The Creative Community Builder's Handbook, By Tom Borrup

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Recommended: Essay on the question of public spaces

INTRODUCTION
Art festivals are temporary events that can result in long lasting value for building socially engaged communities. Focusing on participatory art festivals to explore the spatial and social relationships that offer ways for communities to build strong social connections within the public realm. In The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook, by Tom Borrup, five ways in which arts and culture can build communities are identified: by promoting interaction in public spaces, increasing civic participation, engaging youth, promoting stewardship, and increasing participation in civic agenda (Borrup, 2006). Each of these approaches can be connected with the types of interaction that occurs during a participatory art festival, proving them …show more content…

William H. Whyte studied the public spaces of New York and attempted to define what makes spaces that are welcoming and attractive to citizens, and encouraged social interaction. In his work The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, he presents the case that tree canopies, water features, sculptures and food benders all play a role in attracting people to urban parks and plazas, but that most of all what attract people is other people. Similarly, Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities in which she addressed the need for smaller, more localized neighborhoods that were designed around how citizens actually utilized the public spaces (Borrup, 2006). Today Placemaking is seen as an important part of the planning and designing of effective urban public spaces (Schneekloth and Shibley, …show more content…

It is a term used to address the type of “Guerilla Urbanism”, “D-Y-I Urbanism” and “Pop Up Urbanism” found in cities today. These are defined as: deliberate phased approaches to instigating change, offering local solutions to local planning challenges, with short term commitment and realistic expectations, with low risk and potential high reward, and development of social capital among citizens and groups (Lydon et al. 2011). Tactical urbanism is a bottom up approach to addressing small urban problems as a way to beautify neighborhoods, with the result of building strong community engagement, placemaking, generating civic pride, and stewardship. Community is not just a place, but also the cultural and social bonds related to that place, which make the community strong and engaged (Schneekloth and Shibley,

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