Place Management - Nature

Nature

Place management has existed for over 20 years in a variety of forms. It is encompassed within the practice of acts including town centre management, urban revitalisation, activity centre management, regeneration, management, marketing, economic development, neighbourhood management, neighbourhood renewal, socio-economic revitalisation, community development and business improvement district management. However, there exist questions about the practical nature of place management because no clear consensus has yet been developed.

Questions include both the positive and normative aspects of place management. The overwhelming amount of variables which impact upon the effectiveness of a location in serving the needs of its users makes it difficult to determine if place management is being practised in a particular location, how it is being practiced and how it should be practiced. A mixture of cultural, societal, demographic, economic, religious, political, legal and technological issues may all play a role. This is problematic for both the academic and the practical determination of place management.

Although this term is relatively new, place management has, in practice, become an established concept over the last twenty years in Europe, having existed in parts of North America for much longer. It is also an emerging concept in other parts of the world such as Asia and Australia. The concept embraces management of a wide range of locations, which may include public and private spaces of various sizes and geographical spaces. Consequently, place management can take a number of forms. Initiatives can be differentiated by the origins of the resources which support it and the degree of formality which underpins the agreement to secure resources from the various funding bodies.

One example is a community-based (bottom-up) approach, where communities or businesses take the initiative of improving their street, town centre, public park or engage actively with NGOs and the voluntary sector. Among many other examples, this approach has been trialled successfully since 1995 by an association of independent retailers in Granollers, Spain where a not-for-profit association was formed which aimed to enhance the local area for residents and consumers, investing revenue in improvements and charitable causes. This demonstrates an informal place management initiative.

A business improvement district (BID) is a predominantly private partnership (although it can also encompass some public resources) in which businesses in a defined area elect to pay an additional tax in order to fund improvements to the district's public realm and trading environment. These businesses hope to see a return on their investment through an increase in customer spend within the location. The concept of the BID is believed to have been developed in Canada before spreading to the US and across the globe. Unlike the Granollers example, as a BID is a formal place management initiative because it acts as an additional tax which is legally recognised in many of the areas in which they have been set up.

Contrary to the ‘bottom-up’ approach, many place management schemes have been initially formed publicly by local government, which has provided funding to create the post of a place manager. Local government is often seen as a natural home for place management initiatives, as its remit will be to obtain a desired standard of living for its residents. However, the additional financial burden or a lack of place management expertise can hamper efforts to locate place management initiatives with local government.