The Power of Placemaking Snapshots offer a visually engaging demonstration of how placemaking boosts community wellbeing. Covering six key themes—from mental health to the environment—these Snapshots offer real-world success stories from across Canada. If you’re looking for evidence to make the case for your own project, this is it!
No matter your placemaking initiative, these stories serve as proof of how placemaking creates lasting positive change, helping you make a compelling case to funders and stakeholders and make the case for your projects.
Download the Snapshots and explore the theme that best aligns with your project to take your work to the next level!
People with strong social relationships are happier, healthier, and live 15 years longer on average than those who feel lonely and isolated. Placemaking can initiate conversations among strangers and strengthen community connections.
Placemaking encourages walking, rolling, biking, play, and new social connections—all contributing to a healthy lifestyle.
Vibrant places draw more foot traffic, generating customers and income for businesses. Thriving local businesses contribute to a more resilient community, creating jobs and activities for residents.
People of different genders, races, ages, and abilities have different experiences in public spaces. Co-created spaces and events help ensure that everyone’s needs are met.
People who feel a strong sense of belonging are healthier, more productive, more trusting, and live longer. And when people are involved in shaping community spaces—such as painting a mural or organizing a block party—they are more likely to feel a sense of care for these places.
Placemaking can directly address climate action, such as through emergency preparedness or gardening projects. When people participate, they build social ties that strengthen resilience—day-to-day and in a crisis. And, they consider solutions that work for their local community.
Across eight online sessions with practitioners and community members across Canada, over 100 placemakers connected to share their experiences, insights, and the impacts of placemaking projects.
A diversity of initiatives were shared, from rural to urban settings, online and in person, and showcasing a range of creative place-based projects.
Download the summary report to learn from other’s experiences, apply best practices to your work, and ensure that you’re building on the collective wisdom of other placemakers.
This session, hosted by Happy Cities, shares learning highlights from the Power of Placemaking project including evidence and stories from the snapshot and summary report. Happy Cities is joined by Missions Exeko (Montreal), Rethink Red Deer (Red Deer) and OurCommunityBikes (Vancouver), three community organizations who led projects funded by the Healthy Communities Initiative. The opening presentation provides an opportunity to discover some of the learnings from the report, while the conversation with practitioners provides a taste of the stories. As an overview of the Power of Placemaking project, we invite you to watch the session!
If you are interested in placemaking—as a practitioner, organization, business, or community member—then these resources are for you. We invite you to reuse, remix, and build upon our resources!
We encourage everyone in Canada’s Placemaking Community to make these resources your own – quote, adapt, and re-use them however you need. Be sure to credit individual projects and Canada’s Placemaking Community where applicable.
The Power of Placemaking project was conducted in partnership with Happy Cities—an urban planning and design consultancy specializing in placemaking. Happy Cities works across disciplines to turn evidence into action for happier, healthier, and more inclusive communities. Want to learn more?
