Love our Places Program
Q&A with Chris McIntosh, Urban Planner
What’s your background with the Love our Places program?
As an intern in grad school in Summer 2017, my main project was to create a community-focused placemaking program. I developed the objectives and implementation plan over those first 6 months. The main objective was (and is) to incrementally create a safer and more livable city for all using small-scale strategies to create places for people rather than cars. With support from the whole Department of City Planning, we officially launched the Placemaking Program in December 2017. When I continued as a full-time employee the following year, I continued to develop and manage the program, as well as select and implement projects from our first three rounds (1 pilot project round + 2 rounds of community applications).
How has the program grown since you were an intern?
In the first iteration of the Placemaking Program, transportation safety was the primary focus since the program was based in our former Office of Mobility Planning. Now that we have a Department of Transportation (ATLDOT) and our placemaking work has moved to the Public Space Studio, we’ve been able to shift and expand our focus to include more of our public space, such as open lots, sidewalks, outdoor dining, and public art.
Another important evolution has been the development of our Tactical Urbanism Guide, which gives users the guidelines to do many smaller project types on their own to improve their public spaces, and spread the “Love,” so to speak. We’ve worked very hard with ATLDOT over the years to flesh out the design standards and keep our placemaking goals in the front of all the work we do.
What’s in a name – what does it mean to you to shift the language from ‘placemaking’ to ‘Love our Places’?
The name of the program has always been something we’ve struggled with. We want something that is approachable from a general perspective and gets the point across that this work is based in community needs and participation. The term “placemaking” doesn’t quite hit that mark the way we want it to.
I think the name “Love Our Places” really captures the attitude and feeling we want residents to have about their public spaces. Love is also an action – the work must be done to make our city’s places work better for everyone, and we want everyone to participate in that process with us.
What’s your favorite project been?
I can’t choose a favorite! It’s like picking a favorite child, they’re all unique and special in their own ways! I will say I’m very much a fan of the parklets we’ve installed across the city. We have learned a lot since our first pilot parklet installation in the early days of the program. I enjoy seeing that more people are getting hip to the idea of parklets, and I hope there will be more to come. I love every project that makes it safer and more enjoyable for pedestrians to get around without worrying about cars.
Overall, I am very proud of the work we’re doing with Love Our Places. I’m happy that it has grown from my internship project to become a core focus of DCP’s work. I’m also glad that the program has gotten more support from partners like ATLDOT, and that I get to continue to do real-world work that directly impacts the livability of our city.
What do you hope Atliens see/feel/take away from a Love our Places project?
I hope ATLiens enjoy and take ownership of the spaces that Love Our Places projects create, because this work is for everybody. I hope every LOP project shows how small interventions can start to change attitudes around how our shared space is used, and that everyday people have the power to work with us to make those changes. As we do more of these installations, I hope they spark more ideas that snowball into bigger and more lasting changes in our public environment to push us toward our ultimate goal of making Atlanta a safer and more livable city for all.
