How to Do Creative Placemaking

National Endowment for the Arts, 2017

Resource Overview

This guide provides practical strategies, precedent, and best practices for municipal and community leaders to use creative placemaking for equitable, social and economic development, celebrating community identity, governance, and physical design. Each chapter contains articles and case studies written by different practitioners around the US.

Key Sections

Conceiving Arts-Based Opportunities 

Chapter 2: Economic Opportunity discusses how creative placemaking can support small businesses and revitalize main streets and cultural districts

Chapter 4: Arts + Government focuses on artist-municipal partnerships across sectors.

Chapter 5: Arts + Physical Infrastructure focuses on how creative strategies can shape our public and private spaces.

Chapter 6: Arts + Community Development Organizations explores the important role of CDCs in creative placemaking.

Understanding Community in New Ways

Chapter 3: Community Identity + Belonging explores how creative placemaking can engage with complex community identities.

Grounding Efforts in Equity and Inclusion

Chapter 1: Inclusive Planning + Equitable Development discusses how artists can make the planning process less traditional and more inclusive.