Appraising placemaking evaluation

Abstract Information: Placemaking is a bottom-up, cross-sector, collaborative process in which stakeholders shape public spaces to serve the community (Project for Public Spaces, n/d). Driven by a range of motivations, placemaking projects produce intrinsic and instrumental benefits that include economic impact, revitalization, educational benefits, social healing and cohesion, heritage preservation, and civic engagement (Markusen & Gadwa, 2010). The practice of placemaking by local governments grew rapidly in the 2000s and remains a common tactic in communities of all types, sizes, and geographies. Placemaking projects are scalable, utilize local assets and resources, and are adapted to specific settings or context. The uniqueness and variability of placemaking challenges the development of generalized approaches to project development and evaluation. Public management best practices stress the importance of evaluation to enhance public transparency and accountability (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). However, placemaking evaluations have been inconsistent in practice, producing fragmented portrayals of outputs and outcomes. The authors previously performed a content analysis of placemaking evaluation detailed in policy requirements, documented in published reports, or used in scholarly articles to assess placemaking evaluation processes. Approaches to evaluation of placemaking projects are varied and diffused. Published studies underscored fragmentation of terms, metrics, processes, and practices. Furthermore, placemaking scholarship is dominated by theoretical contributions and case studies. Where evaluative studies have been undertaken, they tend to focus on economic outcomes. In a systematic literature review, the authors identified that the field is complicated by differences in definitions and interests among the disciplines studying the phenomenon. Of 1,039 articles, 86 met the criteria for inclusion. Of those, just 39.6 percent reported outputs or outcomes. The measures employed were diverse and not easily grouped. This paper seeks to close the gap between recommendations and practice the evaluation of public placemaking projects. The authors worked with a city to develop a system for evaluating the outcomes of placemaking projects. This paper reports on the process of developing an evaluation system - from selecting indicators and metrics through presentation of findings. Our work yields information on both placemaking outcomes and evaluation processes from the municipal government perspective.