Wisdom and Encouragement from Experienced Placemakers
A community engagement campaign coordinated by Rebecca Sanborn Stone's Community Workshop.
Leaders in the Field
Bridgman, Michigan’s downtown corridor had long been blemished by a large, centrally-located, unattractive parking lot. That is, until Julie Strating and Tara Heiser, residents of the 2,000-person town in the state’s southwestern region, decided to do something about it. In 2022, Strating drew upon her background in interior design and walked into a corridor improvement authority meeting with mock-up drawings envisioning the transformation of the parking lot into a vibrant, functional public space. Through the planning and fundraising process, Strating teamed up with Heiser, a former marketing executive, and their partnership guided and accelerated the project as it evolved into a full-fledged build-out. Today, the Bridgman Courtyard serves the town as a lively artistic and cultural center beloved by the small community.
Julie Strating.
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Tara Heiser.
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Throughout the Bridgman Courtyard planning and development process, residents and town councils in neighboring communities approached Strating and Heiser, inspired by their successful creative efforts to add spirit and energy to their town. Their work with the courtyard, combined with the counseling they offered to these neighbors, led Strating and Heiser to found Changemaker Studio, an organization assisting with small town placemaking efforts throughout Michigan. As Heiser explains, Changemaker Studio provides “placemaking services a la carte,” empowering communities to seek reinforcement in addressing their various pain points. Strating conceives of Heiser and herself as “professional gap-fillers” versed in a keen ability to identify and creatively tackle any shortcomings faced in the planning and execution of small town placemaking projects.
Rebecca Sanborn Stone.
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Maria Sykes. Photo by Danny Baxter.
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Rebecca Sanborn Stone is the co-founder of Community Workshop, a Vermont-based non-profit that offers to rural towns across North America a diverse menu of town improvement services, including community mapping, event facilitation, strategic planning, training and resource development, messaging, and more. Interested in the study of land use since graduate school, Stone became an Orton Family Foundations Scholar, where she engaged critically with municipal placemaking solutions. In 2015, she leveraged this experience to create Community Workshop with the aim to assist small communities in the identification, protection, and enhancement of their unique senses of place. Serving as the organization’s Senior Planner and Engagement Specialist, Stone often focuses specifically on enhancing the efficiency and quality of community input in municipal placemaking projects. Throughout her decade of experience, she has developed tested strategies to make community engagement more creative, fun, and effective.
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Maria Sykes is a placemaker and socially-engaged artist who lives and works in Green River, Utah, a town of around 1,000 people an hour north of Canyonlands National Park. Green River is an exceptionally isolated community, situated within Utah’s high desert fifty miles from the nearest small settlement. In 2009, Maria traveled to the town after graduating from college to work with a non-profit organization building affordable housing in the community. Employing a design-oriented perspective, Maria invigorated the organization’s work with public art and witnessed the positive impact that creative placemaking had on the small town. She remained in the community for a few years, and then, with two collaborators, founded Epicenter, a non-profit organization using design and architecture to revitalize Green River and address the town’s social needs. Over the past decade, Epicenter has created numerous functional design programs and architecture installations, including a beloved town welcome sign, a mountain biking trail, and a housing damage repair initiative. Sykes is currently working to develop and beautify more affordable housing in the community.
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A pop-up local history trail project created by Community Workshop in Hyde Park, VT.
The Power of Small Town Placemaking
While rural towns rarely lack in public space, deliberate transformation of these spaces through placemaking offers vital, tangible enhancements to their communities. As Stone explains, “even though many small towns have plenty of open space, they don’t necessarily have effective community space.” Intentional, effective placemaking provides residents the ability to create these essential community spaces and thus protect and enhance their towns.
Social Capital
A primary benefit that placemaking confers upon rural towns is the ability to increase communities’ social capital. That is, the processes and products of placemaking initiatives provide singular opportunities for social connection within small towns that can feel isolating for many members. As Stone explains, rural towns “can often feel a bit like a club” to residents hoping to establish social footing. Community spaces that intentionally bring individuals together act as a salve to this naturally isolating nature. Effective programming in public areas can incite connections between residents with similar interests and shared experiences. As Stone puts simply, “a lot of small towns have open space, but it’s actually not much of a place,” continuing, “having those true community spaces … makes people happier.”
The strong social connections facilitated through vibrant public spaces offer invaluable assets to small towns, in which neighborly connections between residents often serve as a societal backbone. Providing residents with robust community spaces builds and strengthens dynamic social networks, which are vital in the development of resilience in small towns and rural communities. Stone explains that many towns in Vermont have recently suffered from extreme flooding events, and she traces these communities’ ability to emerge safe and secure from these challenges to the strong social connections fostered through vibrant third spaces. She says that creating and maintaining “those civic spaces where people can meet and connect and respond is critical” toward small towns’ capacity for endurance. As rural communities prepare to face difficult challenges including climate change, demographic shifts, and more, placemaking offers the potential to preserve and strengthen the social networks that will deliver these small communities through hardships.
The strong social connections facilitated through vibrant public spaces offer invaluable assets to small towns, in which neighborly connections between residents often serve as a societal backbone. Providing residents with robust community spaces builds and strengthens dynamic social networks, which are vital in the development of resilience in small towns and rural communities. Stone explains that many towns in Vermont have recently suffered from extreme flooding events, and she traces these communities’ ability to emerge safe and secure from these challenges to the strong social connections fostered through vibrant third spaces. She says that creating and maintaining “those civic spaces where people can meet and connect and respond is critical” toward small towns’ capacity for endurance. As rural communities prepare to face difficult challenges including climate change, demographic shifts, and more, placemaking offers the potential to preserve and strengthen the social networks that will deliver these small communities through hardships.
Bridgman Courtyard.
Placemaking further strengthens the social fabric of small towns through its singular ability to encourage residents to reflect upon the direction of their community. Many residents of rural communities tend to avoid discussions regarding social change, if not rejecting change altogether. The process of community engagement and creative placemaking is vitally important toward bringing locals together and having the important discussions that arise when changes are needed. In Green River, Sykes explains, “even though everyone knows everyone here, that doesn’t mean that there are great conversations about the future of the town or how people want to see the town improve.” The placemaking process stimulates these conversations, which provide municipal leaders and non-profit organizations clarity and guidance in their efforts to effect positive change. Community engagement and hypothetical proposals for public space development incite realizations of ideological consensus and allow residents to work out differences of opinion. Sykes explains that “people talk a lot about their own future, but I don’t think a lot of people usually talk about what they would like to see in town, so you have to create that structure for them to ask ‘what are our needs?’.” Placemaking incites the reflective community cooperation that is integral toward identifying pain points and necessary changes in rural communities that frequently resist any slight transformations.
Economic Health
In addition to this ability to strengthen social capital, placemaking consistently serves as a boon to the economies of rural communities. Providing welcoming and vibrant places of congregation helps nearby businesses thrive, and the historical and cultural significance of many small town businesses thus renders placemaking’s financial power integral toward the protection of small town ways of life. Strating and Heiser’s Bridgman Courtyard serves as an exemplary case study exhibiting the transformative economic power of placemaking. During the construction of the space, downtown establishments approached the town with concerns regarding slow business on Sunday afternoons. In response, Strating and Heiser activated the space with live acoustic concerts on Sundays, which significantly increased downtown foot traffic and economic activity, which trickled into the rest of the week as well. As Stone proclaimed, “if small businesses are going to survive on main street, we have to make those main streets look appealing.” This assistance that vibrant public spaces provide to local businesses carries special significance in isolated rural towns, where companies often rely nearly entirely on local residents for business, and where the closure of businesses threatens to leave residents without vital resources.
The Arts and Culture corridor in downtown Keene, NH, a Community Workshop project.
Heart and Soul
Another benefit singularly offered by placemaking is the ability to identify, preserve, and celebrate the unique identity and characteristics of small towns. As Stone explains, “every town has something unique and special about it. Sometimes towns really know that and are great at showcasing it. Other times, they’re not, and … if you don’t articulate it, there’s a real chance that it’s going to be lost.” Stone refers to this specific unique identity as the “heart and soul” of communities, a term which she picked up from her work with the Orton Family Foundation. These distinctive characteristics vary greatly from town to town—community identities can arise from a town’s historical significance, unique natural features, prevailing artistic cultures, architectural idiosyncrasies, and more. The processes of deliberate community engagement and placemaking empower local residents to thoughtfully and precisely define these characteristics. Stone explains that communities who subsequently “integrate [this identity] into the design of the space” create “a real sense of pride, and, in many communities, … pride is the most important ingredient to success today.” Heiser echoes this sentiment, expressing that “small communities have a lot of character and charm and their own unique personalities, and it’s really important to help those communities shine just a little bit brighter–to have that sense of pride and engagement in your community, you need those spaces to bring people together.”
Green River welcome sign by artist Lisa Ward and Epicenter. Photo by John Watson.
Arts and Culture
Finally, well-programmed public spaces in rural towns ensure access to arts and culture for both performers and audiences. Thinly- populated areas tend to lack the infrastructure and consumer demand necessary to support robust creative economies, but vibrant public spaces, coupled with intentional and sustained activation efforts, nurture the growth and sustainability of artistic and cultural output. Throughout Southwest Michigan, explains Strating, local artists and musicians don’t have places to perform. Consequently, residents of rural towns are often unable to experience the arts. Spaces like the Bridgman Courtyard, which host and market weekly live artistic performances, provide residents with access to enjoyable artistic experiences and make art a viable economic option for locals.
A pop-up theater concept designed by Community Workshop, Winner of the 2017 Kaboom! Play Everywhere challenge competition.
Common Challenges and Tested Solutions
Throughout the planning and implementation of their numerous placemaking endeavors, Changemaker Studio, Community Workshop, and Epicenter have consistently encountered obstacles that have required clever solutions. With decades of combined experience, the organizations have noted a number of roadblocks that frequently threaten the successful execution of promising projects. These barriers are universal, they explain, and are therefore likely to burden all rural placemakers, both new and experienced. Luckily, Strating, Heiser, Stone, and Sykes have developed a number of clever solutions to these frequent hurdles, which they recommend that everyone invested in the lovability of their small towns consider using to address the impediments that they will likely face throughout their placemaking journeys.
Predictably, a major roadblock that frequently hinders placemaking projects in small towns is the lack of resources available to municipal governments and non-profit organizations in rural communities. Before creating Changemaker Studio, Strating and Heiser sat down with town councils throughout Southwest Michigan to identify common pain points in the placemaking process. Consistently, these towns pointed to funding as their primary concern. They “couldn’t justify spending money on something beautiful,” recounts Strating, “despite the economic benefits.” Unable to provide financial assistance to the execution of community engagement campaigns, public space build-outs, or programming agendas, municipal governments often leave placemakers without the requisite resources to carry out promising plans.
Predictably, a major roadblock that frequently hinders placemaking projects in small towns is the lack of resources available to municipal governments and non-profit organizations in rural communities. Before creating Changemaker Studio, Strating and Heiser sat down with town councils throughout Southwest Michigan to identify common pain points in the placemaking process. Consistently, these towns pointed to funding as their primary concern. They “couldn’t justify spending money on something beautiful,” recounts Strating, “despite the economic benefits.” Unable to provide financial assistance to the execution of community engagement campaigns, public space build-outs, or programming agendas, municipal governments often leave placemakers without the requisite resources to carry out promising plans.
Julie Strating on site for Bridgman Courtyard construction.
Funding
Of course, placemakers often turn first to government, non-profit, and corporate grants to secure needed finances. Unsurprisingly, Changemaker Studio often utilizes grant money to pay for essential components of their placemaking ventures, and Strating and Heiser have accordingly honed in on a few strategies that have afforded them success. “We keep a very good eye on what’s available out there,” Strating explains, adding, “we try to make the projects the most compelling that they can be.” The appeal of Changemaker Studio’s projects comes down to their ability to tell a powerful story about the proposals, Heiser says. She explains, “it’s not enough to say that we’re going to turn this empty parking lot into a parklet, for example.” Instead, placemakers writing grant applications “need to tie in other aspects to make a really strong, compelling story.” Exploring how a planned project might accomplish social and cultural goals like accessibility, access to art, or sustainability lays an effective foundation for an application. Furthermore, detailing how a project will incite cooperation between distinct interest groups and town organizations exhibits the cross-sector collaboration that many grant organizations search for. In small towns, municipal departments and residential organizations often operate in isolation, and the cooperative nature of placemaking promises to “break down these siloes.” According to Strating and Heiser, exploring this promise of collaboration increases placemakers' standings among grant committees.
Sykes leading a group activity at the 2022 Epicenter Spring Summit. Photo by Danny Baxter.
Small town placemakers unable to obtain funding through grants have a number of other financial resources available to them. Heiser points first and foremost to crowdfunding—Changemaker Studio has secured funding for their projects through the placemaking-oriented crowdfunding site Patronicity, which empowers local residents to invest in their public spaces with donations. Strating and Heiser also recommend creatively leveraging relationships with nearby businesses and organizations to acquire financial backing. In their experience with Changemaker Studios, they have found that many businesses are aware of the economic potential offered by vibrant placemaking projects and are thus frequently willing to purchase sponsorships and naming rights for public spaces. Strating adds that “those business sponsorships can be small businesses all the way up to corporate foundations … every community has large companies,” with utility corporations being ubiquitous, “and a lot of times they’re more than willing to invest in the communities that they serve.” Similarly, rural and small town placemakers can consider forging connections and national and state organizations invested in community improvement missions. In Vermont, explains Stone, many national organizations, such as the EPA, as well as the state government, have assisted in community sustainability efforts by filling in certain gaps in funding. Stone especially commends the Vermont AARP, which invests heavily in placemaking and livability within the state and has accordingly granted significant financial support to Community Workshop’s partners. While she stresses that the assistance offered by certain organizations often varies greatly between states, Stone says that small town placemakers should always consider investigating the services provided by national non-profits and large government entities.
Staffing
A corollary to these funding challenges, small town governments and non-profit organizations tend to lack a robust public works staff. Municipal government employees often oversee many disparate responsibilities, which can leave placemakers without the support necessary to complete and sustain projects dealing with the public realm. In order to increase their staffing capacities, Heiser says, “it’s really important that [placemakers] … tap into their community and find those who are interested and able to help in different ways.” Changemaker Studios has found success taking advantage of the intrinsic skillbases in rural towns—they have found local gardeners enthusiastic to create planters, marketing professionals willing to advertise events, and bartenders glad to staff fundraising events. Town governments consistently welcome the assistance of these local residents in remedying personnel shortages. In Green River, as Sykes explains, “the city is understaffed and underfunded, so if anybody is willing to help, the city will take it.” Stone praises this organic and community-driven nature of rural placemaking, explaining that “small towns are so much fun to work with because they’re used to bootstrapping their way into everything … They’re very used to going out and doing things, finding creative ways to get stuff done without those resources.” Embracing and appealing to the inherent collaborative nature of rural communities allows placemakers the bandwidth necessary to address the staffing and resource challenges that small towns frequently face.
A group of high schoolers painting the unfinished Bridgman Courtyard.
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The final design.
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Skepticism
Rural placemakers able to secure the funding and skill base for their projects might encounter ideological resistance to physical or cultural changes in their communities. In many rural towns averse to change, placemaking proposals might embody the type of alteration that longtime locals feel threatens the community’s historical character. Accordingly, placemakers frequently benefit from the education of skeptical residents about the community benefits offered by their proposed projects. However, as Sykes points out, many small town residents hold deeply entrenched conceptions regarding the personality and appearance of their communities. Throughout her work in Green River, Sykes has identified two strategies that have effectively built consensus among stubborn locals around community projects. First, she explains, it is vital that placemakers gain the trust and respect of the populace. When Sykes initially began Epicenter, she had moved to Green River only a few years earlier, and was seen by some in her community as an outsider. The town’s gradual acceptance of Epicenter’s projects depended upon her integration within the local community. In order to persuade others that her placemaking proposals had the best interest of the community in mind, Sykes first needed to show that she truly cared about Green River and its people. “A lot of it is showing up, a lot of it is not leaving, and it’s also owning when you mess up,” she explains, urging rural placemakers to involve themselves in community schools and religious centers in order to build relationships. She finds it vitally important for placemakers to show that “you’re not a designer or an artist up in your ivory tower, you’re actually part of the community.” A mutually trustful relationship with locals affords placemakers the deference and leniency necessary to take risks and experiment with iterative installations.
Once this trust had been built, Sykes explains, the most effective method of educating community members about the benefits of placemaking projects is to involve them directly in the planning process. Throughout her work with Epicenter, Sykes has found that attempting to simply list to residents the potential advantages of specific placemaking ventures leads to conversations that often feel like one-sided lectures and do little to build excitement or pride around her community work. Instead, she explains, “when you engage local stakeholders in the process, they’re going to immediately be educated on what’s going on in the community because they’re a part of it.” Rather than attempting to work around stubborn opponents, she encourages placemakers to acknowledge their concerns and incorporate them in the project’s planning phase. Whether you ask these individuals about their hopes regarding specific aspects of a project or encourage them to lend a specific skill set toward the build-out or activation of a space, people tend to take pride in what they have helped to create. As Maria believes, “creative placemaking is a process more than it is a product.”
Once this trust had been built, Sykes explains, the most effective method of educating community members about the benefits of placemaking projects is to involve them directly in the planning process. Throughout her work with Epicenter, Sykes has found that attempting to simply list to residents the potential advantages of specific placemaking ventures leads to conversations that often feel like one-sided lectures and do little to build excitement or pride around her community work. Instead, she explains, “when you engage local stakeholders in the process, they’re going to immediately be educated on what’s going on in the community because they’re a part of it.” Rather than attempting to work around stubborn opponents, she encourages placemakers to acknowledge their concerns and incorporate them in the project’s planning phase. Whether you ask these individuals about their hopes regarding specific aspects of a project or encourage them to lend a specific skill set toward the build-out or activation of a space, people tend to take pride in what they have helped to create. As Maria believes, “creative placemaking is a process more than it is a product.”
Artist Chip Thomas installing wheatpaste mural in Green River, Utah. Photo by Danny Baxter.
Stone offers another solution that she has employed to circumvent the slow process of building social consensus and attaining political approval. She encourages placemakers to adopt the ethos of tactical urbanism within the contexts of small towns, embracing a spirit of “tactical ruralism.” Often, she explains, short, small, prototyped installations can convince community members of the promises offered by full-scale projects. According to Stone, “in rural areas and small towns in particular, that approach of experimental, short-term, quick, adaptive, temporary projects is so important.” Community Workshop has advocated for seed-bombing and street intervention campaigns, and Stone has seen small towns embrace parklets initially created as pop-ups by local residents without explicit government approval. These impromptu neighborhood placemaking displays tend to more effectively exhibit the power of placemaking to skeptical locals than simple conversations or debates, and they also tend to quell fears about any invasive drawbacks of placemaking. Stone thus encourages small town placemakers to “find ways to do things really cheaply, do things temporarily, and convince leaders to let you try things for a week or a month and see how it goes.”
Community Engagement
Of course, the geographical sprawl of small and rural towns can also pose a challenge to community engagement initiatives. In her years of experience with Community Workshop, Stone has identified effective strategies to ensure fruitful and efficient community engagement in rural communities. She has often found it difficult and unproductive to ask residents to commit long, uninterrupted stretches of time toward questionnaires or interviews. Instead, Stone utilizes campaigns full of quick input opportunities, asking short, targeted questions in order to avoid interfering with local residents’ day-to-day lives. Stone finds it most effective to “meet people where they are,” setting up tables at town festivals and working short surveys into school events and camp drop-offs. She often attributes her successful community engagement campaigns to “shifting expectations of what good engagement is.” As small town placemakers frequently lack the resources needed to carry out large-scale, coordinated engagement campaigns, Stone recommends thinking critically about the specific people from whom it is necessary to hear, as well as the specific questions that are necessary to ask. She finds that “it’s more effective to emphasize deep engagement with fewer people [as opposed to] that broad spectrum.” For example, “rather than trying to get a thousand survey responses, [she] might emphasize a focus group or a dialogue with a dozen people who are really representative of the community.” This targeted approach to placemaking participation has enabled Community Workshop to complete productive and informative community engagement projects without necessitating the resources or manpower that firms in larger cities might have.
A Community Workshop engagement campaign in Woodstock, VT.
Maintaining the Impact
Strating, Heiser, Stone, and Sykes all consistently reiterate that placemaking’s ability to improve rural communities hinges nearly entirely upon placemakers’ ability to ensure sustained and enthusiastic participation with their project. Once placemaking proposals have been realized, the success of any particular project requires a sustainable long-term slate of exciting programming that reflects the desires of the community. As Heiser quips, “once you build something, it’s not like the field of dreams,” continuing, “you have to make sure that people have a reason to go, and you have to tell them about it.” In small towns, residents’ day-to-day routines might not ordinarily carry them near civic centers, community theaters, or other lively public spaces. Accordingly, consistent activation, spirited special events, and targeted marketing are often the factors that separate beloved community spaces from forgotten parks, streets, and buildings. It’s not enough to create a space that simply looks appealing; rather, small town placemakers must build this appeal through exciting programming. Throughout Vermont, Stone has seen countless towns with beautiful trails and open spaces that have gone underutilized because community members are frequently unaware that they even exist. The parks that she has seen succeed are those that are clearly marked and marketed and regularly offer varying forms of recreation. Strating echoes this sentiment, stressing that “it is really important to come up with a sustainability plan for [public spaces] … in the long run.” She explains that it is vital to stay engaged with residents and work with governments and business leaders to explore a diverse schedule of events that will deliver maintained liveliness to placemaking projects. Those unable to maintain direct involvement in the activation of public spaces should consider the programming and scheduling during planning phases, contacting or creating resident volunteer organizations to oversee event agendas. Strating and Heiser “work closely with [their] clients to develop a plan that ensures the space remains active and useful over time.” They “not only help them determine the activities that will take place but also map out who will organize them and how to secure sustainable funding.” Intentionality and regularity in the usage of community spaces ensures their lasting impact on local residents and businesses.
Final Pieces of Advice
Strating, Heiser, Stone, and Sykes all express deep excitement over the future of small town placemaking, perceiving and praising a wave of interest in the practice across the country. They each offered one final, big-picture piece of advice for those looking to enhance their neighborhoods with the power of placemaking.
Strating urges that placemakers “don’t stop dreaming.” She says, “just because you think you can’t come up with the funding or don’t have the time, if you’re patient, you’ll find the funding and the right resources to make this happen.”
Heiser adds, “ideas can come from anywhere. It doesn’t have to start with city hall, so municipalities have to listen to their residents. There are a lot of great ideas out there just waiting to happen, so, when someone comes to you with an idea, harness it—see what you can do with it.”
Strating urges that placemakers “don’t stop dreaming.” She says, “just because you think you can’t come up with the funding or don’t have the time, if you’re patient, you’ll find the funding and the right resources to make this happen.”
Heiser adds, “ideas can come from anywhere. It doesn’t have to start with city hall, so municipalities have to listen to their residents. There are a lot of great ideas out there just waiting to happen, so, when someone comes to you with an idea, harness it—see what you can do with it.”
Tara Heiser working on a Changemaker Studio build-out.
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Julie Strating working on a Changemaker studio build-out.
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Stone’s top advice for small town placemakers is to “just go out and get started with something. If you have an idea or you see a need or a challenge or a place that needs revitalizing, go talk to people and find out who else might be interested. Start brainstorming, and then talk to some more people and see if you can get a group together that wants to try something, and then find a way to try it, whether it’s going out and doing something that costs absolutely nothing for one day or it’s finding a small grant and doing a mini project or teaming up with another organization, just go do something and see what happens … Be keen observers—see what works, what doesn’t work and build from there.”
A Community Workshop engagement campaign in Fairlee, VT.
Finally, Maria asserts that “it’s really important to dream really big, but then to build in small wins for yourself along the way because that big lofty goal can feel overwhelming … but if you build in small things along the way, whether it’s a mural or a block party or whatever it is, if you think of those as steps to get towards that [end goal] … the community will actually understand what’s happening because [the small steps] bring people into the fold … Those small things can snowball into making huge things happen.”
Written by Oliver Clachko
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Oliver Clachko is a Junior at Bowdoin College whose passion for placemaking combines his interests in community engagement and urban design. Oliver is a student within Bowdoin’s Urban Studies department, where he has delved into coursework exploring the intersections of community planning, social equity, and urban cultural identities.
Oliver was introduced to placemaking through his work on the youth commission in Westport, Connecticut, the town in which he grew up. As a member of the council, Oliver worked with his peers, as well as representatives from the town government, to conceive and implement youth-oriented events and create welcoming public spaces for Westport’s teenagers. In collaboration with fellow commission members, Oliver helped organize plans to modernize the town’s skate park and create a pop-up market for youth business owners. As an intern with PlacemakingUS, Oliver is excited to contribute to diverse placemaking initiatives while gaining hands-on education about the transformative potential of equitable, community-driven urban design. |
