people are attracted to areas with some additional human-made features. I’m sure I knew that all along , I only just recently stopped to think it through.
Similarly, when I hear people complain about ‘there’s nothing to do around here,’ I’m usually tempted to tell them to lace up their hiking boots, learn some bird songs, learn some of our native plants, put on their snowshoes or XC skis, swim in the lake or river (might want to buy at least a shorty wetsuit first!), get on the bike and so on. But I realize not everyone wants to strike off on their own that way. We do need to provide easy, convenient ways for people to interact with each other and our environment (natural and human-dominated). Even in more natural settings, we need marked trails not only for safety but also to let people know it’s OK to walk through here. It’s official – you can do it. Maybe it used to be that you needed a 'No Trespassing' sign to keep you from going into an area; now we might need an 'OK to Enter' sign so that we know we can go into an area.
When I was a kid, we rode our bikes along unofficial pathways in vacant lots, finding challenging hills and turns on our own. We would not be able to do that now because of liability issues and all kinds of other things that have changed over the decades. Now we need officially designated bike parks. I'm not saying that it was better back then. Officially designated bike parks probably are better than dispersed unsafe trails. Aside from safety, there is a need for officially designated places for adults and kids to play. One cannot just tell people ‘go have fun,’ we need to help them have fun to some degree.
I’ve started working with a group that wants to establish an official walkway along a local water feature. There’s nothing to stop people from walking along that feature now, and some people do, but we can work to improve it so it isn’t muddy in parts, and, again, just to make it official so that more people will realize they can use the route. Having that officially designated, improved route will help foster appreciation for that water feature and the environment in general and will help others see that we do have a special place here.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
V3P
Placemaking is about helping a place become somewhere people want to stay in instead of somewhere people can’t wait to get out of. Third places can be an important part of that effort. Not only are they pleasant places to be, they are places where residents discuss their aspirations for the place, cook up projects to make those aspirations a reality and in general keep informed.
Cafés, outdoor public places, the library, civic centers, are the usual things that come to mind when one hears of third places. Civic organizations are third places for many people, especially in the sense that people come together to take on community projects. Recreation groups could be third place communities for civic projects, too, since the discussions among parents watching their kids’ games may turn to such issues (perhaps between episodes of being little league parents). Adult recreational athletes who get together after the game might end up discussing local events. Anything that brings local people together can be thought of as a third place. The more it promotes deliberate discussion, the better.
I’m curious about on-line communities as third places. The book “A Different Kind of Engagement” described how on-line communities are part of the civic engagement of youth (and countered the decline of civic engagement described in the book “Bowling Alone”). Recently the rural development website reimaginerurual.com, based in South Dakota, described the large number of South Dakotans on facebook (http://reimaginerural.com/tech-trendy-south-dakota/ ) and how that could be serving the role of a third place. Other posts on reimaginerural also described how tools such as Front Porch Forum (http://www.frontporchforum.com) have helped bring communities together.
I started this blog learn about how sense of place informs peoples’ lives. I wanted to post my thoughts and have others respond. Thanks to those of you have. Keep ‘em coming. I also have learned about sense of place from other people’s blogs. But blogs don’t seem to be interactive enough to be a third place. The facebook page keeps like-minded people informed and connected regarding sustainability topics and events in our town is fine, but it does not seem to be quite the right venue for discussions either. Facebook seems to be more for quick check-ins.
So I return to my question about how on-line communities can act as third places for discussion of community development/sustainability/conservation/sense of place. There’s an interesting set of articles in the scientific literature about how gaming communities can act as third places for youth, but that’s exactly the opposite of what I’m after. I want people to see how people within a geographic community can come together on-line to discuss _their_ community, not a fictional life, not a virtual community but a virtual gathering spot for a real community. How to get people engaged in on-line discussions?
I use on-line discussion tools in some of my classes. They’re not that different than tools we use to generate discussions in face-to-face classes. As an instructor, I can’t just say ‘what do you think?’ or ‘any comments?’ I need to pose prompts that are pertinent to students, that help them get into the topic. But it’s a bit easier with students – they are trying to earn a grade. Getting busy people to take time to articulate a response in an on-line community is not easy. People have to see the benefits of making time to respond. I would think it would have to be timely, concrete topics or current projects. I’ll keep working on that, but if you have examples of particularly effective techniques for promoting participation in on-line communities related to place-making, let me know. It may be that, as with university classes, a hybrid approach is best (periodic face-to-face supplemented by on-going on-line discussions/check-ins).
Cafés, outdoor public places, the library, civic centers, are the usual things that come to mind when one hears of third places. Civic organizations are third places for many people, especially in the sense that people come together to take on community projects. Recreation groups could be third place communities for civic projects, too, since the discussions among parents watching their kids’ games may turn to such issues (perhaps between episodes of being little league parents). Adult recreational athletes who get together after the game might end up discussing local events. Anything that brings local people together can be thought of as a third place. The more it promotes deliberate discussion, the better.
I’m curious about on-line communities as third places. The book “A Different Kind of Engagement” described how on-line communities are part of the civic engagement of youth (and countered the decline of civic engagement described in the book “Bowling Alone”). Recently the rural development website reimaginerurual.com, based in South Dakota, described the large number of South Dakotans on facebook (http://reimaginerural.com/tech-trendy-south-dakota/ ) and how that could be serving the role of a third place. Other posts on reimaginerural also described how tools such as Front Porch Forum (http://www.frontporchforum.com) have helped bring communities together.
I started this blog learn about how sense of place informs peoples’ lives. I wanted to post my thoughts and have others respond. Thanks to those of you have. Keep ‘em coming. I also have learned about sense of place from other people’s blogs. But blogs don’t seem to be interactive enough to be a third place. The facebook page keeps like-minded people informed and connected regarding sustainability topics and events in our town is fine, but it does not seem to be quite the right venue for discussions either. Facebook seems to be more for quick check-ins.
So I return to my question about how on-line communities can act as third places for discussion of community development/sustainability/conservation/sense of place. There’s an interesting set of articles in the scientific literature about how gaming communities can act as third places for youth, but that’s exactly the opposite of what I’m after. I want people to see how people within a geographic community can come together on-line to discuss _their_ community, not a fictional life, not a virtual community but a virtual gathering spot for a real community. How to get people engaged in on-line discussions?
I use on-line discussion tools in some of my classes. They’re not that different than tools we use to generate discussions in face-to-face classes. As an instructor, I can’t just say ‘what do you think?’ or ‘any comments?’ I need to pose prompts that are pertinent to students, that help them get into the topic. But it’s a bit easier with students – they are trying to earn a grade. Getting busy people to take time to articulate a response in an on-line community is not easy. People have to see the benefits of making time to respond. I would think it would have to be timely, concrete topics or current projects. I’ll keep working on that, but if you have examples of particularly effective techniques for promoting participation in on-line communities related to place-making, let me know. It may be that, as with university classes, a hybrid approach is best (periodic face-to-face supplemented by on-going on-line discussions/check-ins).
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Thank an entrepreneur
My interest in placemaking combines my conservation background and my desire to see sustainable rural communities. The two are intertwined. Sustainability often is equated to conservation-related topics, but for rural communities, sustainability includes maintaining a vibrant local economy. A vibrant local economy feeds back to conservation since a) a local economy can be built on natural assets and b) towns with hope for the future are more likely to be concerned about conserving the natural assets of their area. As I said, they were intertwined.
According to the recent talk in rural economic development circles, vibrant rural economies depend on promoting local entrepreneurship. Farmers were the original rural entrepreneurs but as employment shifted away from agriculture, other employers needed to be found. Not too long ago, for some communities finding those employers meant luring a company with tax incentives (with some of the companies banking on being able to get away with paying low wages since the area was job-limited). When the tax incentives expired, the company looked for the next place that would offer tax incentives. That’s not a sustainability based approach.
The sustainability based approach is to build up entrepreneurship among people who want to stay in the area. “Economic gardening” refers to encouraging residents start enterprises that make jobs for them and perhaps for others. These local entrepreneurs help put the ‘stay’ in sustainability (thanks to an unidentified street artist in St. Marys Australia for that play on words).
Local entrepreneurs may be placemakers directly. The ice cream vendor that adds more things to do at the waterfront (in the manner of Project for Public Places’ Power of 10 Concept) is an entrepreneur of place. The owners of the locally flavored cafes and pubs and other third places are entrepreneurs who help make the place as are local food producers, local artists/artisans, outdoor recreation vendors (i.e., the kayak rental on the waterfront).
Other local entrepreneurs help build and maintain the community, even if they are not directly involved in placemaking. Like all entrepreneurs, they are investing their time and treasure, with the goal of making money to be sure, but also because they, in some sense, want to help build the area. Afterall, there are easier ways to make money and one of those easier ways might be to leave the area. But your local, independent [fill in the blank from list below] stays and perseveres and probably supports the local community in ways national chains do not.
Look around. You may be surprised at the number of entrepreneurs in your community. I never really thought of our area as a hotbed of entrepreneurship until I thought about the number of contractors, auto repair shops, personal care businesses, restaurants, cafes, pubs, professional services, small manufacturing enterprises, and more, all of which make the town what it is. We all rely on them. I’m glad the proprietors of my favorite places are still hanging in there. They work really long hours. They have a lot invested in their enterprises. I hope they’re able to get some return on that investment when they choose to retire but in the meantime, thanks for keeping the lights on.
I’d like to see a “thank a local entrepreneur day” in our community. Do any of your communities out there have something like that?
According to the recent talk in rural economic development circles, vibrant rural economies depend on promoting local entrepreneurship. Farmers were the original rural entrepreneurs but as employment shifted away from agriculture, other employers needed to be found. Not too long ago, for some communities finding those employers meant luring a company with tax incentives (with some of the companies banking on being able to get away with paying low wages since the area was job-limited). When the tax incentives expired, the company looked for the next place that would offer tax incentives. That’s not a sustainability based approach.
The sustainability based approach is to build up entrepreneurship among people who want to stay in the area. “Economic gardening” refers to encouraging residents start enterprises that make jobs for them and perhaps for others. These local entrepreneurs help put the ‘stay’ in sustainability (thanks to an unidentified street artist in St. Marys Australia for that play on words).
Local entrepreneurs may be placemakers directly. The ice cream vendor that adds more things to do at the waterfront (in the manner of Project for Public Places’ Power of 10 Concept) is an entrepreneur of place. The owners of the locally flavored cafes and pubs and other third places are entrepreneurs who help make the place as are local food producers, local artists/artisans, outdoor recreation vendors (i.e., the kayak rental on the waterfront).
Other local entrepreneurs help build and maintain the community, even if they are not directly involved in placemaking. Like all entrepreneurs, they are investing their time and treasure, with the goal of making money to be sure, but also because they, in some sense, want to help build the area. Afterall, there are easier ways to make money and one of those easier ways might be to leave the area. But your local, independent [fill in the blank from list below] stays and perseveres and probably supports the local community in ways national chains do not.
Look around. You may be surprised at the number of entrepreneurs in your community. I never really thought of our area as a hotbed of entrepreneurship until I thought about the number of contractors, auto repair shops, personal care businesses, restaurants, cafes, pubs, professional services, small manufacturing enterprises, and more, all of which make the town what it is. We all rely on them. I’m glad the proprietors of my favorite places are still hanging in there. They work really long hours. They have a lot invested in their enterprises. I hope they’re able to get some return on that investment when they choose to retire but in the meantime, thanks for keeping the lights on.
I’d like to see a “thank a local entrepreneur day” in our community. Do any of your communities out there have something like that?
Friday, April 8, 2011
Lost my source of donuts
For the past several months, I had gotten into the habit of stopping in at a local restaurant for midmorning donuts if my errands took me over that way (or I could stretch the errands to take me over that way). Stopped in the other day at 9-ish. Sign on the door said "New Hours." Unfortunately, the new hours did not include breakfast and thus the bakery had been closed. Downsizing I guess. Darn. I had gotten fond of fresh/local donuts/pastries/scones all of which were quite good. I've had good donuts and I know the difference between good and bad donuts. These were good. And the only source of good donuts in town.
That's the third good donut source that's closed here. What's the matter with an upper midwest town that can't keep a donut source in business? This morning a possible answer came to me when I filled up the car with gasoline. I wonder if the expense of feeding the automobile is leaving people short of cash for luxuries such as donuts? Maybe it's time to put the car on a diet and leave yourself some extra pocket change for donuts.
As one door closes another opens. Losing the donut source is sad (although as someone who works in public health I do have mixed feelings about donuts... remember, everything in moderation!). But the first local brew pub recently opened downtown (again, remember, everything in moderation!) And one of the vacant storefronts states that a new coffee shop will be opening. Maybe they'll have donuts.
That's the third good donut source that's closed here. What's the matter with an upper midwest town that can't keep a donut source in business? This morning a possible answer came to me when I filled up the car with gasoline. I wonder if the expense of feeding the automobile is leaving people short of cash for luxuries such as donuts? Maybe it's time to put the car on a diet and leave yourself some extra pocket change for donuts.
As one door closes another opens. Losing the donut source is sad (although as someone who works in public health I do have mixed feelings about donuts... remember, everything in moderation!). But the first local brew pub recently opened downtown (again, remember, everything in moderation!) And one of the vacant storefronts states that a new coffee shop will be opening. Maybe they'll have donuts.
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