Place Making

Who understands place making?

An important theme we consider in the Sustainability Assessment & Community Engagement team at Western Power is social impact, which encompasses how we affect sense of place. Sense of place refers to the entire group of cognitions and affective sentiments held regarding a particular geographic locale[1][2] and the meanings one attributes to such areas[3][4]. But it is not just about how our works negatively impact sense of place, but also how we positively add to it when much of our work do necessitate altering the qualities of a place.  

I wanted to share with my thoughts and experiences about sense of place. I am a committed Fremantle resident. I love the sense of community that exists there, as well as the fact that people actively try to contribute to it. One recent grass-roots initiative is the Cappuccino Strip Street Club. This is a group of local residents volunteering to create opportunities for the local community to enhance and reconnect with Fremantle’s heart. This week I attended an event in (and I mean in) the café strip in Fremantle. People were playing music, hula-hooping, playing ping pong, reading on sofas, eating their dinner and painting a mural in a space which is normally reserved for cars (40% of which are just looking for parking). It was a hive of activity and observers could not help but be struck by the thought “why can’t it be like this all the time?” Acts like this are a form of social art which induces reconsideration of the use of space that normally goes unquestioned. Ultimately the art of place making builds the social capital of a community.

Thus place making can be community-driven, but urban design alterations and infrastructure also change the way space is used and can alter sense of place. Substations and transmission lines can take up large amounts of valuable space in an urban setting. NIMBYism is frequently cited as a cause of public opposition to developments like electricity infrastructure; but it is more useful to think of it as place-protective action. Utilities, Western Power included, seek to discover solutions to implementing infrastructure works which can lead to the change being perceived as place-enhancing rather than as a threat to place. And that’s not easy when we’re talking about big and some say ‘unsightly’ pieces of infrastructure!

Strategies which electricity utilities have implemented in the past include building bike paths underneath transmission lines, using community design workshops to come up with the design of substation surrounds, visual mitigation measures such as landscaping and use of public art including using local youths in creating urban art murals. In rare instances (rare because of the extremely high cost) substations have been undergrounded in areas of high urban density in order to avoid negative impacts. Using community engagement techniques which enhances people sense of political efficacy (they feel they can contribute to changing policy) has the added benefit of leaving behind a community with greater capacity to actively contribute to their community in the future.

In the current legislative context, it is a challenge to justify extra expenditure on place-making enhancements. This is partly because measuring social impact is difficult, it means quantifying the value it provides to society in order to be able to compare it to the relative costs of the works, and partly because social capital is not as highly valued as financial capital by the regulators.

So, given what I have just shared does anyone out there have any brilliant ideas on how to solve this conundrum? I would also be really appreciative of new ideas which focus on enhancement of place. If electricity demand continues to rise, Western Power will continue to need to build new infrastructure, so how can we add to a sense of place instead of detracting from it?

If you would like to become a place-maker, The Cappuccino Strip Street Club can be found on Facebook, or visit www.creative-communities.com for inspiration, information and practical activities you can start trying in your street. 

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[1] Altman, I.A.; Low, S.M., eds. 1992. Place attachment. New York: Plenum. 314 p.

[2] Jorgensen, B.S.; Stedman, R. 2001. Sense of place as an attitude: lakeshore

owners’ attitudes toward their properties. Journal of Environmental Psychology.

21: 233–248.

[3] Fishwick, L.; Vining, J. 1992. Toward a phenomenology of recreation place.

Journal of Environmental Psychology. 12: 57–63.

[4] Stedman, R. 2003. Is it really just a social construction? The contribution of

the physical environment to sense of place. Society and Natural Resources.

16: 671–685.