Blog
May 03, 2018
Most nights, the streetlights that illuminate Ashland, Massachusetts, are a uniform white. They shine down on typical small-town things: families getting dinner on Main Street, kids bicycling home from each other’s houses. But for a month in the summer of 2016, nighttime Ashland looked a little different. The town hall and its parking lot were tinted in... Read More
May 01, 2018
“Your designs are beautiful, but they are empty.” I stood there—stunned—in my faculty advisor’s office. I had never heard anyone give me that criticism. I didn’t know how to respond. I was too Canadian to storm out dramatically, but too shallow to cry. “You need to learn the science behind what you are designing, and make sure... Read More
Apr 25, 2018
The arts have always been a part of how we make our cities. In the 1890s New York City Municipal Arts Society delightfully declared, “To make us love our city, we must make our city lovely!” But even then, a debate ensued about the best approach. Would it be better to improve basic sanitation? Or would it... Read More
Apr 20, 2018
Creative placemaking has been an ongoing discussion in cities and towns across the country for several years, but where do planners sit in this dialogue? What role does a planner have in the development of a creative placemaking strategy? How can planners incorporate creative placemaking ideas into their projects? Or encourage communities to implement these kinds of... Read More
Apr 18, 2018
There’s a lot to love about creative placemaking. When urban planning and development initiatives position arts and culture on par with housing, transportation, and other human necessities, they are better poised to improve a community’s quality of life holistically. Yet what’s sometimes lost in all the excitement over ‘making’ a place is the fact that the place... Read More
Apr 12, 2018
In the world of creative placemaking, we often find ourselves talking about housing in terms of “units.” Discussions frequently center around how many housing units a particular organization has built, or we may use the number of “units” available as a measure of success. But it’s important that our language doesn’t become distanced from the core of... Read More
Apr 05, 2018
The Firefly Trail was one of ioby’s largest-budget projects to date. Learn how its leaders leveraged their ioby campaign to bring even more good change to their community.
In the spring of 2017, ioby Leader Ivette Lopez Bledsoe led her fellow Firefly Trail board members in raising over $62,000 on ioby for the trail’s Model Miles Project. An effort to build... Read More
Apr 03, 2018
Across New England, there are creative people working to make their communities better for everyone. Creative Community Fellows links artists, community organizers, urban planners, arts administrators and cultural entrepreneurs across New England, creating a community of practice that holds Fellows accountable and helps them take their work to the next level. All are united by their integration of arts... Read More
Mar 27, 2018
Places are defined not only by geography, but by the stories we tell about them. The design of physical spaces reflect and re-inscribe narratives of power, belonging, and access. For this reason, creative placemaking and place-keeping activities that seek to transform relationships of power and expand collective imagination of what kind of world is possible, must integrate... Read More
Mar 26, 2018
Each year, a handful of themes arise out of our ArtPlace Summit–usually they’re the topics around which our dinner conversations revolve, the discussions that seem to find their way into every plenary conversation and breakout session. Last year, we spent a lot of time talking about the importance of storytelling as a mechanism for social change. But it... Read More