Educational Webinar:

After a successful kickoff month, the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) was excited to continue the CCV Series, exploring the importance of placemaking during the month of February! Jeff Siegler (pictured left), founder of Revitalize, or Die. and a founding partner of Proud Places, helped participants discover how the places we shape determine our physical, mental, social and economic health. He stressed how place effects everything we do as people, and it is one of the largest determinants of the type of life we lead. If you couldn’t attend the live webinar, view the recording to learn how we can do better in shaping our places.

Additional Resources:

Last year, Siegler wrote an article, entitled “The Sense of Place.” Check it out to learn more about why Siegler believes our places should lift us up, make us proud, bring us together and be a source of joy!

“We used to be intentional about how we shaped our cities, understanding that how we shaped them would, in turn, shape us. If we want to facilitate a sense of community, we should build homes close to one another. If we want to force people to spend more time in their cars, we should spread things out. If we want locally-owned businesses to thrive, we should create human scale districts with smaller retail spaces. It is the design of our space that shapes our cities and, in turn, our lives.” – Jeff Siegler

Inspirational Podcast:

Per usual, an inspiring podcast follows each webinar, and DHCD welcomed Laura Scherling, co-founder of GREENSPACENYC, for February’s podcast! Scherling specializes in interactive design, research and management, and her non-profit collaborative develops and curates free education programing, hands-on workshops that encourage dialogue, enliven public spaces and promote the future of a more equitable and sustainable city. During the podcast, listeners will hear Scherling discuss how residents and volunteers are creating community, piloting ideas and making better places together. Click here to listen and learn more!

Additional Resources:

If you’re interested in strengthening and improving your place, Scherling recommends checking out the following:

• The Urban Activist
  • The Urban Activist is an independent non-profit media platform committed to advancing urban progress by inciting a genuine conversation about cities by putting people at the heart of their stories.
• A Playbook for Inclusive Placemaking: Community Process
  • This article is the first article in a four-part series, A Playbook for Inclusive Placemaking, produced in collaboration with Emily Manz of EMI Strategy. Read the second article on programming here, the third article on design here, and the fourth article on public space management here. 
• Brookings Placemaking Postcards
  • Placemaking Postcards is a blog series from the Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking at Brookings where policymakers and practitioners highlight promising placemaking efforts from across the U.S. and abroad that foster connected, vibrant, and inclusive communities.
• Design Kit
  • Design Kit is a platform where you can learn more about human-centered design, a creative approach to solving the world’s most difficult problems.

Identity Workbook:

Download the Identity Workbook to to reflect on the future you would like to see for your community, identify session ideas that rise to today’s needs and develop a path forward. You can also learn more about upcoming sessions!

Coming Up: March 2021 | Storytelling

Educational Webinar | Speaker: Phil Eich | Mar. 10 | Register here

Inspirational Podcast | Speaker: Raven Bates | Mar. 15 | Listen here