Place Capital: Re-connecting Economy With Community

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Place Capital: Re-connecting Economy With Community

By Project for Public Spaces on Oct 28, 2012 | 4 Comments and 160 Reactions

At Cleveland’s Market Square Park, local residents, businesses, and leaders have invested heavily in Place Capital. / Photo: PPS

“We’ve been wrong for the last 67 years,” Mark Gorton, founder of OpenPlans, announced in his closing address at last month’s Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place (PWPB) conference. “Ok. Time to admit it, and move on! We have completely screwed up transportation in this country. We can never expect to see the legislative or policy change until people understand the fundamental underlying problem. Asking for 20% more bike lanes is not enough.”

The following week, at the 8th International Public Markets Conference in Cleveland, the same attitude was present. In her opening remarks to the gathering of market managers and advocates assembled at the Renaissance Hotel, USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan stated that “We’re all here because we recognize that markets can be far more than places just to buy food. We’re looking at markets as venues for revitalizing their communities.”

These statements capture a sentiment that permeated the discussion at both of the conferences that PPS organized this fall: that reform—of transportation, food systems, and so many aspects of the way we live—is no longer about adding bike lanes or buying veggies from a local farmer; the time has come to re-focus on large-scale culture change. Advocates from different movements are reaching across aisles to form broader coalitions. While we all fight for different causes that stir our individual passions, many change agents are recognizing that it is the common ground we share—both physically and philosophically—that brings us together, reinforces the basic truths of our human rights, and engenders the sense of belonging and community that leads to true solidarity.

Even when we disagree with our neighbors, we still share at least one thing with them: place.  Our public spaces—from our parks to our markets to our streets—are where we learn about each other, and take part in the interactions, exchanges, and rituals that together comprise local culture. Speaking at PWPB, Copenhagenize.com founder Mikael Colville-Andersen made this point more poetically when he said that “The Little Mermaid statue isn’t Copenhagen’s best monument. I think the greatest monument that we’ve ever erected is our bicycle infrastructure: a human-powered monument.”

“I think the greatest monument that we’ve ever erected is our bicycle infrastructure: a human-powered monument.” / Photo: Spacing Magazine via Flickr

Our public spaces reflect the community that we live in, and are thus the best places for us to begin modeling a new way of thinking and living. We can all play a more active role in the cultural change that is starting to occur by making sure that our actions match our values—specifically those actions that we take in public places. At PWPB, April Economides offered a simple suggestion for softening business owners’ resistance to bicycle-friendly business districts: tell the proprietors of businesses that you frequent that you arrived on a bike. At another PWPB session on social media, Alissa Walker advocated for users of popular geo-locative social media platforms like FourSquare to start “treating buses and sidewalks as destinations,” and ‘checking in’ to let friends know that they’re out traveling the city by foot, and on transit.

And of course, when trying to change your behavior, you often need to change your frame of mind. At the Markets Conference, Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman recalled the efforts that were required to change the way that vendors at the West Side Market thought about their role within the local community when the market decided to remain open for more days each week. While many vendors didn’t need to be open extra days, Cimperman helped to re-frame things: “[I asked people to consider:] Who are we here for? We’re not here for ourselves. We’re here for the citizens of Cleveland.”

Individual action is invaluable, but when working to spark large-scale culture change, it is even more critical to develop an overarching strategy. Putting forth a constructive vision, along with clearly-stated goals that people can relate to, provides the framework that helps to guide the individual decisions that people within a movement make as they work to change the culture on the ground. To put public space at the heart of public discourse where it belongs, we should focus on changing the way that folks talk about the issue that’s already on everyone’s mind: the economy. Bikenomics blogger Elly Blue was succinct in her explanation of why tying culture change to economics is a particularly fruitful path in today’s adversarial political climate: “We can shift the paradigm of how we build our cities; thinking about economics is a great way to do that because it cuts through the political divide.”

Great places foster human interaction & economic opportunity / Photo: Fred Kent

Across the political spectrum most of us, after years of economic hardship (and decades of wayward leadership), have learned to react to things like “growth” and “job creation” with an automatic thumbs-up. We too rarely ask questions like “What are we growing into?” and “What kind of jobs are we creating?” This brings us to the concept of Place Capital, which posits that the economic value of a robust, dynamic place is much more than the sum of its parts. Great places are created through many “investments” in Place Capital–everything from individual actions that together build a welcoming sense of place, all the way up to major physical changes that make a space usable and accessible. Strong networks of streets and destinations are better at fostering human interaction, leading to social networks that connect people with opportunities, and cities where economies match the skills and interests of the people who live there. Public spaces that are rich in Place Capital are where we see ourselves as co-creators of the most tangible elements of our shared social wealth, connecting us more directly with the decisions that shape our economic system.

At its core, Place Capital is about re-connecting economy and community. Today’s economy is largely driven by products: the stuff we make, the ideas we trademark, the things that we buy (whether we need them or not). It’s a system that supports the status quo by funneling more and more money into fewer and fewer hands. Leadership in this system is exclusively top-down; even small business owners today must respond to shifts in global markets that serve only to grow financial capital for investors, without any connection to the communities where their customers actually live. (For evidence of this, consider the fact that food in the average American home travels an average of 1,500 to 2,500 miles from farm to table, turning local droughts and floods into worldwide price fluctuations).

Through our own Placemaking work, we’ve found that public space projects and the governance structures that produce them tend to fall into one of four types of development, along a spectrum. On one end there are spaces that come out of project-driven processes; top-down, bureaucratic leadership is often behind these projects, which value on-time, under-budget delivery above all else. Project-driven processes generally lead to places that follow a general protocol without any consideration for local needs or desires. Next, there are spaces created through a design-led process. These spaces are of higher quality and value, and are more photogenic, but their reliance on the singular vision of professional designers and other siloed disciplines can often make for spaces that are lovely as objects, but not terribly functional as public gathering places. More and more, we’re seeing people taking the third kind of approach: that which is place-sensitive. Here, designers and architects are still leading the process, but there is concerted effort to gather community input and ensure that the final design responds to the community that lives, works, and plays around the space.

Finally, there are spaces that are created through a place-led approach, which relies not on community input, but on a unified focus on place outcomes built on community engagement. The people who participate in a place-led development process feel invested in the resulting public space, and are more likely to serve as stewards. They make sure that the sidewalks are clean, the gardens tended, and their neighbors in good spirits. They are involved meaningfully throughout the process—the key word here being “they,” plural. Place-led processes turn proximity into purpose, using the planning and management of shared public spaces into a group activity that builds social capital and reinforces local societal and cultural values.

After participating in the discussions at PWPB and the Markets Conference this fall, we believe that the concept of Place Capital is ideally-suited to guide the cooperation of so many individual movements that are looking for ways to work together to change the world for the better. Place Capital employs the Placemaking process to help us outline clear economic goals that re-frame the way that people think not only about public space but, by extension, about the public good in general. If we re-build our communities around places that put us face-to-face with our neighbors more often, we are more likely to know each other, and to want to help each other to thrive.

“It’s because our public spaces got so bad that we have led the world in developing ways to make them great,” argued Eastern Market director Dan Carmody at the Markets Conference, explaining the surge of interest in Placemaking in the United States over the past few decades. We have momentum on our side; if we focus on creating Place Capital, we can continue to build on that forward motion, and bring together many different voices into a chorus.

Like capital attracts capital, people attract people. As Placemakers, we all need to be out in our communities modeling the kind of values that we want to re-build local culture around. Our actions in public space—everything from saying hello to our neighbors on the street to organizing large groups to advocate for major social changes—are investments in Place Capital. Great places and strong economies can only exist when people choose to participate in creating them; they are human-powered monuments. So let’s get to work.

Related posts

1. Reflections From an Engineer on Advocacy for Transportation Reform
2. Why We Need a Little More Chaos: An Interview With Andy Clarke
3. How Walking and Biking Add Value to Your Community and Change the System: An Interview with John Norquist
4. How “Small Change” Leads to Big Change: Social Capital and Healthy Places

Tagged with → 8th International Public Markets Conference • active transportation • Alissa Walker • April Economides • bicycle infrastructure • bicycle-friendly business districts • bicycling • Bikenomics • Cleveland • community engagement • cooperation • Copenhagen • Copenhagenize • culture change • Dan Carmody • destinations • development • Eastern Market • Economics • Elly Blue • food systems • FourSquare • Joe Cimperman • kathleen merrigan • leadership • local economies • Long Beach • Mark Gorton • Mikael Colville-Andersen • monuments • OpenPlans • Phases of Development Evolution • Place Capital • Pro Walk/Pro Bike • public markets • public space • silo busting • Transportation • USDA • West Side Market 

http://www.pps.org/place-capital-re-connecting-economy-with-community/ 

How Markets Grow: Learning From Manhattan’s Lost Food Hub

By Patra Jongjitirat on Nov 25, 2012 | 1 Comment and 66 Reactions

This slideshow charts the rise and fall of the Washington Market, from its earliest days to its destruction in 1960. Click the arrow to the right to advance to the next image.

 

An early view of the market, ca.1853-54, from the periodical Gleason's.

All slideshow images appear courtesy of David K. O’Neil.

The sun has barely risen, but the horses and delivery wagons forming a steady stream from Dey to Canal Streets since nightfall have to share the road again. Rats scurry back into the maze of wooden sheds with their vegetable scraps as an early-to-rise New Yorker walks briskly down Washington Street, market bag in hand. He wants to be sure to get the day’s choicest fish, to be glimpsed jumping in their tanks. Not far behind him is a housewife, coming to the market for some young turkeys, chickens, and ducks. She places these in the basket her servant carries alongside her, next to the butter which has a separate tin cover. Soon the market is in full swing, with vendors prominently shouting out the fresh spinach and kale from New Jersey, bundles of rhubarb and asparagus from Long Island, and baskets of strawberries from the Carolinas.

Such was the scene in the Tribeca of 19^th century in downtown Manhattan. Commerce of a different sort continues in this neighborhood of the 21^st century. New Yorkers walking into the tony enclave’s restaurants, art galleries, Duane Reades, and Starbucks cafes, who today look up and see One World Trade Center rising overhead, are probably unaware that an enormous food hub called Washington Market used to make its home here.

Washington Market, a piece of forgotten New York history, would have celebrated its 200^th anniversary this year. The market got its start in 1812, and operated until the 1960s when it gave way to redevelopment, including the site that was to become the World Trade Center. With many of today’s cities experiencing a market renaissance, the rise and fall of the historic Washington Market offers both inspiration and wisdom for sustaining the growth of today’s farmers markets.

For most of its early history, New York was a Market City. Washington Market was one of several markets all over Manhattan, delivering fresh food to urban dwellers at a time when much more of the food was being produced locally. “When the market started, it was quite popular because it made it easier for people to get provisions from one central location,” says Hal Bromm, founder of the Committee for Washington Market Historic District. “You can imagine it as a kind of [early] urban supermarket.”

Washington Market began at the small neighborhood scale, and its growth over decades follows a trajectory recognizable in public markets to this day. David O’Neil, PPS’s public market expert, describes, “The simplest way to start is with a day table. From there, outdoor markets evolve by bringing in more vendors, selling more days, or operating at multiple locations throughout the city. Relating to Washington Market, “It started outdoors, then moved indoors, and then grew enormously over the years to include retail, wholesale, cold storage space, commission houses and brokers. When markets grow, you get to a certain scale of operations that gets other people providing supplies such as ice, lights, and hardware. There is a lot of evolution within the market and adjacent to it.”

Washington Market eventually grew to encompass several city blocks – a city within a city. It was a bustling, messy, vibrant place, active throughout all hours of the day and night. Enhanced sophistication in methods for growing and distribution allowed food to be brought in from all over the world via boat and train, then sent out to areas far beyond New York. An 1872 article published in the New York Times reveals, “Through Washington Market, filthy as it is, cramped, cabined and confined, the epicure grasps the luxuries of an entire continent, and the fruits of the islands in the tropic seas. Of such enterprise and such a trade New York ought to be, and indeed is, proud, though it cannot be concealed that the auspices under which it has grown up have not been encouraging, and the conveniences and facilities extended to it have been remarkably scanty.”

By the 1880s, there were more than 500 vendor stands and over 4,000 farmers’ wagons driving into the city daily to sell. With the growing complexity of its operations and evolution into a regional food distribution hub, New York City’s Office of Public Markets stepped in to regulate the competitive relations between farmers, wholesalers, and consumers. The office took responsibility for such things as public health and safety, traffic regulations, and weights and measurement standards. Although this specialized city bureau no longer exists, it underlines the vital role markets played in civic life.

In the end, despite its preeminence as a food center, Washington Market was forced to relocate to Hunts Point in the Bronx in 1962, overcome by a changing food system and the underlying real estate value it was sitting upon. Bromm explains, “The city’s goal was to get everyone to move to Hunts Point, where they could have a centralized location and transportation links that would make [food distribution] more efficient. By  the 1960s there was the South Street Seaport Market, which was for fishmongers and folks who dealt with seafood; Washington Market, which was produce, dairy, etc.; and then the meat market, which was up at Gansevoort and Little West 12^th Street. These three major markets each dealt with different aspects of the food chain.”

As O’Neil similarly emphasizes, “There was a lot of consolidation going on in the food industry, with bigger and bigger users and suppliers and small vendors falling to the wayside or going out of business. Washington Market was antiquated. There were all sorts of problems with aging infrastructure and accessibility, not being close to the highways.”

The perception of obsolete structures underlines Bromm’s point that “In terms of Washington Market, there was another goal, which was they thought the swath of land occupied by the market could be demolished and used as an urban renewal area. Remember, this was in the era of developers like Robert Moses.”

In the late 60s the city demolished huge swaths of the market between Greenwich, Washington, and West Streets, roughly from Laight Street at the north end all the way down to what was to become the World Trade Center site at the south. The area was cleared of many five- to six-story buildings with ground floors that housed market operators and businesses, with upper floors for offices and storage. In the book The Texture of Tribeca, which he co-authored, Bromm describes the photographs of people protesting in the street and carrying ‘Save the Washington Market’ signs. Says Bromm, “They were very upset that the city was going to move the market to Hunts Point and demolish all those buildings.”

Relegated to the margins of the city, the market quickly diminished in the public eye and never regained its former vitality as a public space. “Markets create value through socialization,” O’Neil explains, “and Hunts Point was missing the layers of people and urban uses.”

Cities today are seeing a markets make a comeback, as communities and civic leaders aim to tap into markets’ magnetic ability to attract people and bolster surrounding businesses while improving fresh food access. In 2000, there were about 2,800 farmers markets operating in the United States–a number that has now grown to over 7,000. From New York on one coast to Portland on the other, many American cities are seeing their market networks mature and thrive. The Santa Monica Farmers Market, successfully operating for over 30 years, is one of the pioneers of this new wave. Like Washington Market, it started out small and then expanded its network to encompass the four weekly markets currently operating.

Likewise market halls, once the cornerstone of community planning, are re-surging in cities large and small. In 2014, Boston Public Market anticipates moving into Parcel 7, the site of its new home with 30,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. Just last month, the community of New Bohemia in Cedar Rapids, Iowa passed a milestone with the opening of NewBo City Market. With this new market building, the community reclaims back stronger than ever a flood-ravaged industrial site.

Of course, the evolution of successful outdoor markets is not always to move into indoor market buildings. Vendors are adept at bringing infrastructure with them such as generators and refrigeration. Even with food preparations, there are a variety of possibilities from hot plates to food trucks. “If you do want more infrastructure or a permanent stall,” O’Neil remarks, “you generally go indoors. You would have more improvements like plumbing, electricity, storage, and signage.”

In addition to vendors taking stalls inside the market building, some will choose to open a permanent storefront facing the market or nearby. A market district is in the making when people, not necessarily market vendors themselves, see markets as an opportunity to start a business because of the clustering of food uses and foot traffic.

The historic Washington Market and these present-day exemplars all show how a market is more valuable than the sum of the transactions that take place immediately within its bounds. “The innovation of markets at the small scale tends to establish what people want and what works,” O’Neil explains, “which leads to larger copies in mainstream economy. It has all been quite positive. Local food and environmental movements that started in the market world and are now being picked up by Walmart and McDonalds.”

As supervisor of the Santa Monica Farmers Market program, Laura Avery’s experience is a testament to this. “The food movement is growing nation-wide,” says Avery, “and Santa Monica was there before it started. Our markets are thriving because of an incredible public interest in local sustainable food which developed a life of its own.”

The common thread that runs through all markets is that of change. As O’Neil says, “Markets are always in flux. They will be different tomorrow and you can’t get comfortable.”

However, if there is one constant throughout our country’s market history, it lies in markets’ dearly held place in public life. As a New York Times journalist wrote nearly 150 years ago, “Perhaps the chief attraction [of the Washington Market] lies in the essentially human character – in the bustle and the confusion, the rushing and the tohu bohu of the place. The rage which possesses both buyers and sellers, the concentration of purpose of so many thousands, the clangor of many voices, and the sounding of many footsteps, all impress themselves forcibly upon our imagination and appeal to our sympathies.”

Through communities’ diligence, safeguarding, and adaptability, many of the new farmers markets coming to life today will grow and last for as long, if not longer, than the historic Washington Market.

Related posts

1. How Markets Scale to Fit Communities: An Interview with Larry Lund
2. You Are Where You Eat: Re-Focusing Communities Around Markets
3. 4 Guidelines on Taking Public Markets to the Next Level
4. Transforming an Empty Building into a Year-Round Hub for Local Food

Tagged with → Boston • Boston Public Market • Bronx • Cedar Rapids • David O'Neill • farmers markets • food system • Greenmarket • Hal Bromm • history • Hunt's Point • Laura Avery • local food • Manhattan • Market Cities • market districts • McDonalds • New York City • NewBo City Market • Portland Farmers Market • public health • public markets • Santa Monica • Santa Monica Farmers Market • Tribeca • urban planning • vendors • Walmart • Washington Market • World Trade Center 

http://www.pps.org/how-markets-grow-learning-from-manhattans-lost-food-hub/

4 Guidelines on Taking Public Markets to the Next Level

By Kelly Verel on Apr 28, 2011 | 1 Comment and 0 Reactions

Register now for PPS upcoming training session, “How to Create Successful Markets,” May 20-21 in New York City.

Earlier this year, I attended and keynoted the 2011 Maine Farmers Market Convention, which brought together market managers, vendors and local and federal legislators to discuss market issues in Maine. Here’s the video of my talk:

[vimeo video_id="19609831" width="525" height="394" title="Yes" byline="Yes" portrait="No" autoplay="No" loop="No" color="00adef"]

While the number of new markets in Maine continue to grow, most of what I heard people talk about at the conference was how their established market is being asked to expand operations and take on a larger role in the life of the community.

Markets across the state are expanding the number of days they are open and adding second locations, accepting SNAP/EBT, selling local products online, and even operating year-round. While this growth is exciting it also is challenging, especially because so many of the state’s markets are operated by volunteers.

As markets in Maine and across the country are increasingly recognized as important community assets, they need help taking on larger responsibilities. No matter whether your market is new or established and undergoing growing pains, these principles can help make it succeed both as a market and as a great community place.

4 Guidelines for Creating a Great Public Market

A market on Rue Mouffetard in Paris

1. Creating a great farmers market is about creating a great public space

The only way your market will be truly successful is if it’s a great public space.  When we surveyed customers about why they love markets, the number one reason was because they brought people together.

People love food, people value contributing to their local economy- but more than anything, people love being near other people.  So if you’re a market manager, what can you do to foster that?

Making places where people like to hang out with each other will directly benefit in dollars.

2. Public markets must have public goals:

A public market can come in many shapes and sizes including a craft market, art market, flea market, farmers market, indoor market.  But to be considered a public market, the market must:

• Have public goals:  how does this place contribute to the community?
• Operate in public spaces- it can be privately owned but customers should not pay to get in
• Serve locally owned and operated businesses

The best public markets confer a number of great public benefits.  Research from the Ford Foundation shows public markets confer multiple benefits to the communities they serve. Public Markets:

• bring together diverse people
• create active public spaces
• link urban and rural economies
• promote public health
• provide economic opportunity for vendors
• catalyze the renewal downtowns and neighborhoods

3.  Markets have to evolve.

You can’t just create a Pike Place overnight.  It took 100 years for the market to get to what it is today: a thriving market district. Markets emerge from a series of incremental additions- often through many lighter, quicker, cheaper projects.

There are many kinds of Public Markets:

• Open Air Markets-  temporary, operating one or a few times a week
• Covered Markets- sheds or flexible indoor space, including winter markets- a trend that is growing in the northeast
• Market Hall-  indoor building with permanent stalls for vendors
• Market districts –  multi acre hubs of market-related activity including a indoor market, mix of wholesale and retail usually- usually lots of food related businesses, such as restaurants

4. Healthy Food Hubs: The Best Markets are at the Heart of a Community

When you start thinking holistically about markets as great community places- and not merely as outlets for produce- it’s easy to see how markets can become the heart of a neighborhood. The busiest, most successful markets are places where people want to spend time together.

But they can be more than fun: by strategically clustering public services and activities, markets can actually contribute to community health.

Markets that cluster fresh food and health services in an environment where people want to come together to spend time are Healthy Food Hubs.

Healthy Food Hubs offer many benefits, especially in lower-income or disenfranchised communities without grocery stores where there is little or no access to fresh food.  Healthy Food Hubs are markets where you might also find cooking demonstrations, health information, a shared-use commercial kitchen, job training, health care, community space, community gardens, and a restaurant or cafe, etc.

Healthy Food Hubs were the cornerstone of a concept  PPS put together for our work in Birmingham, Alabama.

PPS Can Help Make Your Market Great
PPS offers many services to reinvent or start a public market.  PPS’ markets team can help with:

1. Planning and Design: PPS prepares feasibility and implementation plans
2. Education and Training:

• Bi-annual Training Courses in New York City on how to create successful markets.  The next on will occur on May 20-21.
• Customized trainings for your market’s unique context
• International Public Markets Conferences. The next one will be in Cleveland in 2012

Additional resources
Check out PPS’ research on public markets and these highlights and take-aways from the Maine Farmers Market Convention.

—

Meg MacIver contributed to this post.

Related posts

1. Cleveland Chosen to Host PPS’ 8th International Public Markets Conference
2. A Place-Based Approach to Food Access: Creating a Healthier Future for Birmingham, AL
3. Great Holiday Markets From Around the World
4. In Difficult Times, New Vendors Converge on Local Markets

Tagged with → 8th International Public Markets Conference • farmers markets • local food • public markets 

http://www.pps.org/4-guidelines-on-taking-public-markets-to-the-next-level/