What do we love most about our communities? Gallup, in collaboration with the Knight Foundation surveyed almost 28,000 Americans to pinpoint what makes a community a great place to live. So what are the top three?1. Openness
2. Social Offerings
3. Aesthetics
Aesthetics is in the top three! This is huge. The first two speak to the fact that humans are naturally social. Being part of a group has been good to us for thousands of years, and we still look for those connections today. But the third (third!) on the list is about looks -- we love living in a place that looks good. This reaffirms the idea that we are visual creatures; our daily lives are impacted by how things look around us. We make value decisions based on
attractive settings, including both natural beauty (mountains, ocean, rivers) and enhanced beauty (art, gardens, trees, parks, architecture).Philadelphia realized this in the mid 80's and started the Philadelphia Mural Arts Project. While the city wasn't able to change their buildings and infrastructure overnight, they decided to invest significantly to have local artists paint murals around the city - a way of improving local aesthetics and reflecting the community's vision for the future. Now they give city-wide tours of their program, creating a tourist draw, and local jobs. The Village for Arts and Humanities in north Philadelphia also recognized the individual's need to be tied to the aesthetics of their neighborhood through murals and green spaces. There are thousands of examples of this throughout the U.S. but this recent research launches aesthetics onto a new level of importance for successful communities. If we want to make communities where people want to live, then encouraging openness, social offerings, and great aesthetics puts us on that path.
A more detailed explanation of the these findings can be found on the Soul of the Community website and blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment