”Nobody ever built a bridge based on how many people swam across the river, so why would we plan a city based on what people do today without asking them what they really value for their future? Read more to know how our PX Assessment can tell you what your community values.
Over the last 10 years and over 200 projects, one of the most common complaints that we hear from Councils and small business is about the decline of main street retailing. There are lots of anecdotal reasons given for the decline. The most common are generally given as lack of parking and the rise of online sales – however high rents, competitive shopping centres, Uber Eats, even Netflix often get a mention.
Of course, all places are a complex system of interdependent elements – and there isn’t a one size fits all rationale or solution. Each place is different and has different influences on its success or indeed failure.
If you don’t know what matters to people – how can you plan for them?
Figure 1: If you don’t know what matters to people – how can you plan for them?
However, there is one thing that all main streets have in common – the need for people to shop there. If you don’t have people, you don’t have wallets and you don’t have sales. Yet interestingly there has been a paucity of research undertaken to understand what these people value and to capture their experience in order to make evidence-based decisions for where investment should be made.
‘Place Score was developed initially as a tool for main street place measurement; providing the diagnostics, priorities and data for tracking the impact of change. We love our local main streets, we know they aren’t just about stronger local economies but for more resilient, connected and healthy communities too.’
Over 11,000 people have assessed one of 190 main streets across Australia over the last 3 years. And another 19,000 people have shared what is most important to them in their ideal main street. This data gives organisations unprecedented access into local place values and performance – human insights that can direct more effective change.
So, what do we know now that we didn’t know before?
- DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF CLEAN AND GREEN
If you want to attract people then make sure your street is clean and green – can 10,000s of Australians be wrong? Do you want to be the one proved wrong?
Figure 2: Voice of the Community Reports can be ordered for over 100 locations revealing what your community values in local town centres or neighbourhoods
- MORE PARKING IS A TRAP THAT WON’T HELP ATTRACT PEOPLE
Place Score has 50 attributes that we measure through our Main Street PX Assessments – there is only one that no matter how high it rates will not make people recommend your place to others. Want to guess? Yes – it’s ‘Car accessibility and parking’. To clarify – no matter how much parking you have, or how easy it is to drive around it will not make people rate your place higher or recommend it to their mates.
Figure 3: The lowest correlation between performance and a high Net Promoter Score is for the place attribute ‘Car accessibility and parking’
- LOCAL PEOPLE NEED TO RATE THEIR OWN PLACES
While our professional opinion is valuable – we cannot know what the people on the ground feel about their place. There have been times where we have been surprised by how poorly or highly a community has rated their place. It is very grounding. We, as place-makers and measurers are not the experts on what works for people in their own places. They are. We can just listen and respond to what they tell us.
Figure 4: How do you compare? PX Assessments can provide an itemized competitive analysis of your place against others in the area, region, state or across the country.
‘Put simply the only way to measure place is via the human experience – there is no substitute. And yes, there are easier ways to get data than asking the actual people who are using a space, but easy doesn’t make it right.’
Nobody ever built a bridge based on how many people swam across the river. Yet so much of the data available to decision makers simply captures what people are doing today. Relying on this kind of data would be like getting stuck in a perpetual cycle of self-fulfilment. Hoorah for us! People are doing what we planned for them – but are they able to do the things they would like to, if they could plan for themselves?
Main Streets need to be built for locals – and every group of locals are different and changing constantly. If you don’t listen to local aspirations you will get stuck with what they did in the past, and that will lead to a main street that can’t possibly compete in the future.
Kylie Legge © 2019
CEO, Place Score
If you would like to know more about how Place Score can help you build the evidence base for decision making that is built on actionable insights form real people, then please get in touch with us at info@placescore.org or call us on (02) 8021 7027.