Placemaking - value and the public realm
“At a time when technology allows people to live and work anywhere….they want be somewhere.”
Placemaking has become an essential skill for those involved in planning and real estate. It is a big influence on investment in world cities, primarily because occupiers and investors are chasing human capital—and the most creative people want to live, work and play in quality places.
With so much of the world’s economic growth now so heavily dependent on creative or information-based industries, we need to know how to create the sort of places where innovation and entrepreneurial activity can flourish.
The growing interest in well-being has also played its part. The awareness of how we feel about and experience our lives means that people now place a higher value on the stimulation that cities offer.
Placemaking has also become more relevant in recent years following the recent recession and resultant changes in the structure of economies and finance. The world’s economy is no longer driven by debt; and, with the focus now on equity, investors are more interested in longer-term, comprehensive projects. They realise they can no longer buy value; it has to be created.
As a result, placemaking is now a recognised part of what we do and how our clients describe their activities. Investors, asset managers, property companies and developers talk about a more holistic approach to stewardship, creating value through placemaking.
For many years, property people have known intuitively that if they invest in the places and spaces around their buildings, they raise the value of their property. Yet no one has really successfully explored the relationship between design of space and the creation of value.
In this study, we aimed to look more deeply at the relationship between the quality of the public realm and its effect on the value and economic performance of property. With the help of Gehl, who are recognised experts in the design of public realm, we looked at eleven examples of public spaces around the world to assess their quality in design terms and how this affected real estate values.
What we discovered was that real estate values can be created or enhanced by placemaking in the public realm by;
- Altering the image of an area,
- Creating a new destination, and
- Establishing the character of a newly developed area.
I hope that the findings of this study will help to shape more effective urban development and help secure more successful outcomes.
Placemaking Planning and Development
7 年Congratulations Andreas on your presidency and am delighted that you have chosen Creating Better Places as your principal theme. Your profession has so much to offer in this area and I am sure, that under your leadership, there will be greater recognition of this as well as the importance of the role that high quality public realm has in securing urban regeneration particularly when considered in a transportation context. Bravo on a really stirring speech on Friday at the Annual Luncheon where your ideas were clearly well received. All the best for your presidential term.
Chairman at Markides Associates - Transport Planning Specialists
7 年This is so much in line with my own theme of Creating Better Places during my term as president of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT)! I hope that more and more people will begin to appreciate the value of Place(and not just in monetary terms). All of us (transport planners, architects, engineers, economists) have a role to play in achieving that. Andreas
CEO, Founding Partner, Architect maa, M. Arch., MMD
7 年Thanks for sharing and for collaborating on this Stuart J Robinson. We cannot emphasize the importance of public realm enough to support public life and more people oriented cities. 'The value of real estate is not the estate itself but the place it enables'
PR consultant, writer and consultation specialist
7 年This is a fascinating report which demonstrates very clearly the benefits of people-focused planning. Importantly, it does so in measurable in economic terms. This results in a uniquely well-evidenced conclusion that investment in the public realm can (though does not necessarily always) boost the value of the wider area – which is hugely topical at a time when the need for ‘austerity’ is widely understood as cutting public spending rather than seeing it as an investment. Stuart’s report takes forward the analysis of Jan Gehl (which is largely based on social factors) and adds a layer of financial analysis which enables comprehensive comparisons of urban regeneration projects world-wide. This level of analysis could substantially alter the way in which schemes are appraised, both before and after development – with significant implications for the planning and development industry. It’s a well written, well evidenced and well analysed piece which is well worth a read.