A lot of tactical projects are being implemented around the world to support and revive main streets – their role in contributing to the social, economic and cultural life of communities is well known. But how does one decide what to invest in – in order to offer the maximum benefits to the community?
On the 14th of April 2021, Place Score conducted a webinar to hear from five Australian place leaders including some of Place Score’s clients about why measuring main streets is key to underpinning strategic decisions about investment in place. I have been working with Place Score for nearly three years and hearing how our clients have been using data to guide their work was really insightful.
Place Score CEO Kylie Legge started off the session by introducing our rigorous engagement process and how Place Score has engaged with over 70,000 Australians so far to understand their aspirations for their main streets. What is interesting to me is the value of Place Score’s dataset of nearly 300 main streets across Australia – to study and reflect on the impact places have on people.
Steve Bentley, Wyndham City Council’s Vibrant City Centres Manager who was also the session’s emcee with Kylie Legge explained why data is important in today’s times to prove the impact of public investment and create places that are authentic, suited to the local community’s needs. Steve said, “data builds trust which paves the way to seek funding for a range of public domain projects”.
Steve was followed by Jenny Pemberton-Webb, Place Manager in the City of Greater Dandenong who shared a case study of how Place Score data directed Council’s investment towards improving one of their key civic spaces – Harmony Square.
Place Experience (PX) data collected by engaging with the users of Harmony Square in 2017 highlighted areas of improvement of the spatial design, which council and the design team took on board to resolve. With investment towards what the users prioritised, there was a clear increase in the PX Score of Harmony Square and a diversification of users and activities by 2019. What I learnt from this presentation was that one cannot guess or rely on anecdotes while planning or designing public spaces.
After this interesting case study, it was time to debunk some myths around car parking. I am personally very interested in the relationship between movement and place, and how to manage the tension between planning for people vs vehicles. Our next speaker, Steven Burgess, Director of Complete Streets shared how “walking makes money while driving costs money”. He stressed upon the importance of getting data from street users about what they truly care about and prioritise in their town centre – before making investment in transport projects.
Place Score’s work with Complete Streets in Central Hobart revealed that ‘car parking’ was nowhere in the top-10 most valued attributes of an ideal town centre for Hobart’s residents, workers and visitors. Data like this has the power to change perceptions and make meaningful decisions.
The last speaker for the day was Gordon Clark, Strategic Planning Manager at Shoalhaven City Council who described the process Place Score adopted to engage with over 700 community members in identifying investment priorities for Nowra’s main streets. Place Score has currently been working with Council to develop a 3-year action plan for Nowra CBD, and Gordon said he believed that this data driven investment approach would have a positive impact on the town and its current and future users.
My key takeaways from this session were:
- Placemaking is a collaborative and iterative process. You may not necessarily ‘get it right’ at the first time, but data gives the confidence to rectify decisions and make places that reflect users’ priorities
- For making great streets and public places, one cannot rely on anecdotes and past beliefs – people change and so do their values. Ongoing engagement with users is critical to guide investment decisions
- A data driven investment approach helps build trust among decision makers – and assures about being on the path towards success
Aditya Malshe © 2021
Urban Strategy Associate
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 from real people, then please get in touch with us at info@placescore.org or call us on (02) 8021 7027.