Embedding Equity into Placemaking: An Examination of the Milwaukee Method of Creative Placemaking in Practice

This report examines efforts to implement equitable and inclusive creative-placemaking approaches in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Stakeholders there are building a creative-placemaking practice intended to change how people see and experience the places around them and to model an approach to place-based investing in distinct creative-placemaking projects across the city.We focus on two projects, the Beerline Trail and the Night Market, that implement this approach in aligned but distinct ways. We examine both through a lens of inclusive, community-oriented development, with the goal of helping local stakeholders more effectively communicate the benefits and effects of placemaking. We also present process and implementation lessons focused on how these projects can continue to strengthen equity in the city and region moving forward and on how creative-placemaking techniques more generally can help drive equitable development.