Creative Placemaking

What is It?

The term “creative placemaking” is used commonly in community development and city/urban planning. But what does it really mean? How will you know it when you see it? Creative Placemaking is generally understood as the use of arts and culture by diverse partners to strategically shape the physical and social character of a place in order to spur economic development, promote enduring social change and improve the physical environment.

Key to Creative Placemaking is the involvement of the residents of an area. At StL Arts Chamber, we reviewed surveys, resident meeting input, interviewed residents and worked with local plans and leaders to address issues identified by residents through our Creative Placemaking Initiative.

Key issues identified were rebuilding the cultural identity of the neighborhoods as they address crime and violence frequently related to vacancy, extensive disinvestment in not only housing and infrastructure but also health, education and welfare of residents and economic prosperity of the area.

At the St. Louis Arts Chamber, we believe that artists have vital insights and tools to offer when it comes to tackling public issues.

Resident Concerns:

Cultural Identity of St. Louis Neighborhoods

From the City Website:

“Thousands of African-Americans moved to St. Louis between World War I and World War II. By 1940, over 800,000 people lived in the City of St. Louis. After World War II, the City’s population peaked at 856,000 by 1950. This crowded city had no more room to grow within its fixed boundaries, and much of the housing stock had been neglected during the Great Depression of the 1930s and during World War II. Thus any new growth had to occur in the suburbs in St. Louis County, which St. Louis could not annex. Although some African-Americans from the South, as well as Southeast Missourians, continued to move into St. Louis, earlier immigrant generations gradually moved to suburbia.” This period was generallly referred to as “White Flight” leaving large neighborhoods of neglected and deteriorating housing stock and a smaller tax base to reinvigorate the City.

“Urban renewal efforts and public housing development programs could not stem the tide of population loss, and in some cases contributed to the decline. Four new interstate highways cut block-wide swaths through neighborhoods, facilitating the exodus to the suburbs.” Many of these highways devastated largely African American neighborhods by creating artificial infrastructure boundaries and breaking up social units from familes, to churches to small businesses. Culture, the connections that join people and societies, was devastated. It was easy to bypass the neighborhoods and local businesses as the higheways went to the suburbs and larger malls and musinesses.

“Meanwhile, the last streetcar line in St. Louis, the Hodiamont, stopped operating in 1966.” With the close of the streetcar, transportation around the city became limited to those who could afford cars or the long waits for limited public transportation.

From A Preservation Plan for St. Louis Part 1: Historic Contexts: “”The problem of the twentieth century” wrote W. E. B. DuBois in The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, “is the problem of the color line.” The words of the great African-American writer on race relations was as much a statement of historical trend as prophecy.” This article provides an extensive overview of the Black experience in St. Louis.

St Louis was identified as one of the most segregated cities in the country by the Manhatton Institute in 2012. The BBC referred to the Delmar Divide: the physical manifestation of segregation with north of Delmar (Black, lower income, lower education, less infrastructure investment, higher crime rates) being almost completely opposite of areas south of Delmar. With residents leaving the city lowering the tax base, focus on areas south of Delmar, economic decline and an aging population, areas north of Delmar were neglected even though they largely created a very negative image of the City.

Our Creative Placemaking Initiative is changing that by addressing the underlying issues of listening to residents and addressing their priorities to rebuild their culture and neighborhoods. Cultureal identity includes:

• providing Little Free Libraries and books consistent with the Read In Color program to encourage reading, especially from authors and with protagonists similar to the residents.
• with resident input, creating beautification opportunities of the neighborhoods including cleanups with art installations such as murals
• creating summer programming in the arts and nature as well as mentorships for students and young adults to gain workforce skills by pursuing the arts.
• creating neighborhood art parks with resident input into design and support for installation and maintenance that express the interests of the community while addressing violence, disinvestment abd economic development, especially for individual property owners and maintstreets.

Violence: A Public Health Issue

The St. Louis region has been consistently identified as one of the most violent regions in the United States on multiple parameters, especially north of the Delmar Divide. As evidenced in the 2018 Washington University report Segregation in St. Louis: Dismantling the Divide, the region has been shaped by an extensive history of segregation driven by policies at multiple levels, resulting in segregation that systematically excludes African American families from areas of opportunity that support positive economic, educational, and health outcomes.

According to annual crime statistics in the region, while overall crime has trended downward, violent crimes have remained ever present. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, results of their research indicate that while foreclosure alone has no effect on crime, violent crime rates increase by roughly 19% once the foreclosed home becomes vacant – an effect that increases with length of vacancy.

The Manhattan Institute noted:

“Crime and place are tightly coupled. Just 5% of St. Louis city blocks account for over half of all reported violent crime. Many large cities see similar patterns, a fact that criminologists refer to as the “law of crime concentration.” When we think about crime, we should really think about place — and how seemingly small changes in these high-crime blocks can improve safety and quality of life for residents.”

“Abandoned homes and vacant lots are common in high-crime city blocks. Empty homes foster crime by providing hideouts for criminal activities, such as drug dens. But beyond their four walls, they also spread fear, discouraging residents from walking down the street, socializing with neighbors — and emboldening criminals with the sense that the streets are theirs to control. This can spread from block-to-block, as disorder fosters the spread of fear.”

“Economic development strategies have limited effects on crime and poverty, especially if they aim to simultaneously preserve neighborhoods for existing residents. A growing body of scientific evidence, however, suggests that cities can reduce crime substantially by remediating vacant lots and abandoned homes on high-crime city blocks. “Abandoned homes and vacant lots are common in high-crime city blocks. Empty homes foster crime by providing hideouts for criminal activities, such as drug dens. But beyond their four walls, they also spread fear, discouraging residents from walking down the street, socializing with neighbors — and emboldening criminals with the sense that the streets are theirs to control. This can spread from block-to-block, as disorder fosters the spread of fear. Economic development strategies have limited effects on crime and poverty, especially if they aim to simultaneously preserve neighborhoods for existing residents. A growing body of scientific evidence, however, suggests that cities can reduce crime substantially by remediating vacant lots and abandoned homes on high-crime city blocks.”

In addition, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has considered violence to be a widespread public health problem since 1979. The direct effect of violence on victims and families is obvious. The indirect effects of violence on health are farther reaching: many move away from violent areas, increasing vacancy. Along with vacancy comes,

• delipadated buildings with health dangers of their own
• vacant buildings supporting vermin which carry disease,
• dying trees creating heat islands and increasing poor air quality related to diseases such as asthma
• poorly kept infrastructure which allow standing water and mosquitos, damaged concrete and a lack of health service providers.

The St Louis Arts Chamber is working with residents to address issues of safety such as decreased crime, improved traffic safety and improved health opportunities in the neighborhoods through its creative placemaking actitivities such as creating art parks including improved lighting, trash pick up and maintenance, increasing the tree canopy and native plants to improve air quality and decrease heat island effect and addressing infrastructure issues of standing water and sewer back ups. In the next phase, artists will participate in traffic slowing initiatives through street art shown to be effective in slowing traffic and improving safety through multiple studies including Bloomberg Asphalt Art Initiatives impact reports.

Disinvestment

Disinvestment in north St. Louis has spanned decades and is not easily corrected. Direct approach to address disinvestment is to bring in new business. Many areas are being blighted to bring in new busineses such as the National GeoSpatial Agency but that does not provide investment into the community itself:

• The jobs require much more education than mot residents have and usually in very specialized areas
• The new developments will be isolated and protected from the violence and blight of the neighborhoods
• Given that most of the workers will not live in the neighborhoods, there is limited economoic spill over to small businesses in the neighborhoods

Housing stock often needs major and minor repairs as its aging residents on fixed incomes have difficuty keeping homes in top shape. Infrastructure needs major repairs to address street conditions, sidewalks, sewer systems and streets. While these will be addressed around the new investment, the neighborhood is a second thought. Health, Education and Welfare of residents is secondary to the new business. All of this results in the historic effects of islands of economic prosperity in neglected areas.

Economic Prosperity

To address economic prosperity of the neighborhoods, The STL Arts Chamber’s Creative Placemaking initiative is focused upon collaborations to address

• improved housing through home improvements and native plantings/tree management,
• arts and traffic safety programs to address street condition and traffic safety as well as pedestrian safety,
• addressing water and sewer issues in creationof the art parks
• installing and working with residents to maintain trees, native plantings, art that expresses the neighborhood perspectives
• decrease crime and vacancy by utilizing vacant space to create community gathering places

all of which has been shown to improve property values and snowball to continued economic development.