On June 5-8, 2024, Baltimore, Maryland, was teeming with attendees of the 4th International Placemaking Week. In partnership with our co-host, the Neighborhood Design Center, Project for Public Spaces welcomed over 600 participants from all over the world to partake in a one-of-a-kind gathering that is proudly known as a “conference without walls.” Building on the momentum of the growing international placemaking community, Placemaking Week is a catalyst for moving community-powered public spaces forward globally.
“Public space touches all of the important issues that we’re facing as a society today because it's where we live our lives,” said Nate Storring, Project for Public Spaces’ Co-Executive Director, to kick off our opening plenary. “It’s the glue that holds together our main streets, our neighborhoods, and our downtowns… It’s absolutely magical when you get it right.”
Placemaking Week is technically a conference, but as one attendee observed, it feels more like a special occasion. This year’s four-day event started and ended with inspiring plenaries, thought-provoking panels, and hands-on breakout sessions at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), spilling out into an activated campus quad for social lunches and mingling. In between, Placemaking Week continued on city sidewalks, parks, waterfronts, and urban farms; and in galleries, markets, once-vacant houses, and so many other unconventional venues.
As a conference without walls, it was paramount to Project for Public Spaces and its local co-host the Neighborhood Design Center that attendees would be out and about as they saw placemaking put into practice throughout Baltimore. “We can easily go to a hotel or a conference center and keep things simple for all of us, but then how would we really learn about the city we're in?” said Juliet Kahne, Project for Public Spaces’ Director of Events, during the closing plenary. “And would we really see its challenges and triumphs?”
Mobile workshops galvanized our attendees to experience creative ways local organizations, markets, civic groups, cultural institutions, artists, developers, and more are shaping public space to educate, commemorate, and serve the people of Baltimore.
The morning of Thursday, June 6 was filled with a dozen mobile workshops that took place across the city. Some attendees set out on a tour with the Farm Alliance of Baltimore to learn about how urban farms are alleviating systemic harms and injustices by not only cultivating the land but also the communities that tend it. Others explored a new mixed-use waterfront development, the Baltimore Peninsula, by bus, boat, and foot to learn about how the developer works with local residents through a Community Benefits Agreement, a unique public-private partnership that supports residents through a dedicated funding source driven by local economic success. They even experienced first-hand the inner workings of an oyster farm project while hauling oyster cages to land!
Thursday wrapped up with local programming at neighborhood green spaces, including a movie night at "Artscape Park" in Station North, and Art After Dark, an immersive live graffiti celebration in the Bromo Arts District. Art After Dark was a free public program with food trucks, light projections, and a DJ, produced by the Mayor's office. The event, celebrating the power of art and community in transforming our urban landscapes, featured a dynamic “who's who” of Baltimore's art scene with renowned artists, including Gaia, Adam Stab, Whitney Frazier, Pablo Machioli, and Terry Kilby.
On Friday, June 7, community leaders led neighborhood walks through Station North and Greenmount West on the way to the Closing Party. The groups stopped at places like Blue Light Junction, where attendees tried their hand at natural botanical dyeing and learned about the partnership between the studio and the community garden across the path that makes their art and community storytelling possible.
Attendees expressed appreciation for this immersive event format. “Now I am home… feeling as if I have come home from a long week of summer camp, grass stained knees and all,” reflected Adam Schwartz, Community Activator, Federation of Calgary Communities, on LinkedIn. “[I’m] inspired by the many, many people using placemaking and tactical urbanism as methods to quickly and efficiently improve the quality of life in their communities.”
Throughout the conference, speakers, panelists, and workshop leaders urged attendees to think critically, implement intentionally, and plan for not only meaningful placemaking, but also lasting placekeeping.
During the Couch Conversation of the opening plenary focused on placemaking in Baltimore, Dr. Lester Spence, Professor of Political Science & Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University, underscored the importance of the politics of public space. He urged the audience to question the decisions and systems that lead to neglected and thriving places, concluding that “doubling down on politics is going to give us the ability to forge new ideas, forge new institutions, and to carve out shared identities that can create a new world.”
The role of government and the potential of placemaking in righting the wrongs from the past was a key focus on the conference’s opening plenary and throughout the week.
To that end, the state of Maryland has begun to acknowledge systemic harms from the past as a necessary step to revitalizing Baltimore. Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) Secretary Jacob R. Day said, “There is a reason why we have set the values of our agency…to include two very important things: that we will build just communities and we will build lovable places.” He elaborated that “the destruction we visited upon communities, largely on Black neighborhoods in this country and very much so in [Baltimore], we did deliberately. And it's going to take deliberate counteraction to undo that.” As a response, the agency has removed and stabilized over 6,000 vacant houses in Baltimore and has mandated appropriation for years to come to address vacancy and promote revitalization.
Likewise, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott highlighted how his administration has embraced these values. “Baltimore welcomes you because we value places, culture, ample development, and accessibility in everything that we do,” said Mayor Scott. “My administration is deeply committed to both placemaking but, more importantly, placekeeping.” As an example of successful placekeeping, he cited the Lexington Market, the oldest continuously operating public market in the country.
True placemaking by nature is a participatory practice, but there is much work to be done to bring more seats to the table. Another major takeaway of the conference was to not only connect with those in the room, but to acknowledge those who are not. “Think about who’s here, who’s not, and why,” probed Lisa Snowden-McCray, Editor in Chief of Baltimore Beat. It is critical to think about what attendance tells us about how placemaking is and is not happening for everyone, and the implications for the work that needs to be done in order to serve everyone in any given community.
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Many speakers centered their thoughts on how equity and politics factor in, when communities are placemaking.
A focus on equity was embedded throughout the conference with sessions that uplifted storytelling by people of marginalized identities and mobilization strategies for systemically disinvested communities to shift power and grow agency. For example, in a panel discussion “For Us By Us: Placekeeping in Black Communities,” panelists underscored the importance of engaging with city planners and agencies, but also the need to deploy community-driven initiatives like crowdfunding to activate spaces sooner and more consistently.
Equitable local impact is also a key consideration in the organization of Placemaking Week. Whenever possible, Project for Public Spaces purchases goods and services locally from diverse businesses, nonprofits, and artists, resulting in over $130,000 of direct local spending at our 2024 event. In addition, Visit Baltimore estimates that attendees spurred $500,000 in economic activity in Baltimore.
"Early feedback from community partners and local participants really indicates a strong feeling of sector-building in the Baltimore region,” said Briony Hynson, Neighborhood Design Center’s Deputy Director. We've had many great conversations with folks who attended on creative ideas to keep strengthening this network moving forward."
Thanks to our local co-producer, The Medicine Show, we invited conference attendees to experience some of the most exciting arts and entertainment districts in the city, including Station North and Bromo, where the city itself is a canvas for creativity. Attendees had the opportunity to explore these neighborhoods through art walks and interact with and support vendors in these diverse business corridors. Through thoughtfully curated programming and the inclusion of local vendors and venues, the conference supported local business from the opening block part to the closing party at Area 405.
“Placemaking Week is truly more than a conference!” said Hailey Jordan, Information Designer, at Kings Imagination Co. “In the small details of choosing location, food truck vendors, and language around Baltimore, it was clear that there were folks from Neighborhood Design Center who love this city and folks from Project for Public Spaces who were willing to learn about and love this city who came together to design an experience that honored the history, the people, and the sense of home here in Baltimore.”
Conference events and programming took place on the streets; throughout the city’s creative arts districts; in local business venues, cultural institutions, and markets; at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and others.
As our local placemaking champion and partner, the Neighborhood Design Center welcomed conference goers to reflect on how the conference’s impact will live on beyond the week, through the connections made possible by this community-driven work. “Placemaking takes the edict to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ to heart and to soul,” reflects Jennifer Goold, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Design Center. Placemaking allows us to see that “every living being on this plant is our neighbor, is ourself.”
Placemaking Manager, Director of Creative Placemaking, Director of Placemaking & Events, Manager of Creative Placemaking & Public Art, Director of Programming & Placemaking—these are just some of the professional titles of our attendees at the conference that include placemaking by name.
Five years ago at our last International Placemaking Week, seeing titles with “placemaking” was rare, but today it is being recognized as an interdisciplinary profession at new levels. “The movement has evolved so much,” shared Elena Madison, Project for Public Spaces’ Director of Projects at the conference’s closing plenary. “I remember when you wouldn’t use the word ‘placemaking’ in a formal proposal or in a report because no one was funding it. Today, the ideas and the language of placemaking have made their way to the federal government.”
Over 600 placemakers from around the world came together to explore and appreciate the city of Baltimore.
It is becoming clearer and clearer that investing in placemaking leads to strong civic infrastructure that can contribute to well-being and withstand threats to it as well. Different from traditional “infrastructure,” civic infrastructure focuses on quality of life, opportunities, and connections to each other, made possible by shared places like parks, libraries, main streets, town squares, community centers, and more. These places impact our economy, health and well-being, and strengthen our democracy. Investing in civil infrastructure can help issues like homelessness, addiction, and mental health. As a result, placemaking is also intersecting with a growing number of disciplines, as seen at Placemaking Week.
As an indicator of the growth and mainstreaming of placemaking practice, more and more federal programs are supporting it. Governmental entities are now turning to, and funding, locally driven work that strengthens the connection between people and places, and supporting the collaborative process by which we work together to shape our public realm. In a panel discussion “Placemaking with Federal Agencies,” we heard from representatives from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who share how these agencies are currently facilitating placemaking in their work, and how to access their resources and collaborate with them in the future.
Conference attendees celebrated at the closing party at Area 405.
More and more, we are also seeing public space in a different lens, through which place can become a medium for healing. Graham Projects calls this “public art for the common good.” And along with other local organizations like Sol Raya Public Space, they are bringing the power of public art to unexpected spaces like crosswalks and building facades in Baltimore. Zero Empty Spaces turns vacant commercial real estate into artist studios in four different states; Johnston Square Partners restores abandoned row homes and converts vacant sites into community assets in Baltimore; and CultureHouse subscribe to a “vacant to vibrant” approach through community pop-ups.
With the growing need to strengthen civic infrastructure, and the realization that effective placemaking can deliver tangible results, Placemaking Week demonstrated that there are endless opportunities for new communities to harness placemaking to improve their well-being.
Social listening for X and Instagram, courtesy of Velocity Group.
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