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Placemaking and implementation: Revisiting the performance principle
Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 68–75
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Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
Placemaking and implementation: Revisiting the performance principle Carolyn G. Loh
T
Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Wayne State University, 3198 FAB, 656 W. Kirby, Detroit, MI 48202, United States
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Keywords: Implementation Performance Conformance Placemaking Michigan Economic development Project plans
Using a survey of cities that participated in a statewide placemaking plan assistance program, this study contributes to the plan implementation literature in two ways. First, unlike most studies of plan implementation, this study evaluates the implementation of project plans. Second, departing from the largely conformance-based recent work on plan evaluation, the study expands the depth of our understanding of performance-based plan evaluation. The study finds that although survey respondents reported little concrete implementation progress, the plans had already been influential in changing conversations and priorities around placemaking. This study suggests that planners should expand their conceptualizations of how plans can impact communities.
1. Introduction The well-implemented local comprehensive plan has long been a dearly sought-after goal for planning practitioners and scholars alike. While planners, local officials, and planning process participants usually intend that the plan should actually guide development, there is a well-documented tendency for plans to sit on the shelf (Calkins, 1979; Talen, 1996; Brody and Highfield, 2005). Failure to implement plans may result in sub-optimal development that does not conform to the community’s vision, and ultimately may de-legitimize the whole comprehensive planning exercise itself if participants see their efforts wasted (Brody and Highfield, 2005, 161). Implementation is difficult to study for several reasons. Unlike the plan-making phase of the comprehensive planning process, it is diffuse, resting in the hands of many individuals and agencies (Loh, 2012). Also unlike a comprehensive planning process’s plan-making phase, implementation potentially takes place over a long period of time, making it difficult to know when to draw a line to test outcomes (Baer, 1997; Loh, 2011). Finally, there is a range of ideas among planners about what it even means for a plan to be implemented (Talen, 1996; Laurian and Day, 2004; Padeiro, 2016). The Michigan Municipal League (referred to throughout as MML or the League) PlacePlans program afforded a unique opportunity to study implementation, in this case of project rather than comprehensive plans. PlacePlans was a public-public partnership in the US state of Michigan aimed at increasing implementation of targeted placemaking plans for downtown revitalization and economic development. The League provided funding and technical assistance, including facilitation, conceptual plans, and design cost estimates to 22 cities in Michigan over a three-year period. Placemaking has largely been a
municipal-led effort, whereas PlacePlans was an unusual statewide program making investments in placemaking, including creative placemaking. I began this study with two research questions, developed in partnership with the Michigan Municipal League. First, I wanted to see if and how communities were implementing plans. Second, I hoped to find out which interventions could help increase the chances of plan implementation success. To investigate these questions, I used a survey to evaluate the outcomes of the PlacePlans program. Since the program provided different types of interventions to different cities, I hoped to be able to test the relative effectiveness of the different interventions. MML staff were especially interested in these outcomes, as they hoped to be able to judge which of their intervention types they should focus most on in the future. And since the plans were aimed at particular areas of the city with relatively short implementation timelines, I thought I would be able to evaluate the program’s outcomes relatively soon after the interventions. Based on earlier work, I expected that having a consistent, dedicated staff person overseeing implementation and having high local participation and buy-in would both increase implementation levels (Burby, 2003; Loh, 2012). I had few a priori ideas, though, about which types of interventions would matter the most. Both MML and I believed that the results would help local, state, regional, and national organizations target the planning assistance they provide for the greatest impact on the local governments they serve. The results of the survey reveal a more complex picture of intervention and implementation than I had initially expected. I found that it was difficult to distinguish quantitatively between intervention types’ effects on implementation, aside from funding. While most respondents reported relatively low levels of plan implementation at the time of the survey, they also reported that PlacePlans interventions clearly had
E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.024 Received 6 June 2017; Received in revised form 12 October 2018; Accepted 12 October 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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important effects. Respondents from participant communities had significantly stronger relationships after the process with the funding agency, Michigan Municipal League, and qualitative comments revealed a strong sense among participants that the program had been influential and successful in their communities. These results suggest that even for project plans, a performance approach to evaluating implementation may help capture a fuller picture of impact. The following sections explore the literature on implementation and provide some background on placemaking as a planning activity. I then describe the methodology of both the MML program and the evaluation survey. I present the results of the analysis and finally discuss implications of the results.
seem to have wholeheartedly adopted the performance view of implementation. Perhaps partly this is because it is harder to measure: it is appealing as a researcher to develop concrete, quantitative measures of implementation and test them. The performance view does not lend itself well to this type of approach, especially the aspect of the concept that Lyles et al. call “influence.” As Oliveira and Pinho point out, it can be difficult looking backward to determine whether the plan caused a decision maker to make a particular decision, making the establishment of any causal relationship questionable (Oliveira and Pinho, 2009). It is also possible to see such an approach as lacking any kind of concrete standards, rendering both the plan and the evaluation exercise meaningless (Brody and Highfield, 2005). Yet, perhaps there is something that the quantitative, spatial-regression or GIS-based approach most implementation researchers, myself included, overlook when we take a strict conformance-based approach. As Feitelson and Felsenstein (2017) and Oliveira and Pinho (2009) suggest, perhaps a more realistic question to ask about a plan’s implementation is not, do the outcomes exactly reflect the plan, but are the outcomes more like the plan than the “status quo” path they would otherwise have taken? In other words, as Alexander and Faludi ask, are the outcomes headed in the right direction, even if they do not exactly conform to the plan? While the conformance-based approach certainly has great value in advancing evidence-based planning, the performance-based approach may help planners make sense intellectually and theoretically of qualitative evidence that a plan is influential, even if its prescribed outcomes haven’t yet been realized. It is also important to distinguish between types of plans in conceptualizations of and expectations around implementation. As Baer, Hopkins, and Lyles et al. point out, plans may aim to fill many different roles, from checking boxes required by higher levels of government to grand vision to blueprint (Baer, 1997; Hopkins, 2001; Lyles and Berke, 2016). Planners need to be careful that they are evaluating plans on their own terms. For example, Faludi contrasts project plans, such as the ones in this study, which would be expected to have a specific onthe-ground outcome, and strategic plans, which reflect a vision at a particular point in time in an environment subject to change (Faludi, 1989). A plan that is meant to be a blueprint for land use is a better candidate for a conformance-based implementation evaluation approach than a plan that is mainly meant to start a conversation. However, as I will argue below, in contrast with Faludi’s point, a project plan can be influential in the sense of Lyles et al. before it can be shown to have resulted in any concrete outcomes.
2. Plan implementation: problems and potential solutions It has long vexed planners that plans are often implemented superficially, incompletely, or not at all. Unimplemented plans risk squandering the effort and good will of those who participated in making them, and ultimately risk the legitimacy of the democratic planning exercise altogether (Calkins, 1979; Laurian and Day, 2004; Brody and Highfield, 2005). Yet planners have not always agreed on what it means to implement a plan (Talen, 1996). Many studies, including many of the recent published articles on this topic, have interpreted implementation in the way that Pressman and Wildavsky did (Laurian and Day, 2004; Norton, 2005; Berke and Backhurst, 2006; Loh, 2011; Abrantes and Fontes, 2016; Padeiro, 2016). In this view, which has come to be called conformance-based, the purpose of planning is to control the future, and can be considered successful if it does so (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). Using this conformance-based approach, planning researchers have made progress identifying factors that seem to make fully implementing a plan more or less probable. System complexity (more actors, more agencies) makes it more likely that the “baton” of implementation will be dropped along the way (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). Low planning capacity seems to make implementation more difficult (Berke and Backhurst, 2006; Loh, 2012). Plans with high levels of public participation are more likely to be implemented (Burby, 2003), as are high quality plans (Dalton and Burby, 1994; Berke and Backhurst, 2006; Berke and Godschalk, 2009). All of these efforts are meant to increase conformance between the plan’s goals and maps and the outcomes on the ground. In contrast, Alexander and Faludi (1989) argued for what they called a performance-based approach to evaluating implementation, because planning, like other public policy, is an evolving process that takes place in an environment of change and uncertainty. Outcomes cannot be expected to have a one-to-one relationship with plans (Mastop and Faludi, 1997), yet they must still be evaluated as “part of the social deliberative and interactive process which links aims to action, and which transforms ideas into realities” (Alexander and Faludi, 1989, 131). In the performance view of plan implementation, the plan is a “decision framework” and evaluations of its implementation focus on whether and how decision makers consulted the plan (Oliveira and Pinho, 2009). Interpretations of what constitutes performance range, with some, such as Mastop, taking the view that if the plan is consulted as part of the decision-making process, it is being implemented. Others say that “implementation is still important but…as long as outcomes are beneficial, departures from plans are viewed with equanimity” (Alexander and Faludi, 1989, 129), although it is critical to remember how and to whom the plan was supposed to be beneficial. Lyles et al. distinguish between what they call plan influence, which means that the plan is used in decision-making, and performance, which means that the plan affected outcomes (Lyles and Berke, 2016). Oliveira and Pinho look for evidence of leaders committing resources (financial and/ or personnel) to furthering the plan’s goals (Oliveira and Pinho, 2009). Although some recent studies have incorporated both performance and conformance- based elements into evaluation protocols, few studies
3. Placemaking and planning For the purposes of this paper, placemaking refers broadly to the economic development strategy of “creating quality places that people want to live, work, play and learn in” (Wyckoff, 2014). This strategy is “driven by a recognition that unique places that feature cultural enrichment and a high quality of experience boost economic as well as social conditions” (Gilmartin, 2014). Creative placemaking, more specifically, is where “cross-sector partners strategically shape the social and physical character of a place (ranging from a neighbourhood to region) around arts and cultural assets” (Gadwa Nicodemus, 2013). Thus, placemaking is “participation in both the production of meaning and in the means of production of a locale” (Lepofsky and Fraser, 2003, 128). Cities whose traditional economies have been upended by globalization often undertake placemaking in an attempt to capitalize on unique aspects of local culture in order to attract new capital to the city and allow the city to compete in the global marketplace of cities (Scott, 1997). The theorized benefits of creative placemaking include recirculating local income through local spending, re-using vacant and underutilized land, buildings, and infrastructure, creating jobs, fostering entrepreneurship, passing on cultural knowledge to younger generations, and attracting and retaining non-arts-related businesses (Markusen and Gadwa, 2010, 4). Yet empirical evidence for these 69
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economic and social benefits is often inconclusive (Polèse, 2012; Ganning, 2016), partly because the impacts of cultural activities are difficult to measure (Markusen and Schrock, 2006). Observers of placemaking efforts caution that when localities intertwine economic and cultural development, they make value judgments about which culture, and whose culture, should be promoted (in essence, which culture has economic value) (McCann, 2002). This can and often does leave non-mainstream cultures out, sanitizes aspects of non-mainstream cultures to make them broadly promotable, or appropriates aspects of non-mainstream cultures to promote increased economic activity at the expense of their original generators (Novy and Colomb, 2013). Placemaking, like other and earlier forms of local economic development, is often promoted by the typical members of the growth machine: downtown business interests and local elected officials, ensuring that those efforts align with the interests of elites (Molotch, 1976; McCann, 2002). Yet despite these critiques, in cities that have experienced disinvestment, population and job loss, and withdrawal of the industrial economy, like many in Michigan, placemaking remains an attractive strategy for reinvention and revitalization, with many positive testimonials as to its effectiveness (Markusen and Gadwa, 2010; Philips Foley and Layton, 2014). It is therefore worth investigating the implementation of these placemaking efforts, not just as a manageable way to study plan implementation, but to understand how placemaking-related plans get implemented. If planners can identify barriers to implementation or tactics to increase implementation, this knowledge will make it more likely that such plans will be effective in the ways that their supporters intend.
after their proposals were not selected for the grant-funded assistance; these communities were also included in the survey. 4.2. Survey This survey needed the perspective of elite stakeholders who were involved in and knowledgeable about the PlacePlans process. MML staff identified key informants in each city in each of five roles in the PlacePlans process: the staff lead for the project, an elected official, a business stakeholder, a residential stakeholder, and a person MML or city staff had found to be a critic of the process. I wanted to try to capture a range of experiences within the PlacePlans process, and a range of interests coming into the process. I especially wanted to oversample those who might have been critical of the process so that the survey did not give undue weight to those who would be inclined to be city boosters. League staff were unable to identify all five roles in every city, so the sampling technique resulted in about 80 participants combined in the 22 cities; 77 of these 80 still had viable email addresses. Since it is also possible that none of the types of assistance MML provided were particularly effective, or no more influential on plan implementation that efforts the cities could have conducted on their own, I also surveyed a key contact in each of 42 cities that applied for PlacePlans assistance but were not selected. The response rates were 48% from PlacePlans cities and 40% from non-selected cities. The survey received at least one response from all but four participating cities. Using a Qualtrics-based online survey, I asked all survey participants about their placemaking efforts and progress toward implementation (see Appendix A for list of questions related to implementation). I based the questions about specifics of the program on the types of program activities MML had conducted and wanted to evaluate. I based questions on capacity and barriers to implementation on findings from previous research on capacity and implementation (Loh, 2011, 2012). I was aware that participants might have different ideas about what constituted implementation, so I asked for specifics about the types of activities their cities had engaged in to implement the PlacePlan. The survey also asked an open-ended question about implementation, which showed how respondents defined implementation. I purposely did not attempt to impose a definition of implementation on respondents, first because the projects varied widely in scope and content, and because I wanted to value respondents’ own assessments of the projects’ implementation. What types of activities did they think constituted implementation? How much progress did they think they had made? I also asked PlacePlans participants about their experience with PlacePlans and about local attitudes toward the plan before and after PlacePlans involvement. The approach described above has some limitations. Relying on key informants leaves out the voices of non-elite stakeholders who may have different perspectives on the impact of PlacePlans on their city. However, organizational research has found that elites may actually have a more accurate perspective on the activities of the organization than non-elites (Schwadel and Dougherty, 2010). MML, the funding agency, also sponsored the survey, which may have inclined respondents to report higher levels of satisfaction with the program in order to preserve the relationship with MML (Marshall, 1996). I tried to counter this tendency by including a known critic from each of the participating cities but cannot know the extent to which respondents felt they should respond positively to the survey. As mentioned earlier, I included multiple informants from each city. This technique has the advantage of not relying on a single informant to speak for the entire city administration and broader community. In studies where the object is to be able to say something about a particular organization relative to another organization, researchers must find a way to reconcile multiple informants’ perspectives into a single perspective (Kumar and Stern, 1993). In this study, I do not try to make any claims about, nor does the analysis depend on, comparing any particular city’s responses to
4. Methodology1 4.1. PlacePlans MIplace is a statewide initiative to apply the concept of placemaking—that a unique local sense of place supports economic competitiveness—to both state policies and local practice across Michigan. As part of this initiative, MSHDA, the Michigan State Housing and Development Authority, provided financial support to three rounds of PlacePlans. MML intended these placemaking plans to “[promote] a comprehensive understanding of a community’s place-based assets, and [provide] the tools and strategies to best leverage them” (MML 2016). MML collaborated with the Michigan State University School of Planning, Design, and Construction to provide technical assistance for local placemaking priorities, with goals of accelerating adoption of these principles in those communities and creating case studies from which other communities could learn. The MML team developed PlacePlans in three rounds, with four completed in 2013, eight in 2014, and seven in 2015. In each round, four local projects relied on a faculty-led team from MSU and focused on public engagement and development of a physical plan for a plaza, street, or other space in or adjacent to the community’s downtown. The additional projects in 2014 and 2015 used combinations of League staff and private consultants to develop physical plans, market assessments, or other strategies for local placemaking priorities. Additionally, the League sub-granted a portion of MSHDA’s 2015 funds to some communities who had received technical assistance in previous years to support implementation of their PlacePlans. Finally, three communities directly contracted the League for placemaking technical assistance 1 A note about the partnership: This project grew out of conversations between Richard Murphy, Civic Innovation Labs program coordinator at Michigan Municipal League, and me. I developed the survey questions with consultations and edits by the MML planning staff. MML staff compiled the list of survey contacts. I developed the conceptual framework for the paper, administered the survey, and conducted the analysis.
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another. Therefore, I use all of the survey responses to learn more generally about participants’ experiences in aggregate. However, structuring the survey sample differently might have allowed me to talk more specifically about individual cities’ plans and experiences. Finally, our total n, while a good percentage of the total number of participants, is still quite small. I would not want to attempt to generalize our results to other programs of this type.
Table 2 Implementation Progress.
4.3. Data analysis The key dependent variable was the level of implementation of the PlacePlan respondents felt their city had achieved, measured on an ordinal scale of None/Very little/ Some/Quite a bit/A great deal. I chose this ordinal scale because most plans were likely to be neither completely implemented nor completely unimplemented. Indeed, the most commonly reported answer was “Some.” Because the projects were different in every community, using the respondents’ best judgement about the level of implementation was the most appropriate way to evaluate the communities’ progress. I first evaluated whether certain types of planning interventions among participant cities were associated with higher levels of reported implementation using pairwise correlations. I also tested to see if certain barriers were associated with lower levels of reported implementation. The dependent variable in these analyses is the level of implementation achieved. Additionally, I conducted tests of between-group variance for answers to several of the questions. I used chi-square goodness of fit tests to look for betweengroup differences in count variables and t-tests to compare scale variables, for example to see whether there are significant differences in levels of implementation between cities MML helped and those that applied but were not selected, and ANOVA for pre-and post-test comparisons.
How much progress has your city made implementing the plan?
Participant cities
Non-participant cities
None Very Little Some Quite a bit A great deal Total
19% 15% 50% 4% 12% 100%
0% 13% 63% 25% 0% 100%
5.1. How are communities implementing plans? 5.1.1. Implementation progress As shown in Table 1, PlacePlans participants’ most commonly reported placemaking efforts were public plaza or park improvements, public art, and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Most respondents reported, however, that their cities had not yet made much progress implementing the plans. Only about 15% of selected and 25% of nonselected city respondents said that their cities had made “quite a bit” of progress or more implementing the plan. These differences in implementation level between participants and non-participants were not statistically significant. Among participants, neither the year of participation (2013–2015), nor whether the MSU team or private consultants provided the technical assistance was associated with any significant differences in implementation level. However, cities that received an implementation grant reported a significantly higher level of implementation progress (Table 2). As 63% of the participant respondents had participated in PlacePlans in the most recent funding cycle, it is not surprising that respondents reported so little progress. However, in the written comments respondents provided many examples of implemented projects, including a temporary ice rink, grant applications, trails and other recreational facilities, policy and regulatory changes, land acquisition, public plazas, and a road diet.
5. Survey results I began this study with two research questions. First, I wanted to see if and how communities were implementing plans. Second, I hoped to find out what interventions could help increase the chances of plan implementation success. I found that communities were implementing plans in a wide variety of ways, but that they did not always recognize their implementation progress. I also found that respondents reported that the PlacePlans program had important impacts on their communities even if that impact did not directly translate into conformancebased implementation progress.
5.1.2. Barriers to implementation Besides the short amount of time since the PlacePlans process concluded, which likely accounts for quite a bit of the lack of implementation progress, respondents identified lack of funding, lack of staff capacity, and changes/losses in project leadership as the most significant barriers to implementation, shown in Table 3. In contrast, 100% of the non-participants identified lack of funding as a significant barrier to implementing their plan, with no other factors receiving more than one response. Staff capacity and turnover is a significant issue in many of Michigan’s small cities, many of which have experienced population decline and disinvestment and, especially during the most
Table 1 Placemaking efforts. Answer
Selected cities %
Count
Non-selected cities %
Count
Public plaza or park improvements Public art Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure Parks and recreation programming Branding or marketing campaign Streetscape improvements Festivals/events Acquisition of property Zoning or regulatory changes “Pop-up” temporary placemaking projects Other Business/entrepreneur support Sale or development of publicly-owned properties New development incentive programs Total
65.4% 50.0% 46.2% 34.6% 34.6% 30.8% 26.9% 23.1% 23.1% 19.2% 15.4% 15.4% 15.4% 7.7% 100%
17 13 12 9 9 8 7 6 6 5 4 4 4 2 26
62.5% 50.0% 62.5% 37.5% 37.5% 75.0% 75.0% 25.0% 75.0% 25.0% 0.00% 25.0% 37.5% 37.5% 100%
5 4 5 3 5 6 6 2 6 2 0 2 3 3 8
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Table 3 Barriers to Implementation. Which are significant barriers to implementing your city’s placemaking plan?
Participant cities
Non-participant cities
Participant cities
Lack of funding Changes/losses in project leadership Lack of staff capacity Lack of community support Mismatch between project needs and support received Zoning ordinance needs to be updated to reflect plan or project objectives. Plan was not specific enough Lack of Council support
75.0% 33.3% 28.6% 25.0% 25.0%
100.0% 14.3% 14.3% 14.3% 14.3%
15.8% 15.0% 14.3%
Significant barrier
Non-participant cities
Participant cities
25.0% 11.1% 52.4% 20.0% 15.0%
0.0% 42.9% 71.4% 14.3% 28.6%
0.0% 55.6% 19.1% 55.0% 60.0%
0.0% 42.9% 14.3% 71.4% 57.1%
14.3%
31.6%
42.9%
52.6%
42.9%
14.3% 0.0%
30.0% 19.1%
14.3% 14.3%
55.0% 66.7%
71.4% 85.7%
Minor barrier
Not a barrier
Non-participant cities
the project specifically for PlacePlans, but even so less than 20% of cities reported doing so.
recent recession, have had to reduce the number of staff. In addition to survey respondents, MML staff expressed concern about staff turnover, saying that in some cases it was difficult to ensure continuity through the process when the point person left partway through. It seems that the MML interventions could be particularly useful when staff or partners acted as a specialized extension of city staff. As one respondent said, “MML staff does real work to help City staff. This helps so much because our time to spend on projects, any projects, is so limited.” MML and its partners were able to provide both sheer person-hours working on project development and specialized skills such as facilitation that city staff did not necessarily have.
5.2.2. What types of assistance were most helpful? In addition to the statistical analysis, I wanted to understand how participants viewed the assistance MML provided. Participants ranked facilitation (steering committee or focus groups) (65%), concept design (56%), and popup placemaking/demonstration projects (48%) as the most helpful of the interventions. In written comments, respondents described especially how MML staff and partners’ facilitation helped the process. One said, “The MML and MSU staffs did a tremendous job of getting stakeholders to participate in a way that avoided stakeholders becoming territorial. [City] staff would have a difficult job getting so many stakeholders to work towards a common goal.” Another pointed out that “Public meeting facilitation is a very specific skill and it takes a well-qualified individual to be able to get the most out of that kind of process. MML staff were very helpful in getting us through this part of the process.” Another said that those providing assistance made the process “Very visual, very inclusive. We had people, families, kids engaged. Many of the participants we interacted with were people we typically do not see at public meetings and events.” As for criticism, respondents reported that in a few cases design concepts and cost estimates MML developed and provided didn’t seem sufficiently grounded in what the city was capable of implementing. It appears from the written comments that some respondents may have marked an intervention unhelpful if they didn’t experience it, rather than marking not applicable.
5.2. What interventions can help increase the chances of plan implementation success? I asked the second research question in hopes that the survey results would identify specific interventions that would help carry the implementation process forward. As discussed earlier, funding was the only intervention correlated with perceptions of an increased level of implementation. However, the results of the survey tell a more complex and more interesting story. 5.2.1. What did cities want from PlacePlans? It is important to first understand how cities who applied for the PlacePlans program intended to use it. About 68% of PlacePlans respondents indicated that their cities had applied for the PlacePlans program because they needed technical assistance, rather than funding. In contrast, 80% of the cities that were not selected said they had applied because they needed funding. Based on a chi-square goodness-offit test, this difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Based on the statistical analysis, the reason for seeking PlacePlans funding was the biggest difference between selected and non-selected cities. Selected cities overwhelmingly sought technical assistance while non-selected cities even more overwhelmingly sought money. According to League staff, the criteria for selection included project feasibility, project match to technical staff skillset (which favored projects that could use landscape architects), links to possible future private investment, local staff capacity to partner with the League, and geographic distribution/equity. Since the League had more to offer in terms of technical assistance than they did in grant funding, they were able to help more cities that needed technical assistance. Forty percent of participants and 44% of non-participants indicated that the plan they submitted to the program was a high priority as identified in the city’s Master (Comprehensive) Plan, DDA Plan, or other adopted policy, so the PlacePlans themselves may be seen as components of a larger implementation process. As one respondent said, “Besides funding, we were in need of a plan for a targeted project to focus on as the right next step.” City staff identified another large proportion of the projects as high priority. The selected cities were slightly but not statistically significantly more likely to have developed
5.2.3. PlacePlans effects Aside from the question of whether the PlacePlan intervention had advanced implementation of the project, I wanted to understand respondents’ views of the effects of the program. Half of the respondents said that PlacePlans led to an increase in community pride. Almost 40% said that PlacePlans led to improved connections to local volunteers, while almost 35% said that PlacePlans had built community capacity. Twenty-three percent said that they had not noticed any other positive effects of PlacePlans. These responses help to illustrate some of the benefits of placemaking work, and some of the challenges of evaluating it, as Markusen and Schrock describe. An increase in community pride is a real benefit, but a difficult one to measure. However, if the effect is real, it may lead to other, more easily measurable results. For example, one of the respondents mentions that local investors are taking another look at the project in her city because it now seems more realistic. If the city is able to carry out the project, or if interest in the project leads to more private investment, those effects will eventually become noticeable. 5.3. Relationship with Michigan Municipal League Michigan Municipal League staff wanted to understand how the 72
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PlacePlans experience impacted cities’ relationship with the League, as the relationship is an ongoing one regardless of participation or nonparticipation on PlacePlans. Selected cities reported a statistically significantly better relationship with Michigan Municipal League after the PlacePlans experience compared with before their participation, meaning that the mean reported answer for relationship quality after was significantly higher than the mean reported answer for before. Selected cities also reported a statistically significantly better relationship with the League than non-selected cities, even before going through PlacePlans. It is not surprising that an intense and, based on our survey results, positive interaction with League staff would improve a city’s relationship with the League. However, it is somewhat surprising that there was an a priori difference between selected and nonselected cities. It is possible that the selected city respondents’ memories of their prior relationship with the League were influenced by their current, even more positive, relationship, although if that were the case then the difference between before and after PlacePlans for the selected cities would be less likely to show significance. The other possibility is that one or more of the League’s selection criteria inadvertently or purposely selected for cities with better existing relationships with the League. For example, having a reliable, responsive staff contact was one of the criteria for selection, and that responsiveness could be the result of or result in a better relationship with the League. In either case, it seems that whatever else it might have accomplished, PlacePlans was very successful as a relationship-building tool.
energy, and practical real-world implementation approaches.” Local leadership could use limited implementation of the PlacePlan to help build support for further action: “We were able to apply the spirit of the project in smaller ways that the community could appreciate. We are now starting to receive feedback from businesses to take another look at the project because they now see the value.” In the performance sense, then, these plans are being implemented. Stakeholders in the PlacePlans cities are talking and thinking about the plans, and they believe that the plans matter and that the plans changed the direction of the conversation in those cities. And, at least in some cities, there is a direct link from plans to action, even if public and private actors have not yet fully implemented the plan. One of the reasons planners place so much importance on implementation is the concern that unimplemented plans will sour participants on planning in general—why bother to participate if nothing will come of the plan? In the case of these plans, though, respondents clearly felt that the plans had mattered, even if they were not fully implemented. Faludi (1989) points out that plans should be evaluated on their own terms. One might expect a more linear relationship and more complete implementation of a project plan, which lacks the complexity and long time horizon of a comprehensive plan. However, the data from this survey suggest that even these project plans, whose implementation progress planners (and even local respondents) might be inclined to assess purely from a conformance standpoint, can show their value when viewed through a performance lens. Returning to the question posed by Feitelson and Felsenstein (2017) and Oliveira and Pinho (2009), what is the difference between the city with the plan and without the plan? In this case, according to respondents, the city with the PlacePlan is more engaged, more prepared to make development happen, and more connected to the statewide organization than it would have been without it.
6. Discussion 6.1. Revisiting performance The responses to this survey lend support to the idea advanced by Lyles and Berke (2016) that a plan may play an outsize role in the life of a community even if it is not (yet) possible to draw a straight line between its recommendations and the on-the-ground outcomes. Respondents graded themselves relatively harshly on implementation progress, but answers to open-ended questions on the survey indicate that in many cases communities found the plans transformative. Although the respondents judged that they had not made much progress on implementation (84% reported “some,” “little,” or “no” progress), they recounted in detail the impacts the plans had already had on community pride, capacity, and engagement. Thus, respondents reported that these plans were influential, even if they had not yet fully affected outcomes in the way they were intended to. These responses also suggest that respondents were taking a conformance-based view of implementation and discounting the performance or influence aspects of the plan—even though they had actually done a lot, they reported little progress on implementation. What these respondents, and planners, may fail to recognize is that in some ways, the act of planning becomes an outcome in itself, because it changes the conversation around what is possible. Many of the survey comments support this last point, with one respondent saying, “The project got people talking about the future of the downtown and what it could, and should, look like.” A respondent from another city said,
6.2. Plan outcomes Respondents from participating cities felt overwhelmingly positively about PlacePlans and its impact on local placemaking efforts, yet, as Markusen and Schrock (2006, 2013) suggest, the effects are somewhat difficult to measure. There are statistically significant differences between participating and non-participating cities’ characterizations of their relationships with the League, as well as statistically significant differences between cities’ reported relationships with the League before and after the PlacePlans experience. Cities that went through the PlacePlans program reported a stronger relationship beforehand with the League than cities that did not go through the program and reported an even stronger relationship after going through the program. Beyond the relationship with Michigan Municipal League, however, there are few statistically significant differences between outcomes in participating and non-participating cities. Funding is the only type of intervention significantly correlated with a higher degree of implementation. It is not surprising that funding is very helpful in moving a project forward—a majority of both selected and non-selected cities reported that a lack of funding was a major barrier to implementation, so removing that barrier would allow the project to advance. It was also the case that the League chose to fund projects that seemed particularly well-planned and shovel-ready, so the infusion of money allowed the city to move quickly and therefore to report results. This may initially seem disappointing. However, it is important to keep in mind three points. First, the time between PlacePlans involvement and administering the survey was very short—63% of respondents had participated in PlacePlans in the most recent year. Although I had hoped that the more limited nature of these plans would mean that they could be implemented more quickly, it turned out to be too much to expect that many cities had made substantial progress in their implementation efforts. Second, as the literature explains, it is in many cases difficult to
This is a great program. It provides the nudge to move projects ahead that would otherwise languish. We have a great set of plans and a draft code to make our street corridor great. We appreciate all the assistance and the genuine interest Michigan Municipal League staff gave to this project to make sure we had a product that will give us many returns in terms of community enhancements. These plans and their associated processes were influential (they “got people talking,” they provided a “nudge”) even though they might not yet have been able to affect the built environment. PlacePlans participants expected their efforts to lead to action. As one respondent said, “It was a real, tangible, visible, hands-on experience that brought together excellent ideas, vibrant creativity, positive 73
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quantify the impact of placemaking efforts. Often placemaking results in outcomes like residents and officials feeling more pride in their communities, more people out and about, and stronger connections between volunteers and city staff. These types of outcomes are valuable and desirable, but hard to measure. Third, the types of statistical tests I used to see if there were significant differences between groups, such as testing to see if levels of implementation were different between participant and non-participant cities, are more likely to return Type II errors (false negatives) due to the small sample size. In other words, there might be a real difference, but the tests cannot pick it up.
• • •
7. Conclusions and next steps
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The overall implication of this study is that a strictly conformancebased assessment of plan implementation is likely to miss some of the ways in which plans matter to a community. Although it is not apparent from the statistical analysis, many of the written comments on the survey suggest that PlacePlans have already made a difference in these cities in extending their staff capacity, gathering and focusing community input, and expanding the idea of what placemaking projects might be possible. Based on these early, positive signs, I would expect to see more concrete evidence of implementation in the next few years. However, even if it is never possible to draw a straight line between plans and outcomes in these cities, the survey results document a variety of ways the plans have already been influential. If possible, it would be helpful to revisit this survey in another year or two when cities have had more time to make progress on implementing their plans. Going forward, it also seems that studying more explicitly the role of community support and involvement would be informative. Although the statistical analysis did not indicate a significant difference between pre-and post-PlacePlan community support, the written comments emphasize its role. Several critical commenters expressed concerns that community involvement was not broad-based enough, that the same insiders would ultimately control the process, and that internal dysfunction among city leadership would derail the project. Bearing this in mind, it will be important to look at who benefits from the implementation of these types of placemaking plans, and if those individuals or groups are the ones the plans are attempting to help. On the other hand, many of the positive comments focused on the benefits respondents had already seen from successful community participation processes, whether it was bringing in new participants or creating a space for important community conversations around future placemaking efforts. This study demonstrates that, in accordance with the performance principle, plans can matter in ways that are difficult to immediately quantify. These findings indicate that researchers studying implementation should be open to discovering additional ways that plans may be influential, even as they look for conformance between plans and outcomes.
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placemaking projects, Parks and recreation programming, Festivals/ events, Streetscape improvements, Branding or marketing campaign, Business/entrepreneur support, New development incentive programs, Zoning or regulatory changes, Sale or development of publicly-owned properties, Acquisition of property, Other) How much progress has your city made implementing the plan? (None/Very little/ Some/Quite a bit/A great deal) Which components of your PlacePlan have been most successfully implemented? (open ended) What new private development, business growth, or resident quality of life improvements have you seen as a result of your placemaking efforts, if any? (open ended) How closely has the plan adhered to the proposed/desired completion timeline? (Plan implementation is not scheduled to begin yet/A great deal of delay/Some delay/Right on time/Somewhat ahead of schedule/Significantly ahead of schedule) What do you feel are barriers to implementing your city’s placemaking plan? (Lack of funding, Lack of community support, Lack of Council support, Mismatch between project needs and support received, Changes/losses in project leadership, Plan was not specific enough, Zoning ordinance needs to be updated to reflect plan or project objectives, Other) (Each could be Significant barrier/Minor barrier/Not a barrier)
References Abrantes, P., Fontes, I., et al., 2016. Compliance of land cover changes with municipal land use planning: evidence from the Lisbon metropolitan region (1990–2007). Land Use Policy 51, 120–134. Alexander, E.R., Faludi, A., 1989. Planning and plan implementation: notes on evaluation criteria. Environ. Plan. B: Plan. Des. 16 (2), 127–140. Baer, W.C., 1997. General plan evaluation criteria: an approach to making better plans. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 63 (3), 329–344. Berke, P., Backhurst, M., et al., 2006. What makes plan implementation successful? An evaluation of local plans and implementation practices in New Zealand. Environ. Plan. B: Plan. Des. 33 (4), 581–600. Berke, P., Godschalk, D., 2009. Searching for the good plan A meta-analysis of plan quality studies. J. Plan. Lit. 23 (3), 227–240. Brody, S.D., Highfield, W.E., 2005. Does planning work?: Testing the implementation of local environmental planning in Florida. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 71 (2), 159–175. Burby, R.J., 2003. Making plans that matter: citizen involvement and government action. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 69 (1), 33–49. Calkins, H.W., 1979. The planning monitor: an accountability theory of plan evaluation. Environ. Plan. A 11 (7), 745–758. Dalton, L.C., Burby, R.J., 1994. Mandates, plans, and planners: building local committment to development management. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 60 (4), 444–461. Faludi, A., 1989. Conformance vs. performance: implications for evaluation. Impact Assess. 7 (2–3), 135–151. Feitelson, E., Felsenstein, D., et al., 2017. Assessing land use plan implementation: bridging the performance-conformance divide. Land Use Policy 61, 251–264. Gadwa Nicodemus, A., 2013. Fuzzy vibrancy: creative placemaking as ascendant US cultural policy. Cult. Trends 22 (3-4), 213–222. Ganning, J.P., 2016. Arts stability and growth amid redevelopment in US shrinking cities’ downtowns a case study. Econ. Dev. Q. 30 (3), 239–251 0891242415626277. Gilmartin, D., 2014. In: Philips Foley, E., Layton, C., Gilmartin, D. (Eds.), Introduction. The Economics of Place: The Art of Building Great Communities. Michigan Municipal League, Ann Arbor, MI. Hopkins, L.D., 2001. Urban Development: The Logic of Making Plans. Island Press. Kumar, N., Stern, L.W., et al., 1993. Conducting interorganizational research using key informants. Acad. Manag. J. 36 (6), 1633–1651. Laurian, L., Day, M., et al., 2004. Evaluating plan implementation: a conformance-based methodology. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 70 (4), 471–480. Lepofsky, J., Fraser, J.C., 2003. Building community citizens: claiming the right to placemaking in the city. Urban Stud. 40 (1), 127–142. Loh, C.G., 2011. Assessing and interpreting non-conformance in land-use planning implementation. Plan. Pract. Res. 26 (3), 271–287. Loh, C.G., 2012. Four potential disconnects in the community planning process. J. Plan. Educ. Res. 32 (1), 33–47. Lyles, W., Berke, P., et al., 2016. Local plan implementation: assessing conformance and influence of local plans in the United States. Environ. Plan. B: Plan. Des. 43 (2), 381–400. Markusen, A., 2013. Fuzzy concepts, proxy data: why indicators would not track creative placemaking success. Int. J. Urban Sci. 17 (3), 291–303. Markusen, A., Gadwa, A., 2010. Creative Placemaking. National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC. Markusen, A., Schrock, G., 2006. The artistic dividend: urban artistic specialisation and economic development implications. Urban Stud. 43 (10), 1661–1686. Marshall, M.N., 1996. The key informant technique. Fam. Pract. 13 (1), 92–97.
Funding Michigan Municipal League provided funding for this study. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Richard Murphy and the staff of the Michigan Municipal League for funding and collaborating on this project, and Charlie Hoch, Amanda Johnson Ashley, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments during the paper’s development and revision. Appendix A. Survey questions about implementation
• Which projects have you engaged in as part of your placemaking implementation? (Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, Public plaza or park improvements, Public art, “Pop-up” temporary
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C.G. Loh Mastop, H., Faludi, A., 1997. Evaluation of strategic plans: the performance principle. Environ. Plan. B: Plan. Des. 24 (6), 815–832. McCann, E.J., 2002. The cultural politics of local economic development: meaningmaking, place-making, and the urban policy process. Geoforum 33 (3), 385–398. Molotch, H., 1976. The city as a growth machine: toward a political economy of place. Am. J. Sociol. 309–332. Norton, R.K., 2005. More and better local planning: state-mandated local planning in Coastal North Carolina. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 71 (1). Novy, J., Colomb, C., 2013. Struggling for the right to the (creative) city in Berlin and Hamburg: new urban social movements, new ‘spaces of hope’? Int. J. Urban Reg. Res. 37 (5), 1816–1838. Oliveira, V., Pinho, P., 2009. Evaluating plans, processes and results. Plan. Theory Pract. 10 (1), 35–63. Padeiro, M., 2016. Conformance in land-use planning: the determinants of decision, conversion and transgression. Land Use Policy 55, 285–299. Philips Foley, E., Layton, C., et al., 2014. The Economics of Place: The Art of Building Great Communities. Michigan Municipal League, Ann Arbor, MI. Polèse, M., 2012. The arts and local economic development: can a strong arts presence
uplift local economies? A study of 135 Canadian cities. Urban Stud. 49 (8), 1811–1835. Pressman, J.L., Wildavsky, A., 1973. Implementation. University of California Press, Berkeley. Schwadel, P., Dougherty, K.D., 2010. Assessing key informant methodology in congregational research. Rev. Reg. Res. 366–379. Scott, A.J., 1997. The cultural economy of cities. Int. J. Urban Reg. Res. 21 (2), 323–339. Talen, E., 1996. Do plans get implemented? A review of evaluation in planning. J. Plan. Lit. 10 (3), 248–259. Wyckoff, M., 2014. Definition of placemaking: four different types. Plan. Zoning News 32 (3). Carolyn G. Loh is an associate professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State University. A former planning consultant, her research interests include land use, the planning process, implementation, intergovernmental cooperation, and regional planning.
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Placemaking and implementation: Revisiting the performance principle Carolyn G. Loh
T
Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Wayne State University, 3198 FAB, 656 W. Kirby, Detroit, MI 48202, United States
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Keywords: Implementation Performance Conformance Placemaking Michigan Economic development Project plans
Using a survey of cities that participated in a statewide placemaking plan assistance program, this study contributes to the plan implementation literature in two ways. First, unlike most studies of plan implementation, this study evaluates the implementation of project plans. Second, departing from the largely conformance-based recent work on plan evaluation, the study expands the depth of our understanding of performance-based plan evaluation. The study finds that although survey respondents reported little concrete implementation progress, the plans had already been influential in changing conversations and priorities around placemaking. This study suggests that planners should expand their conceptualizations of how plans can impact communities.
1. Introduction The well-implemented local comprehensive plan has long been a dearly sought-after goal for planning practitioners and scholars alike. While planners, local officials, and planning process participants usually intend that the plan should actually guide development, there is a well-documented tendency for plans to sit on the shelf (Calkins, 1979; Talen, 1996; Brody and Highfield, 2005). Failure to implement plans may result in sub-optimal development that does not conform to the community’s vision, and ultimately may de-legitimize the whole comprehensive planning exercise itself if participants see their efforts wasted (Brody and Highfield, 2005, 161). Implementation is difficult to study for several reasons. Unlike the plan-making phase of the comprehensive planning process, it is diffuse, resting in the hands of many individuals and agencies (Loh, 2012). Also unlike a comprehensive planning process’s plan-making phase, implementation potentially takes place over a long period of time, making it difficult to know when to draw a line to test outcomes (Baer, 1997; Loh, 2011). Finally, there is a range of ideas among planners about what it even means for a plan to be implemented (Talen, 1996; Laurian and Day, 2004; Padeiro, 2016). The Michigan Municipal League (referred to throughout as MML or the League) PlacePlans program afforded a unique opportunity to study implementation, in this case of project rather than comprehensive plans. PlacePlans was a public-public partnership in the US state of Michigan aimed at increasing implementation of targeted placemaking plans for downtown revitalization and economic development. The League provided funding and technical assistance, including facilitation, conceptual plans, and design cost estimates to 22 cities in Michigan over a three-year period. Placemaking has largely been a
municipal-led effort, whereas PlacePlans was an unusual statewide program making investments in placemaking, including creative placemaking. I began this study with two research questions, developed in partnership with the Michigan Municipal League. First, I wanted to see if and how communities were implementing plans. Second, I hoped to find out which interventions could help increase the chances of plan implementation success. To investigate these questions, I used a survey to evaluate the outcomes of the PlacePlans program. Since the program provided different types of interventions to different cities, I hoped to be able to test the relative effectiveness of the different interventions. MML staff were especially interested in these outcomes, as they hoped to be able to judge which of their intervention types they should focus most on in the future. And since the plans were aimed at particular areas of the city with relatively short implementation timelines, I thought I would be able to evaluate the program’s outcomes relatively soon after the interventions. Based on earlier work, I expected that having a consistent, dedicated staff person overseeing implementation and having high local participation and buy-in would both increase implementation levels (Burby, 2003; Loh, 2012). I had few a priori ideas, though, about which types of interventions would matter the most. Both MML and I believed that the results would help local, state, regional, and national organizations target the planning assistance they provide for the greatest impact on the local governments they serve. The results of the survey reveal a more complex picture of intervention and implementation than I had initially expected. I found that it was difficult to distinguish quantitatively between intervention types’ effects on implementation, aside from funding. While most respondents reported relatively low levels of plan implementation at the time of the survey, they also reported that PlacePlans interventions clearly had
E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.024 Received 6 June 2017; Received in revised form 12 October 2018; Accepted 12 October 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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important effects. Respondents from participant communities had significantly stronger relationships after the process with the funding agency, Michigan Municipal League, and qualitative comments revealed a strong sense among participants that the program had been influential and successful in their communities. These results suggest that even for project plans, a performance approach to evaluating implementation may help capture a fuller picture of impact. The following sections explore the literature on implementation and provide some background on placemaking as a planning activity. I then describe the methodology of both the MML program and the evaluation survey. I present the results of the analysis and finally discuss implications of the results.
seem to have wholeheartedly adopted the performance view of implementation. Perhaps partly this is because it is harder to measure: it is appealing as a researcher to develop concrete, quantitative measures of implementation and test them. The performance view does not lend itself well to this type of approach, especially the aspect of the concept that Lyles et al. call “influence.” As Oliveira and Pinho point out, it can be difficult looking backward to determine whether the plan caused a decision maker to make a particular decision, making the establishment of any causal relationship questionable (Oliveira and Pinho, 2009). It is also possible to see such an approach as lacking any kind of concrete standards, rendering both the plan and the evaluation exercise meaningless (Brody and Highfield, 2005). Yet, perhaps there is something that the quantitative, spatial-regression or GIS-based approach most implementation researchers, myself included, overlook when we take a strict conformance-based approach. As Feitelson and Felsenstein (2017) and Oliveira and Pinho (2009) suggest, perhaps a more realistic question to ask about a plan’s implementation is not, do the outcomes exactly reflect the plan, but are the outcomes more like the plan than the “status quo” path they would otherwise have taken? In other words, as Alexander and Faludi ask, are the outcomes headed in the right direction, even if they do not exactly conform to the plan? While the conformance-based approach certainly has great value in advancing evidence-based planning, the performance-based approach may help planners make sense intellectually and theoretically of qualitative evidence that a plan is influential, even if its prescribed outcomes haven’t yet been realized. It is also important to distinguish between types of plans in conceptualizations of and expectations around implementation. As Baer, Hopkins, and Lyles et al. point out, plans may aim to fill many different roles, from checking boxes required by higher levels of government to grand vision to blueprint (Baer, 1997; Hopkins, 2001; Lyles and Berke, 2016). Planners need to be careful that they are evaluating plans on their own terms. For example, Faludi contrasts project plans, such as the ones in this study, which would be expected to have a specific onthe-ground outcome, and strategic plans, which reflect a vision at a particular point in time in an environment subject to change (Faludi, 1989). A plan that is meant to be a blueprint for land use is a better candidate for a conformance-based implementation evaluation approach than a plan that is mainly meant to start a conversation. However, as I will argue below, in contrast with Faludi’s point, a project plan can be influential in the sense of Lyles et al. before it can be shown to have resulted in any concrete outcomes.
2. Plan implementation: problems and potential solutions It has long vexed planners that plans are often implemented superficially, incompletely, or not at all. Unimplemented plans risk squandering the effort and good will of those who participated in making them, and ultimately risk the legitimacy of the democratic planning exercise altogether (Calkins, 1979; Laurian and Day, 2004; Brody and Highfield, 2005). Yet planners have not always agreed on what it means to implement a plan (Talen, 1996). Many studies, including many of the recent published articles on this topic, have interpreted implementation in the way that Pressman and Wildavsky did (Laurian and Day, 2004; Norton, 2005; Berke and Backhurst, 2006; Loh, 2011; Abrantes and Fontes, 2016; Padeiro, 2016). In this view, which has come to be called conformance-based, the purpose of planning is to control the future, and can be considered successful if it does so (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). Using this conformance-based approach, planning researchers have made progress identifying factors that seem to make fully implementing a plan more or less probable. System complexity (more actors, more agencies) makes it more likely that the “baton” of implementation will be dropped along the way (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). Low planning capacity seems to make implementation more difficult (Berke and Backhurst, 2006; Loh, 2012). Plans with high levels of public participation are more likely to be implemented (Burby, 2003), as are high quality plans (Dalton and Burby, 1994; Berke and Backhurst, 2006; Berke and Godschalk, 2009). All of these efforts are meant to increase conformance between the plan’s goals and maps and the outcomes on the ground. In contrast, Alexander and Faludi (1989) argued for what they called a performance-based approach to evaluating implementation, because planning, like other public policy, is an evolving process that takes place in an environment of change and uncertainty. Outcomes cannot be expected to have a one-to-one relationship with plans (Mastop and Faludi, 1997), yet they must still be evaluated as “part of the social deliberative and interactive process which links aims to action, and which transforms ideas into realities” (Alexander and Faludi, 1989, 131). In the performance view of plan implementation, the plan is a “decision framework” and evaluations of its implementation focus on whether and how decision makers consulted the plan (Oliveira and Pinho, 2009). Interpretations of what constitutes performance range, with some, such as Mastop, taking the view that if the plan is consulted as part of the decision-making process, it is being implemented. Others say that “implementation is still important but…as long as outcomes are beneficial, departures from plans are viewed with equanimity” (Alexander and Faludi, 1989, 129), although it is critical to remember how and to whom the plan was supposed to be beneficial. Lyles et al. distinguish between what they call plan influence, which means that the plan is used in decision-making, and performance, which means that the plan affected outcomes (Lyles and Berke, 2016). Oliveira and Pinho look for evidence of leaders committing resources (financial and/ or personnel) to furthering the plan’s goals (Oliveira and Pinho, 2009). Although some recent studies have incorporated both performance and conformance- based elements into evaluation protocols, few studies
3. Placemaking and planning For the purposes of this paper, placemaking refers broadly to the economic development strategy of “creating quality places that people want to live, work, play and learn in” (Wyckoff, 2014). This strategy is “driven by a recognition that unique places that feature cultural enrichment and a high quality of experience boost economic as well as social conditions” (Gilmartin, 2014). Creative placemaking, more specifically, is where “cross-sector partners strategically shape the social and physical character of a place (ranging from a neighbourhood to region) around arts and cultural assets” (Gadwa Nicodemus, 2013). Thus, placemaking is “participation in both the production of meaning and in the means of production of a locale” (Lepofsky and Fraser, 2003, 128). Cities whose traditional economies have been upended by globalization often undertake placemaking in an attempt to capitalize on unique aspects of local culture in order to attract new capital to the city and allow the city to compete in the global marketplace of cities (Scott, 1997). The theorized benefits of creative placemaking include recirculating local income through local spending, re-using vacant and underutilized land, buildings, and infrastructure, creating jobs, fostering entrepreneurship, passing on cultural knowledge to younger generations, and attracting and retaining non-arts-related businesses (Markusen and Gadwa, 2010, 4). Yet empirical evidence for these 69
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economic and social benefits is often inconclusive (Polèse, 2012; Ganning, 2016), partly because the impacts of cultural activities are difficult to measure (Markusen and Schrock, 2006). Observers of placemaking efforts caution that when localities intertwine economic and cultural development, they make value judgments about which culture, and whose culture, should be promoted (in essence, which culture has economic value) (McCann, 2002). This can and often does leave non-mainstream cultures out, sanitizes aspects of non-mainstream cultures to make them broadly promotable, or appropriates aspects of non-mainstream cultures to promote increased economic activity at the expense of their original generators (Novy and Colomb, 2013). Placemaking, like other and earlier forms of local economic development, is often promoted by the typical members of the growth machine: downtown business interests and local elected officials, ensuring that those efforts align with the interests of elites (Molotch, 1976; McCann, 2002). Yet despite these critiques, in cities that have experienced disinvestment, population and job loss, and withdrawal of the industrial economy, like many in Michigan, placemaking remains an attractive strategy for reinvention and revitalization, with many positive testimonials as to its effectiveness (Markusen and Gadwa, 2010; Philips Foley and Layton, 2014). It is therefore worth investigating the implementation of these placemaking efforts, not just as a manageable way to study plan implementation, but to understand how placemaking-related plans get implemented. If planners can identify barriers to implementation or tactics to increase implementation, this knowledge will make it more likely that such plans will be effective in the ways that their supporters intend.
after their proposals were not selected for the grant-funded assistance; these communities were also included in the survey. 4.2. Survey This survey needed the perspective of elite stakeholders who were involved in and knowledgeable about the PlacePlans process. MML staff identified key informants in each city in each of five roles in the PlacePlans process: the staff lead for the project, an elected official, a business stakeholder, a residential stakeholder, and a person MML or city staff had found to be a critic of the process. I wanted to try to capture a range of experiences within the PlacePlans process, and a range of interests coming into the process. I especially wanted to oversample those who might have been critical of the process so that the survey did not give undue weight to those who would be inclined to be city boosters. League staff were unable to identify all five roles in every city, so the sampling technique resulted in about 80 participants combined in the 22 cities; 77 of these 80 still had viable email addresses. Since it is also possible that none of the types of assistance MML provided were particularly effective, or no more influential on plan implementation that efforts the cities could have conducted on their own, I also surveyed a key contact in each of 42 cities that applied for PlacePlans assistance but were not selected. The response rates were 48% from PlacePlans cities and 40% from non-selected cities. The survey received at least one response from all but four participating cities. Using a Qualtrics-based online survey, I asked all survey participants about their placemaking efforts and progress toward implementation (see Appendix A for list of questions related to implementation). I based the questions about specifics of the program on the types of program activities MML had conducted and wanted to evaluate. I based questions on capacity and barriers to implementation on findings from previous research on capacity and implementation (Loh, 2011, 2012). I was aware that participants might have different ideas about what constituted implementation, so I asked for specifics about the types of activities their cities had engaged in to implement the PlacePlan. The survey also asked an open-ended question about implementation, which showed how respondents defined implementation. I purposely did not attempt to impose a definition of implementation on respondents, first because the projects varied widely in scope and content, and because I wanted to value respondents’ own assessments of the projects’ implementation. What types of activities did they think constituted implementation? How much progress did they think they had made? I also asked PlacePlans participants about their experience with PlacePlans and about local attitudes toward the plan before and after PlacePlans involvement. The approach described above has some limitations. Relying on key informants leaves out the voices of non-elite stakeholders who may have different perspectives on the impact of PlacePlans on their city. However, organizational research has found that elites may actually have a more accurate perspective on the activities of the organization than non-elites (Schwadel and Dougherty, 2010). MML, the funding agency, also sponsored the survey, which may have inclined respondents to report higher levels of satisfaction with the program in order to preserve the relationship with MML (Marshall, 1996). I tried to counter this tendency by including a known critic from each of the participating cities but cannot know the extent to which respondents felt they should respond positively to the survey. As mentioned earlier, I included multiple informants from each city. This technique has the advantage of not relying on a single informant to speak for the entire city administration and broader community. In studies where the object is to be able to say something about a particular organization relative to another organization, researchers must find a way to reconcile multiple informants’ perspectives into a single perspective (Kumar and Stern, 1993). In this study, I do not try to make any claims about, nor does the analysis depend on, comparing any particular city’s responses to
4. Methodology1 4.1. PlacePlans MIplace is a statewide initiative to apply the concept of placemaking—that a unique local sense of place supports economic competitiveness—to both state policies and local practice across Michigan. As part of this initiative, MSHDA, the Michigan State Housing and Development Authority, provided financial support to three rounds of PlacePlans. MML intended these placemaking plans to “[promote] a comprehensive understanding of a community’s place-based assets, and [provide] the tools and strategies to best leverage them” (MML 2016). MML collaborated with the Michigan State University School of Planning, Design, and Construction to provide technical assistance for local placemaking priorities, with goals of accelerating adoption of these principles in those communities and creating case studies from which other communities could learn. The MML team developed PlacePlans in three rounds, with four completed in 2013, eight in 2014, and seven in 2015. In each round, four local projects relied on a faculty-led team from MSU and focused on public engagement and development of a physical plan for a plaza, street, or other space in or adjacent to the community’s downtown. The additional projects in 2014 and 2015 used combinations of League staff and private consultants to develop physical plans, market assessments, or other strategies for local placemaking priorities. Additionally, the League sub-granted a portion of MSHDA’s 2015 funds to some communities who had received technical assistance in previous years to support implementation of their PlacePlans. Finally, three communities directly contracted the League for placemaking technical assistance 1 A note about the partnership: This project grew out of conversations between Richard Murphy, Civic Innovation Labs program coordinator at Michigan Municipal League, and me. I developed the survey questions with consultations and edits by the MML planning staff. MML staff compiled the list of survey contacts. I developed the conceptual framework for the paper, administered the survey, and conducted the analysis.
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another. Therefore, I use all of the survey responses to learn more generally about participants’ experiences in aggregate. However, structuring the survey sample differently might have allowed me to talk more specifically about individual cities’ plans and experiences. Finally, our total n, while a good percentage of the total number of participants, is still quite small. I would not want to attempt to generalize our results to other programs of this type.
Table 2 Implementation Progress.
4.3. Data analysis The key dependent variable was the level of implementation of the PlacePlan respondents felt their city had achieved, measured on an ordinal scale of None/Very little/ Some/Quite a bit/A great deal. I chose this ordinal scale because most plans were likely to be neither completely implemented nor completely unimplemented. Indeed, the most commonly reported answer was “Some.” Because the projects were different in every community, using the respondents’ best judgement about the level of implementation was the most appropriate way to evaluate the communities’ progress. I first evaluated whether certain types of planning interventions among participant cities were associated with higher levels of reported implementation using pairwise correlations. I also tested to see if certain barriers were associated with lower levels of reported implementation. The dependent variable in these analyses is the level of implementation achieved. Additionally, I conducted tests of between-group variance for answers to several of the questions. I used chi-square goodness of fit tests to look for betweengroup differences in count variables and t-tests to compare scale variables, for example to see whether there are significant differences in levels of implementation between cities MML helped and those that applied but were not selected, and ANOVA for pre-and post-test comparisons.
How much progress has your city made implementing the plan?
Participant cities
Non-participant cities
None Very Little Some Quite a bit A great deal Total
19% 15% 50% 4% 12% 100%
0% 13% 63% 25% 0% 100%
5.1. How are communities implementing plans? 5.1.1. Implementation progress As shown in Table 1, PlacePlans participants’ most commonly reported placemaking efforts were public plaza or park improvements, public art, and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Most respondents reported, however, that their cities had not yet made much progress implementing the plans. Only about 15% of selected and 25% of nonselected city respondents said that their cities had made “quite a bit” of progress or more implementing the plan. These differences in implementation level between participants and non-participants were not statistically significant. Among participants, neither the year of participation (2013–2015), nor whether the MSU team or private consultants provided the technical assistance was associated with any significant differences in implementation level. However, cities that received an implementation grant reported a significantly higher level of implementation progress (Table 2). As 63% of the participant respondents had participated in PlacePlans in the most recent funding cycle, it is not surprising that respondents reported so little progress. However, in the written comments respondents provided many examples of implemented projects, including a temporary ice rink, grant applications, trails and other recreational facilities, policy and regulatory changes, land acquisition, public plazas, and a road diet.
5. Survey results I began this study with two research questions. First, I wanted to see if and how communities were implementing plans. Second, I hoped to find out what interventions could help increase the chances of plan implementation success. I found that communities were implementing plans in a wide variety of ways, but that they did not always recognize their implementation progress. I also found that respondents reported that the PlacePlans program had important impacts on their communities even if that impact did not directly translate into conformancebased implementation progress.
5.1.2. Barriers to implementation Besides the short amount of time since the PlacePlans process concluded, which likely accounts for quite a bit of the lack of implementation progress, respondents identified lack of funding, lack of staff capacity, and changes/losses in project leadership as the most significant barriers to implementation, shown in Table 3. In contrast, 100% of the non-participants identified lack of funding as a significant barrier to implementing their plan, with no other factors receiving more than one response. Staff capacity and turnover is a significant issue in many of Michigan’s small cities, many of which have experienced population decline and disinvestment and, especially during the most
Table 1 Placemaking efforts. Answer
Selected cities %
Count
Non-selected cities %
Count
Public plaza or park improvements Public art Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure Parks and recreation programming Branding or marketing campaign Streetscape improvements Festivals/events Acquisition of property Zoning or regulatory changes “Pop-up” temporary placemaking projects Other Business/entrepreneur support Sale or development of publicly-owned properties New development incentive programs Total
65.4% 50.0% 46.2% 34.6% 34.6% 30.8% 26.9% 23.1% 23.1% 19.2% 15.4% 15.4% 15.4% 7.7% 100%
17 13 12 9 9 8 7 6 6 5 4 4 4 2 26
62.5% 50.0% 62.5% 37.5% 37.5% 75.0% 75.0% 25.0% 75.0% 25.0% 0.00% 25.0% 37.5% 37.5% 100%
5 4 5 3 5 6 6 2 6 2 0 2 3 3 8
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Table 3 Barriers to Implementation. Which are significant barriers to implementing your city’s placemaking plan?
Participant cities
Non-participant cities
Participant cities
Lack of funding Changes/losses in project leadership Lack of staff capacity Lack of community support Mismatch between project needs and support received Zoning ordinance needs to be updated to reflect plan or project objectives. Plan was not specific enough Lack of Council support
75.0% 33.3% 28.6% 25.0% 25.0%
100.0% 14.3% 14.3% 14.3% 14.3%
15.8% 15.0% 14.3%
Significant barrier
Non-participant cities
Participant cities
25.0% 11.1% 52.4% 20.0% 15.0%
0.0% 42.9% 71.4% 14.3% 28.6%
0.0% 55.6% 19.1% 55.0% 60.0%
0.0% 42.9% 14.3% 71.4% 57.1%
14.3%
31.6%
42.9%
52.6%
42.9%
14.3% 0.0%
30.0% 19.1%
14.3% 14.3%
55.0% 66.7%
71.4% 85.7%
Minor barrier
Not a barrier
Non-participant cities
the project specifically for PlacePlans, but even so less than 20% of cities reported doing so.
recent recession, have had to reduce the number of staff. In addition to survey respondents, MML staff expressed concern about staff turnover, saying that in some cases it was difficult to ensure continuity through the process when the point person left partway through. It seems that the MML interventions could be particularly useful when staff or partners acted as a specialized extension of city staff. As one respondent said, “MML staff does real work to help City staff. This helps so much because our time to spend on projects, any projects, is so limited.” MML and its partners were able to provide both sheer person-hours working on project development and specialized skills such as facilitation that city staff did not necessarily have.
5.2.2. What types of assistance were most helpful? In addition to the statistical analysis, I wanted to understand how participants viewed the assistance MML provided. Participants ranked facilitation (steering committee or focus groups) (65%), concept design (56%), and popup placemaking/demonstration projects (48%) as the most helpful of the interventions. In written comments, respondents described especially how MML staff and partners’ facilitation helped the process. One said, “The MML and MSU staffs did a tremendous job of getting stakeholders to participate in a way that avoided stakeholders becoming territorial. [City] staff would have a difficult job getting so many stakeholders to work towards a common goal.” Another pointed out that “Public meeting facilitation is a very specific skill and it takes a well-qualified individual to be able to get the most out of that kind of process. MML staff were very helpful in getting us through this part of the process.” Another said that those providing assistance made the process “Very visual, very inclusive. We had people, families, kids engaged. Many of the participants we interacted with were people we typically do not see at public meetings and events.” As for criticism, respondents reported that in a few cases design concepts and cost estimates MML developed and provided didn’t seem sufficiently grounded in what the city was capable of implementing. It appears from the written comments that some respondents may have marked an intervention unhelpful if they didn’t experience it, rather than marking not applicable.
5.2. What interventions can help increase the chances of plan implementation success? I asked the second research question in hopes that the survey results would identify specific interventions that would help carry the implementation process forward. As discussed earlier, funding was the only intervention correlated with perceptions of an increased level of implementation. However, the results of the survey tell a more complex and more interesting story. 5.2.1. What did cities want from PlacePlans? It is important to first understand how cities who applied for the PlacePlans program intended to use it. About 68% of PlacePlans respondents indicated that their cities had applied for the PlacePlans program because they needed technical assistance, rather than funding. In contrast, 80% of the cities that were not selected said they had applied because they needed funding. Based on a chi-square goodness-offit test, this difference was statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Based on the statistical analysis, the reason for seeking PlacePlans funding was the biggest difference between selected and non-selected cities. Selected cities overwhelmingly sought technical assistance while non-selected cities even more overwhelmingly sought money. According to League staff, the criteria for selection included project feasibility, project match to technical staff skillset (which favored projects that could use landscape architects), links to possible future private investment, local staff capacity to partner with the League, and geographic distribution/equity. Since the League had more to offer in terms of technical assistance than they did in grant funding, they were able to help more cities that needed technical assistance. Forty percent of participants and 44% of non-participants indicated that the plan they submitted to the program was a high priority as identified in the city’s Master (Comprehensive) Plan, DDA Plan, or other adopted policy, so the PlacePlans themselves may be seen as components of a larger implementation process. As one respondent said, “Besides funding, we were in need of a plan for a targeted project to focus on as the right next step.” City staff identified another large proportion of the projects as high priority. The selected cities were slightly but not statistically significantly more likely to have developed
5.2.3. PlacePlans effects Aside from the question of whether the PlacePlan intervention had advanced implementation of the project, I wanted to understand respondents’ views of the effects of the program. Half of the respondents said that PlacePlans led to an increase in community pride. Almost 40% said that PlacePlans led to improved connections to local volunteers, while almost 35% said that PlacePlans had built community capacity. Twenty-three percent said that they had not noticed any other positive effects of PlacePlans. These responses help to illustrate some of the benefits of placemaking work, and some of the challenges of evaluating it, as Markusen and Schrock describe. An increase in community pride is a real benefit, but a difficult one to measure. However, if the effect is real, it may lead to other, more easily measurable results. For example, one of the respondents mentions that local investors are taking another look at the project in her city because it now seems more realistic. If the city is able to carry out the project, or if interest in the project leads to more private investment, those effects will eventually become noticeable. 5.3. Relationship with Michigan Municipal League Michigan Municipal League staff wanted to understand how the 72
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PlacePlans experience impacted cities’ relationship with the League, as the relationship is an ongoing one regardless of participation or nonparticipation on PlacePlans. Selected cities reported a statistically significantly better relationship with Michigan Municipal League after the PlacePlans experience compared with before their participation, meaning that the mean reported answer for relationship quality after was significantly higher than the mean reported answer for before. Selected cities also reported a statistically significantly better relationship with the League than non-selected cities, even before going through PlacePlans. It is not surprising that an intense and, based on our survey results, positive interaction with League staff would improve a city’s relationship with the League. However, it is somewhat surprising that there was an a priori difference between selected and nonselected cities. It is possible that the selected city respondents’ memories of their prior relationship with the League were influenced by their current, even more positive, relationship, although if that were the case then the difference between before and after PlacePlans for the selected cities would be less likely to show significance. The other possibility is that one or more of the League’s selection criteria inadvertently or purposely selected for cities with better existing relationships with the League. For example, having a reliable, responsive staff contact was one of the criteria for selection, and that responsiveness could be the result of or result in a better relationship with the League. In either case, it seems that whatever else it might have accomplished, PlacePlans was very successful as a relationship-building tool.
energy, and practical real-world implementation approaches.” Local leadership could use limited implementation of the PlacePlan to help build support for further action: “We were able to apply the spirit of the project in smaller ways that the community could appreciate. We are now starting to receive feedback from businesses to take another look at the project because they now see the value.” In the performance sense, then, these plans are being implemented. Stakeholders in the PlacePlans cities are talking and thinking about the plans, and they believe that the plans matter and that the plans changed the direction of the conversation in those cities. And, at least in some cities, there is a direct link from plans to action, even if public and private actors have not yet fully implemented the plan. One of the reasons planners place so much importance on implementation is the concern that unimplemented plans will sour participants on planning in general—why bother to participate if nothing will come of the plan? In the case of these plans, though, respondents clearly felt that the plans had mattered, even if they were not fully implemented. Faludi (1989) points out that plans should be evaluated on their own terms. One might expect a more linear relationship and more complete implementation of a project plan, which lacks the complexity and long time horizon of a comprehensive plan. However, the data from this survey suggest that even these project plans, whose implementation progress planners (and even local respondents) might be inclined to assess purely from a conformance standpoint, can show their value when viewed through a performance lens. Returning to the question posed by Feitelson and Felsenstein (2017) and Oliveira and Pinho (2009), what is the difference between the city with the plan and without the plan? In this case, according to respondents, the city with the PlacePlan is more engaged, more prepared to make development happen, and more connected to the statewide organization than it would have been without it.
6. Discussion 6.1. Revisiting performance The responses to this survey lend support to the idea advanced by Lyles and Berke (2016) that a plan may play an outsize role in the life of a community even if it is not (yet) possible to draw a straight line between its recommendations and the on-the-ground outcomes. Respondents graded themselves relatively harshly on implementation progress, but answers to open-ended questions on the survey indicate that in many cases communities found the plans transformative. Although the respondents judged that they had not made much progress on implementation (84% reported “some,” “little,” or “no” progress), they recounted in detail the impacts the plans had already had on community pride, capacity, and engagement. Thus, respondents reported that these plans were influential, even if they had not yet fully affected outcomes in the way they were intended to. These responses also suggest that respondents were taking a conformance-based view of implementation and discounting the performance or influence aspects of the plan—even though they had actually done a lot, they reported little progress on implementation. What these respondents, and planners, may fail to recognize is that in some ways, the act of planning becomes an outcome in itself, because it changes the conversation around what is possible. Many of the survey comments support this last point, with one respondent saying, “The project got people talking about the future of the downtown and what it could, and should, look like.” A respondent from another city said,
6.2. Plan outcomes Respondents from participating cities felt overwhelmingly positively about PlacePlans and its impact on local placemaking efforts, yet, as Markusen and Schrock (2006, 2013) suggest, the effects are somewhat difficult to measure. There are statistically significant differences between participating and non-participating cities’ characterizations of their relationships with the League, as well as statistically significant differences between cities’ reported relationships with the League before and after the PlacePlans experience. Cities that went through the PlacePlans program reported a stronger relationship beforehand with the League than cities that did not go through the program and reported an even stronger relationship after going through the program. Beyond the relationship with Michigan Municipal League, however, there are few statistically significant differences between outcomes in participating and non-participating cities. Funding is the only type of intervention significantly correlated with a higher degree of implementation. It is not surprising that funding is very helpful in moving a project forward—a majority of both selected and non-selected cities reported that a lack of funding was a major barrier to implementation, so removing that barrier would allow the project to advance. It was also the case that the League chose to fund projects that seemed particularly well-planned and shovel-ready, so the infusion of money allowed the city to move quickly and therefore to report results. This may initially seem disappointing. However, it is important to keep in mind three points. First, the time between PlacePlans involvement and administering the survey was very short—63% of respondents had participated in PlacePlans in the most recent year. Although I had hoped that the more limited nature of these plans would mean that they could be implemented more quickly, it turned out to be too much to expect that many cities had made substantial progress in their implementation efforts. Second, as the literature explains, it is in many cases difficult to
This is a great program. It provides the nudge to move projects ahead that would otherwise languish. We have a great set of plans and a draft code to make our street corridor great. We appreciate all the assistance and the genuine interest Michigan Municipal League staff gave to this project to make sure we had a product that will give us many returns in terms of community enhancements. These plans and their associated processes were influential (they “got people talking,” they provided a “nudge”) even though they might not yet have been able to affect the built environment. PlacePlans participants expected their efforts to lead to action. As one respondent said, “It was a real, tangible, visible, hands-on experience that brought together excellent ideas, vibrant creativity, positive 73
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quantify the impact of placemaking efforts. Often placemaking results in outcomes like residents and officials feeling more pride in their communities, more people out and about, and stronger connections between volunteers and city staff. These types of outcomes are valuable and desirable, but hard to measure. Third, the types of statistical tests I used to see if there were significant differences between groups, such as testing to see if levels of implementation were different between participant and non-participant cities, are more likely to return Type II errors (false negatives) due to the small sample size. In other words, there might be a real difference, but the tests cannot pick it up.
• • •
7. Conclusions and next steps
•
The overall implication of this study is that a strictly conformancebased assessment of plan implementation is likely to miss some of the ways in which plans matter to a community. Although it is not apparent from the statistical analysis, many of the written comments on the survey suggest that PlacePlans have already made a difference in these cities in extending their staff capacity, gathering and focusing community input, and expanding the idea of what placemaking projects might be possible. Based on these early, positive signs, I would expect to see more concrete evidence of implementation in the next few years. However, even if it is never possible to draw a straight line between plans and outcomes in these cities, the survey results document a variety of ways the plans have already been influential. If possible, it would be helpful to revisit this survey in another year or two when cities have had more time to make progress on implementing their plans. Going forward, it also seems that studying more explicitly the role of community support and involvement would be informative. Although the statistical analysis did not indicate a significant difference between pre-and post-PlacePlan community support, the written comments emphasize its role. Several critical commenters expressed concerns that community involvement was not broad-based enough, that the same insiders would ultimately control the process, and that internal dysfunction among city leadership would derail the project. Bearing this in mind, it will be important to look at who benefits from the implementation of these types of placemaking plans, and if those individuals or groups are the ones the plans are attempting to help. On the other hand, many of the positive comments focused on the benefits respondents had already seen from successful community participation processes, whether it was bringing in new participants or creating a space for important community conversations around future placemaking efforts. This study demonstrates that, in accordance with the performance principle, plans can matter in ways that are difficult to immediately quantify. These findings indicate that researchers studying implementation should be open to discovering additional ways that plans may be influential, even as they look for conformance between plans and outcomes.
•
placemaking projects, Parks and recreation programming, Festivals/ events, Streetscape improvements, Branding or marketing campaign, Business/entrepreneur support, New development incentive programs, Zoning or regulatory changes, Sale or development of publicly-owned properties, Acquisition of property, Other) How much progress has your city made implementing the plan? (None/Very little/ Some/Quite a bit/A great deal) Which components of your PlacePlan have been most successfully implemented? (open ended) What new private development, business growth, or resident quality of life improvements have you seen as a result of your placemaking efforts, if any? (open ended) How closely has the plan adhered to the proposed/desired completion timeline? (Plan implementation is not scheduled to begin yet/A great deal of delay/Some delay/Right on time/Somewhat ahead of schedule/Significantly ahead of schedule) What do you feel are barriers to implementing your city’s placemaking plan? (Lack of funding, Lack of community support, Lack of Council support, Mismatch between project needs and support received, Changes/losses in project leadership, Plan was not specific enough, Zoning ordinance needs to be updated to reflect plan or project objectives, Other) (Each could be Significant barrier/Minor barrier/Not a barrier)
References Abrantes, P., Fontes, I., et al., 2016. Compliance of land cover changes with municipal land use planning: evidence from the Lisbon metropolitan region (1990–2007). Land Use Policy 51, 120–134. Alexander, E.R., Faludi, A., 1989. Planning and plan implementation: notes on evaluation criteria. Environ. Plan. B: Plan. Des. 16 (2), 127–140. Baer, W.C., 1997. General plan evaluation criteria: an approach to making better plans. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 63 (3), 329–344. Berke, P., Backhurst, M., et al., 2006. What makes plan implementation successful? An evaluation of local plans and implementation practices in New Zealand. Environ. Plan. B: Plan. Des. 33 (4), 581–600. Berke, P., Godschalk, D., 2009. Searching for the good plan A meta-analysis of plan quality studies. J. Plan. Lit. 23 (3), 227–240. Brody, S.D., Highfield, W.E., 2005. Does planning work?: Testing the implementation of local environmental planning in Florida. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 71 (2), 159–175. Burby, R.J., 2003. Making plans that matter: citizen involvement and government action. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 69 (1), 33–49. Calkins, H.W., 1979. The planning monitor: an accountability theory of plan evaluation. Environ. Plan. A 11 (7), 745–758. Dalton, L.C., Burby, R.J., 1994. Mandates, plans, and planners: building local committment to development management. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 60 (4), 444–461. Faludi, A., 1989. Conformance vs. performance: implications for evaluation. Impact Assess. 7 (2–3), 135–151. Feitelson, E., Felsenstein, D., et al., 2017. Assessing land use plan implementation: bridging the performance-conformance divide. Land Use Policy 61, 251–264. Gadwa Nicodemus, A., 2013. Fuzzy vibrancy: creative placemaking as ascendant US cultural policy. Cult. Trends 22 (3-4), 213–222. Ganning, J.P., 2016. Arts stability and growth amid redevelopment in US shrinking cities’ downtowns a case study. Econ. Dev. Q. 30 (3), 239–251 0891242415626277. Gilmartin, D., 2014. In: Philips Foley, E., Layton, C., Gilmartin, D. (Eds.), Introduction. The Economics of Place: The Art of Building Great Communities. Michigan Municipal League, Ann Arbor, MI. Hopkins, L.D., 2001. Urban Development: The Logic of Making Plans. Island Press. Kumar, N., Stern, L.W., et al., 1993. Conducting interorganizational research using key informants. Acad. Manag. J. 36 (6), 1633–1651. Laurian, L., Day, M., et al., 2004. Evaluating plan implementation: a conformance-based methodology. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 70 (4), 471–480. Lepofsky, J., Fraser, J.C., 2003. Building community citizens: claiming the right to placemaking in the city. Urban Stud. 40 (1), 127–142. Loh, C.G., 2011. Assessing and interpreting non-conformance in land-use planning implementation. Plan. Pract. Res. 26 (3), 271–287. Loh, C.G., 2012. Four potential disconnects in the community planning process. J. Plan. Educ. Res. 32 (1), 33–47. Lyles, W., Berke, P., et al., 2016. Local plan implementation: assessing conformance and influence of local plans in the United States. Environ. Plan. B: Plan. Des. 43 (2), 381–400. Markusen, A., 2013. Fuzzy concepts, proxy data: why indicators would not track creative placemaking success. Int. J. Urban Sci. 17 (3), 291–303. Markusen, A., Gadwa, A., 2010. Creative Placemaking. National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC. Markusen, A., Schrock, G., 2006. The artistic dividend: urban artistic specialisation and economic development implications. Urban Stud. 43 (10), 1661–1686. Marshall, M.N., 1996. The key informant technique. Fam. Pract. 13 (1), 92–97.
Funding Michigan Municipal League provided funding for this study. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Richard Murphy and the staff of the Michigan Municipal League for funding and collaborating on this project, and Charlie Hoch, Amanda Johnson Ashley, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments during the paper’s development and revision. Appendix A. Survey questions about implementation
• Which projects have you engaged in as part of your placemaking implementation? (Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, Public plaza or park improvements, Public art, “Pop-up” temporary
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