A Look at Creative Placemaking Strategies in Washington State
By Samy Hamiche, 2023 PreserveWA Fellow
PreserveWA Fellows are students and young professionals who attend our annual Main Street and preservation conference and then write an article about what they learned as an attendee (or other relevant topic). Look out for articles from our 2023 Fellows in this year’s issues of This Place.
Creative placemaking—and the creative economy at large—have always been of interest to me because of my background as an arts leader who wants cities to implement strategies to beautify cities and make them culturally relevant. Attending the 2023 RevitalizeWA Conference as a PreserveWA Fellow provided me with great insight into how varied creative placemaking programs look across Washington State, depending on the area’s size, needs, and ultimate goals.
According to The Policy Circle, the creative economy occupies a unique position at the nexus of economics, innovation, social value, and sustainability. Given the capacity of culture to improve quality of life, it is possible to integrate creativity and collaboration into the free-market economy to generate income, employment, and well-being. This is called creative placemaking.
One example from the City of Seattle, the Seattle Restored Program, seeks to breathe life into Seattle’s neighborhoods by activating vacant storefronts with pop-up shops, art installations, artist residencies, and events. This method not only beautifies certain areas of Seattle but also encourages participation from the community and gives support to local artists, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds. Vancouver’s Main Street Promise Project adopts a comprehensive approach, tackling both the underlying infrastructure and surface remodeling with initiatives such as improved pedestrian crossings, expanded sidewalks, and a transition to parallel parking, with the goal of developing a visually appealing and pedestrian-friendly downtown landscape. Both initiatives share a common goal of urban revitalization and creative placemaking but differ in approaches because of the needs and size of their respective cities.
Both Seattle Restored and Vancouver’s Main Street Promise use art as a way to foster change, which is the foundation of creative placemaking. Both programs have paved the way for other cities to use creative placemaking as a way to boost their economy and beautify their downtowns. Some best practices from these two programs stood out to me as applicable to any community:
- Encourage partnerships and collaborations between artists, arts organizations, community developers, and other stakeholders to carry out community-led transformation strategies.
- Invest in public art to beautify the city through murals, sculptures, painted benches, renovated facades, and activation of empty storefronts.
- Invest in creative public markets or street performances to encourage regular community involvement.
- Remove obstacles to public participation by making downtown more accessible for all (e.g., widening sidewalks, creating bike lanes) and by enhancing communication about events in local neighborhoods, especially to underprivileged or underrepresented communities.
- Promote the inclusion of artistic and cultural programs in larger community development projects like urban design, infrastructure construction, and public space planning.
- Encourage collaborations between artists and landlords, brokers, and real estate professionals to prioritize the inclusion of creative spaces in urban development projects.
I believe that creative placemaking and revitalization initiatives are contributing to the broader narrative of urban development in Washington State, with these programs as prime examples of the state’s commitment to fostering creativity, maintaining historical sites, and designing environments that adapt to the changing requirements of local communities and businesses.
Photo: An empty Seattle storefront showcases the art of multi-disciplinary artist Kyle Krauskopf. Photo courtesy of Seattle Refined.