placemaking

The power of placemaking

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Making happier, healthier, and more connected communities

By Montgomery Planning staff

The town of Damascus, in upper Montgomery County, recently saw its Main Street morph into a vibrant pedestrian mall with food trucks, dance performances, and small businesses offering locally produced beverages and other treats. 

The Damascus Placemaking Festival, held Oct. 19-20, helped residents and business owners envision a livelier downtown that would bring people together – all while embracing the area’s small-town country charm.  

But Montgomery Planning’s approach to placemaking goes far beyond a weekend event. It’s part of our people-centered approach to planning and helps make areas like Damascus happier, healthier, and better connected. We have developed a Placemaking Strategic Plan that includes key goals and … Continue reading

Lessons Learned from ULI Fall Meeting: Authenticity is key to great places

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In October, I was fortunate to attend the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston as a recipient of a scholarship for local public officials from the Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use. The conference attracted over 6,000 industry leaders in real estate and land use and was a wonderful opportunity to get out of the day-to-day bubble of planning and land use in Montgomery County and learn about trends in other parts of the country to inform our work.

Particularly valuable were the site tours and sessions offered by the ULI Placemaking Council during the Council Day on Wednesday. The program comprised visits to the new Seaport District in South Boston adjacent to the Convention Center and … Continue reading

Placemaking Presentation Focuses on the Details

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Seattle-based consultant Paula Rees shares her experiences in enriching real estate developments with art and design

“It’s all in the combination of great details,” said Paula Rees, principal of the Seattle-based firm Foreseer, while revealing her secrets to placemaking to a large audience at the Montgomery County Planning Department. Rees showed image after image of public artworks, quirky signage, “tattooed” facades and inviting storefronts to demonstrate her points.

Her lively projects at Pike and Rose in North Bethesda, Santana Row in San Jose, Assembly Row in Boston and other locations were part of an inspiring presentation that drew a standing-room-only crowd to the Planning Department’s auditorium on December 2.

Rees started her talk with a basic definition of place … Continue reading