“Great places are shaped by the people that use them”

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Editor’s note: Last week Spacing Ottawa contributor Allegra Newman joined with blogger. Eric Darwin and urban planner George Dark on a panel discussing “What makes a great place?” at the launch of Spacing Magazine’s national issue at the National Arts Centre. Allegra has agreed to share the notes from her introductory remarks with us in the post below.

I have spent a long time recently thinking about what makes a good place well… good.  I realize that this is quite an subjective concept.  For some people the contribution of great architecture, ideal location, uniqueness or access to natural beauty and green spaces make good places.  While I agree that all of these elements contribute to making a place, the places that are great for me have something else in common. People.

Great places are shaped by the people who use them- and not just talking about tourists but about the people who live, work and play in these places.  Great places often grow organically, fed by the needs and desires of the people who inhabit them. These places are inspired and transformed by human interactions within the space.  Even good urban natural spaces would be nothing without the users.  The best urban parks are the ones that are embraced and shaped by the community that uses them.   These spaces are nurtured and allowed to grow and develop into something unique that responds to the needs of the locality.

Good places also inspire place-based emotional attachment that makes people want to live and work and visit them over and over again.  We all know and love these places.  We have memories associated with great places we have visited in other cities and the places that we experience in our day to day lives where we feel comfortable and inspired.

One of my favourite places in Ottawa is the Byron Tramway.  I have wonderful memories of walking along the path with my daughter when she was an infant and these memories feed into my desire to revisit this space and gather new experiences and memories.  This emotional attachment that I feel about this space also influences my desire to get involved in shaping and transforming and protecting the space.  I care about this space.

Good places are also known for the diversity of their uses.  The places we think about as good places fulfill multiple needs of the users that can change according to the time of day, season, and identity of the user.  A great space can allow for relaxation and contemplation along side more interactive work and play.

For example, another of my favourite places in Ottawa is the section of Wellington Street between Holland and Island Park – which incidentally made the top 10 public spaces in Spacing Mgazine’s National issue.  This area is vibrantly alive with activity and interaction.  It is a place so full of life that I actually rarely leave- tonight is an exception as you can see.  I can do all my errands, have a coffee, go out for lunch, meet friends, walk, bike, visit art galleries, relax, work all in this one great place.

Another cornerstone of a great place is that it allows people to interact on many different levels.  Good places allow for chance meetings, they integrate places to sit and talk and eat with friends or alone.  There are often spaces for events, for recreation, for work that allow people to congregate or sit by themselves.  Great spaces encourage interactions between strangers allowing people to meet and become friends.

A good place can create community and community can create a good place.  A great example of this are the neighbourhood parks in the city.  The great ones have community celebrations and events that gather people together, inspire collaborations and result in building community spirit and momentum. One of my favourite places to visit when I go to Toronto is Dufferin Grove Park.  The outdoor pizza oven, community dinners, public fire pits, sports facilities, children’s garden and farmer’s market make me tingle with delight. This park was constructed through community organizing which created a wonderful place that embodies all things that make a place great.  In Ottawa, Parkdale Park in Hintonburg has some of these elements- a market, a new fancy fieldhouse, a stage and the motivation of a vibrant local community to keep the park evolving into a public space that rivals Dufferin Grove Park in Ottawa.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Good places are not static but ever changing, ever evolving.  Watching the evolution of a space from good to great is exciting and intriguing.

So now that I have talked about what characteristics I think are present in a great place it is time to talk about how we get there.

Where is the room for urban planning in this equation of community led spatial development?  I am not a proponent of hands-off planning.  That is not what I am advocating for.  The development of good spaces needs to exist within the arena of regulation, however, the lens of regulation needs to be trained to examine not only the economic needs of the community following the ever expanding desire for growth, growth and more growth but also the social/environmental needs of the inhabitants- those who live, work and play in a great space.  And this means listening not only the inhabitants who are vocal or readily visible, but also those who live in the shadows, whose mobility is restricted, who do not use the space during peak hours.

An example that can illustrate this point is a story of a small neighbourhood park in Toronto that was being considered for a community garden site.  The city staff surveyed the use of the park during the day to see how people felt about the transformation of their space.  It was determined that few people used the park so the garden went ahead as planned.  After it was planted the coordinators of the project noticed that many of the plants were being trampled.  The local neighbourhood was finally contacted and consulted and it was discovered that local Chinese elders had been practicing Tai Chi in the garden for years during the early morning hours-times during which city staff had not been present.

The moral of this story, and my final point is that planning needs to involve experts and non-experts alike.  The people who currently use a space that is slated for transformation both need to be consulted and also need to step up and speak out. Great spaces are one part creative innovation and one part the response to community needs.

photo by Clay and Paper Theatre/Cyclops