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Introduction1
On February 6, 2020, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a 1-day workshop at Hunter College in New York City, New York, to explore the value of co-creating and keeping inclusive healthy spaces. This workshop was organized by an independent planning committee composed of members from the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement.
WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES
The workshop objectives were drawn from the Statement of Task for the workshop (see Box 1-1):
- Examine the economics of inclusive placemaking and placekeeping;
- Describe how inclusive placemakers gather resources to do their work; and
- Explore the social and economic value that can be generated when places are designed with health, equity, and well-being in mind.
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1 This workshop was organized by an independent planning committee whose role was limited to the identification of topics and speakers. This Proceedings of a Workshop was prepared by the rapporteurs as a factual summary of the presentations and discussions that took place at the workshop. Statements, recommendations, and opinions expressed are those of individual presenters and participants and are not necessarily endorsed or verified by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; the Health and Medicine Division; or the roundtable, and they should not be construed as reflecting any group consensus.
Placemaking refers to the work of creating livable, vibrant, or quality places, especially public places, and draws on community development, arts and culture, regional planning, and civic engagement, combining different disciplinary perspectives into a creative way of shaping public spaces, land use, commerce, transportation, housing, and social fabric. Harmful consequences of placemaking include gentrification and displacement, racial and socioeconomic exclusion, and lack of resident leadership. The term placemaking itself may be critiqued for denoting that a place where people live and create their lives requires others to come and “make” or “remake” it into something of value (Gehl Institute, 20182). An important insight is that “Placemaking is a tool that connects community members to physical changes within their neighborhood, as well as to each other; it can help tackle the divisive, top-down neighborhood change that is often associated with gentrification” (Kahne, 20153). In recognition of these considerations, the workshop design primarily focused on the term placekeeping and stewarding to acknowledge the importance of partnership between residents of communities and architects, planners, and developers.
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2 See https://gehlinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Inclusive-Healthy-Places_Gehl-Institute.pdf (accessed April 8, 2021).
3 See https://www.pps.org/article/gentrification (accessed April 8, 2021).
CONTEXT
Jennifer Raab, president of Hunter College, opened the workshop by describing Hunter College’s initiative, completed eight years ago, to build a new complex in East Harlem to house its social work program along with other health-related programs. She stated that when an academic institution inserts itself into a neighborhood, it should “not impose a difference, but make a difference.” The neighborhood was facing various challenges relating to health and education, and social aspects, and Raab said Hunter College had the opportunity to help the community address these challenges. The campus, she noted, is open to the community, includes an art gallery, and offers students opportunities to conduct their internships locally, and the faculty are encouraged to apply their grants in the local community. Current projects include the School of Education’s work on literacy in the community, the School of Social Work experimenting with having students share housing with older residents, and the School of Urban Planning working to address local planning needs. She concluded her remarks by underscoring the shared vision of all assembled to “think about place in a way that leads to a more just and equitable society” and also highlighting the college’s efforts to promote collaboration between sectors. Raab then introduced Lourdes Rodriguez, who provided an overview of the day and the objectives of the planning committee.
Rodriguez, director of community-driven initiatives at the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, began with an acknowledgment and expression of gratitude and respect to the Lenape4 people, elders, and ancestors—the “original placemakers and placekeepers of the place where we gather today.” From 2013, Rodriguez explained, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement has provided a trusted forum for leaders from various sectors to meet and discuss opportunities for achieving better population health, including increasing life expectancy, improving quality of life, and reducing health disparities. Rodriguez shared that the roundtable’s vision of a healthy and productive society that cultivates human capital and equal opportunity rests on a recognition that the positive outcomes in such a society are “shaped by interdependent social, economic, environmental, genetic, behavioral, and health care factors and will require robust national and community-level policy change and dependable resources to achieve it.”
Rodriguez said roundtable events have featured the relationships between the well-being of places and that of communities. Rodriguez
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4 The Lenape tribe inhabited New Jersey, Delaware, southern New York, and eastern Pennsylvania (https://nanticoke-lenape.info/history.htm [accessed April 8, 2021]).
gave examples described in two past publications based on workshops of the roundtable: Pittsburgh’s Hill District,5 discussed in Framing the Dialogue on Race and Ethnicity to Advance Health Equity: Workshop Summary (2017), and Detroit Future City6 and Hope San Francisco,7 featured in Applying a Health Lens to Business Practices, Policies, and Investments: Workshop Summary (2016). She described inclusive public spaces as providing an opportunity for those able to participate to fully realize health and well-being. She said that there is increasing evidence relating to placemaking and placekeeping, and the relationships between place, health, and well-being. She defined placemaking as the “work of creating livable, vibrant, or quality places, especially public places,” and she noted that it “draws upon community development, arts and culture, regional planning, civic engagement, and combining different disciplinary perspectives in a creative way.” Placekeeping, she said, is the “work of stewardship that is fueled by the sweat equity of people that care for, use, and program in the most extensive use of the term programming, public spaces.” Rodriguez concluded by giving an overview of the workshop agenda.
ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKSHOP AND PROCEEDINGS
This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes the presentations and discussions that took place during the public workshop. Laura Torchio from the Project for Public Spaces conducted an audience poll and visual immersion exercise (Chapter 2). Immediately following was the first presentation and discussion on how placemakers and placekeepers have contextualized inclusion (Chapter 2). Three stories from Houston, Detroit, and Richmond, California, about intentional inclusion followed (Chapter 3). A panel comprised of leaders from various organizations then discussed their experiences on equity and inclusion (Chapter 4). Next, a small-group exercise was conducted on recognizing and expanding inclusive spaces (Chapter 5). The workshop concluded with reflections from roundtable members and participants on key takeaways from the day’s presentations and discussions (Chapter 6).
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5 Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was predominantly African American and was slated for redevelopment in the 1950s. This caused about 8,000 people to be displaced and the area’s economic decline (National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2017).
6 Detroit Future City is a think tank aimed at promoting inclusion, community, and development using data-driven strategies (Detroit Future City, 2020).
7 Hope San Francisco is a large-scale initiative aimed at creating communities that are inclusive and with mixed income without displacing its original residents (Hope SF, 2019).