Hamilton County Publisher

Have you ever stepped into a public space like a school, a town square or a lobby and felt uncomfortable or out of place? Often you don’t even know why, but the space isn’t inviting, appealing or attractive. Usually that’s the result of poor design and it’s amazing how often it happens, especially in public projects.

A few weeks ago the Central Indiana Community Foundation sponsored a workshop presented by an organization called the Project for Public Spaces. It’s a non-profit based in New York City that spends its time and resources studying the use of public space and offering suggestions on how to use it better. That is, designing spaces that appeal to the senses and provide that elusive “sense of place” that so many communities are seeking these days.

Considering every Hamilton County community is in the process of either studying or building its public spaces, I thought the seminar would be worth a visit. It was inspiring. There are principles that cities and towns can follow to ensure that civic projects take the “people factor” into account when designing public spaces. The problem is that most projects are “engineered” for efficiency or traffic flow or safety rather than “designed” to appeal to the senses.

I know this may sound a little touchy-feely for some but it is critically important that we consider how people will use these spaces as Fishers designs its town center, as Westfield develops its downtown, as Sheridan works on Main Street and as Noblesville renovates the courthouse square. Because of the scale and expense of these public projects we end up living with the results for years. Hundreds of communities across the country paid the cost of urban renewal efforts in the sixties and seventies that resulted in empty storefronts, sterile shopping districts and the loss of hundreds of irreplaceable historic buildings in the name of “improvement” or “development” or “progress.”

We like to think we’re smarter than that now and the mistakes of urban renewal won’t be repeated. We have organizations and ordinances in place to protect us from our own best intentions. But we, as a community, must stay vigilant to make sure that our public spaces are designed to preserve or create that unique quality that makes them appealing to people, that keeps neighborhoods intact and retail spaces vibrant.

In an effort to help further the conversation we will run a series of reports over the next few weeks in the Noblesville Daily Times. The presenters at the seminar offered a book called The Great Neighborhood by Jay Walljasper. We have permission to run excerpts in our pages. I hope they prompt discussions, ideas, reactions and conversations as each of our towns and cities develop their public spaces. Some of the suggestions seem naïve (smile, wave, greet everyone), others very ambitious (Turn around your neighborhood business district) and others just plain obvious (work with City Hall). They are all just suggestions and we offer them to get the creative juices flowing. We’ll be encouraging online feedback so be sure to check the Noblesville Daily Times frequently to see how the conversation develops.

Hamilton County is already a very special place; that’s why most of us live here and we continue to move here in droves. To keep it special it’s important that we all step up and contribute our ideas and suggestions. Our kids and their kids will be living with the results of decisions that we will make over the next few years. Let’s make sure we speak up now to ensure we build it right the first time.

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