Building a Sense of Place

Most of the time when we talk about sense of place, a place people care about, we think of historical significance (Boston), cultural significance (New Orleans), architectural significance (Chicago). But the more I think about it, the more I come to believe that a critical piece of placemaking is social significance which I think can be achieved by creating a place that attracts people.

New Urbanist Andreas Duany was in Dallas recently and he discussed how few good places there are in Dallas. He even trashed the new Victory area near downtown Dallas that everyone here in Dallas thinks of as our best shot at creating a place that matters in the heart of the city. He didn't talk about this in detail, but he inferred that the design of a neighborhood could create a sense of place. I think he is right that a lot of architecture and neighborhood design works against and even precludes placemaking, but I also think that even when architecture and neighborhood design is optimized to create a place, it may not be sufficient to make it happen.

Although the ideas of "focal points" and "multiple equilibria" can be found in lots of economics texts, they don't pop up in the popular press that often. However, Tim Harford devotes an entire chapter of his book _The Logic of Life_ to the importance of these comments in the creation of places and the evolution of neighborhoods.

It is key, I believe, to creating a sense of place that a location attracts people. This is because, for the most part, being around people is a good thing. I seem to have more fun in a restaurant or bar that is full of other people rather than ones that are mostly empty. I prefer going to athletic events that are well attended. Cafes in Europe with outdoor seating tend to be located where lots of people walk by and the chairs at the beginning of the day are oriented towards people watching. Harford uses parks as an example of a place that is much more fun to be when there are lots of other people also using the park. I am even more enthusiastic about taking a bus if there are more people on it (although for some reason this is not true about an airplane). Even shopping malls are more fun when busy -- assuming I am not under the gun to buy things and the crowds do not slow me down -- like the Saturday before Christmas.

All of these are examples of focal points, something that creates an opportunity for people to coordinate being around other people without any actual communication taking place. There is actually a park near our house which is wedged between City Hall and a creek that has seldom used bandshell, tennis courts, and horseshoe playing areas, but the park is full of people almost every weekend day when the weather is good enough. The reason is that it contains a large pavilion with grills that can be reserved for use by any group that wants to sign up. Even if groups decide to use it for only 1/2 the Saturdays and Sundays from April to October, use is regular enough and the activity that accompanies it attracts people to the park to use the other grills, the playground, the basketball court, etc. I cannot prove this, but that regular enough use of the pavilion by large groups attracts so many people that even when no one is using the pavilion, the park is a fun place to be. This state of a crowded park on relatively nice weekend days is an equilibrium. So long as everyone believes the park will be well attended and more fun, they will continue to go, making the crowded park crowded. Crowded parks tend to stay that way.

And how about this: In the winter when it is much less likely that any group will reserve the pavilion because the weather is much less certain, even on a pleasant Dallas day (sunny and 60 deg), the park will be less well attended and if we go, we won't stay as long as the park won't be as much fun. This is also an equilibrium. Empty parks tend to stay that way.
This park has multiple equilibria because it swings from full to empty depending on the day of the week and month of the year.

So if I were going to try to build a sense of place in a city based on the social aspect of place, I would do two things. First, I would create spaces (parks, plazas, streets, squares, etc.) that are easily accessible, preferably by foot or bicycle, but also do something that creates a focal point, something that would create coordination of use of the space without any actual communication. Plaza de Mayor in Madrid is a fully enclosed plaza ringed with shops and restaurants. The Place Georges Pompidou (a plaza) in Paris is constantly full of performers, live musical performances, and people. Cafes and restaurants are there, but the focal point has to be the Pompidou Centre, which houses the National Modern Art Museum and a large public library. Between the different potential used for the space, there is virtually no time when the plaza does not have a great deal of social energy. St. Peter's Piazza is in front of St. Peter's Basilica and it gains energy from the stream of the faithful and tourists coming to see the Swiss guard and the Basilica or to celebrate mass.

Unfortunately, the past 40 years have provided thousands of examples of failed place-making attempts. Downtown Galesburg Illinois has a small square off Main Street complete with benches, a small stage with seating and small decorative pine trees. With Main Street on one side and a parking lot on the other, I am sure the designers hoped this place would bring people back downtown. The problem is that there is never anyone in it. LaGrange Illinois turned a street into the walking Calendar Court Mall lined with retail shops. When real malls attracted most shoppers, Calendar Court was left empty and the city has re-introduced the street. Professional planners now decry the three Bs of 1980s redevelopment: banners, berms and bandstands. The first two because it isn't the physical look that matters and the third because their infrequent use never creates the focal point that brings enough people to the area to reach that critical mass that becomes a self sustaining equilibrium of social energy.

The trick is to have a place that has easy access for people to get to, but also has a reason for people to be there enough of the time that people go because they have faith that enough other people will be there as well to make the place interesting.

Two key questions remain. First, how many people have to live within easy access to make this work? This may limit how many such places can be successful. Barcelona and Hong Kong are so dense that there can be a lot of successful social places in a small geographic area. But how about within a much less dense suburban area? It may be my imagination, but the new less dense outer-ring suburbs seem to have less social energy or social places than much more dense middle class neighborhoods. Is this simply a function of density?

The second question is how strong or consistent does the focal point have to be to create a high social energy equilibrium? If an inner-ring suburb redevelops an area as a public square, does the city need to ensure that art festivals, musical performances, street performers, etc. are scheduled twice per month? Twice per week? Can some of this be supplanted with restaurants with outdoor seating? How much does a light rail station add or subtract from the social energy?

This entry mainly focused on small places, but might it be possible to use some of the same ideas to create a sense of place over the entire city? I’ll have to ponder that.