Pride and Passion for Place
Mind your Ps anQs (9)
Travel and tourism give face to place in the present. People desiring to travel to and be in those special destinations (I want to wake up in Paris) that give imminence to what’s happening now, providing room for things to take place…destinations and gathering places unwittingly providing atmospherics, ‘eventmental’ or elaborate scenographic dimensions that engage visitors as they drift or wander through places of business, commerce, entertainment, culture and nature – multidimensional places of exchange and interchange - a twenty-four-hour-day continuous invention that include distinctive and highly networked marketplace, waterfront and nightlife eco-systems that generate positive vibes and encourage enchantment.
All destinations give primacy to place. In fact, through tourism, place (or community) is no longer a subordinated topic. After all, to be – to exist in any way – is to be somewhere. And to be somewhere, signifies being in the world…the experiential aspects of which are generously aggrandized through narratives and brands promoting communities, prompting travel, tourism and visitation. Topics that have generated immense interest and controversy, inspiring an ever-expanding set of inter-disciplinary critiques and conceptual explorations.
And yet, when placed within the context of community and the pertinence of locality and region, let it be said: Any rendering of the planet being a global village of placeless places renders the notion of a community being a destination meritless.
In the grand scheme of things, the destiny of destinations is determined on the basis of the desirability of places, the diversity of places, the design of empathetic places, their neuro-architecture and neuroaesthetics, dimensionality and difference…a vast categorization and differentiation of places in which the production, performance and presentation of varied destination cultures manifests identity, propels popularity, recognizes and helps people appreciate the other. Visitation to destinations that fills our visual memories (Blink) that cannot be replaced through virtual and hybrid gatherings.
While it’s been argued that tourism can engender a lack of commitment (or destruction) to place, what’s amiss and misunderstood are the processes associated with design and development; the search for elegance; and the inability to resolve the dynamic tension in which different advocates and decision-makers (often non-designers) find themselves. Everyone operating with different social identities, goals, priorities, budgets and timelines…especially variations in their regard and appreciation for a community’s vibe, sense of place, and sensuality.
Problems exacerbated when it comes to consideration of the public or plural environment (contrasted with the private environments of hotels, restaurant, shops, including a wide-variety of businesses and entertainment venues, destinations in and of themselves), and the demands of urban design and place-making that, too often, neglect to put the community, its residents and visitors, at the center of design processes. Consider the problem of cottage country in transition, or on a personal level the lack of public toilets or places to sit down, even to find reasonably priced housing (forcing some destinations to ban short-term rentals for visitors).
In these and other regards, our pride and passion for place require a rebuff of land loneliness and the soulless ‘planiformity’ of projects and sites that tend to annihilate identity, character, personality, aesthetics, soulfulness, nuance, and history, let alone the opportunity to experience awe in multi-sensory ways. All consequential when design is the problem and isn’t held accountable for the creation of a multitude of viable outcomes that can be derived from valorizing the value of place.
Instead, what’s required is a resurrection or re-establishment of a more wholesome version of communitas that signifies a bonding of interests derived from the public sphere of influence …an urgency that can point to a nostalgia for the past and what’s historic, but also to a new promise for a purpose-led postalgia, a desire for preferential futures that ideally demand or point to a new, or a restoration of, identity (as is being exemplified in Dubrovnick, Croatia).
In order to exhibit a renewed passion for place, destinations have to delight; convey beauty, charm and pulchritude, a sense of harmony and human scale; create a true sense of belonging; or, as often is the case, an apparent peaceful stability (as in many small towns). Unfortunately, finding or maintaining confidence, certainty and stability in an unhinged world represents a significant challenge that can thwart passion for place, whether it be pretentious or unpretentious.
Jettisoning misery and mediocrity, however, can be a formidable and complex undertaking. It requires a better understanding of spatial relationships between visitor attractions and visitation patterns so as to find redress from overcrowding and overtourism. It also necessitates a movement toward the aspirational, the civic virtue of magnificence that conjures up the extraordinary, the theatricality of place, even a rediscovery of magnificence in the ordinary. All necessitating deep dive assessments (public life studies) of our communities-as-destinations that hopefully will lead to transformative actions brought about through new ways of thinking, exemplified in the application of design thinking (discussed in my e-book, Astonish!).
Designing, restoring or re-conceptualizing a sense of place that generates positivity, a search, longing for, and a strengthening of the local vernacular – localhood exemplified, for example, by the Wonderful Copenhagen manifesto or through the taste of place (Canada Culinary). A vernacular that evolves over time and is representative of the practical needs and requirements for shelter; the lives and livelihoods of those who inhabit the place; and the inevitable influences of time, climate, nature, culture, and history…often the consequences of slow, unplanned development or un-development in ‘my town’.
As for passion, it’s interesting to know that the word derives from a Latin word meaning “to suffer.” When communities or organizations undergo period of intense change – the revival of downtowns- there are bound to be painful adjustments, including some people who will question why things need amending, dragging down the momentum of transformations and, in some cases, accelerating disdain for tourism that may be outliving its purpose in certain locales.
On the generative side of a transformation, however, an existing passion-for-place (that supports what communities-as-destinations can become) allows stakeholders to hold fast, maintain morale, and see things through to the end. When widespread in a community it fosters unity, conviction, and resolve, especially when leaders and their teams struggle to find new ways of doing things destined to succeed. Vacationscapes created through artistically-inspired decisionscapes.
When the status quo is no longer producing the desired results, the processes associated with renewal, development and design must be approached in new ways to pave the way forward. Passion for pursuing a collective purpose and vision for communities-as-destinations energizes Destinations-in-Action and serves to drive innovation and resourcefulness especially when communities recognize the importance of storytelling that is linked to experience design.
When people are passionate about their communities, their energy becomes contagious. It makes otherwise complacent individuals, incredible storytellers, hosts, and entertainers. In these moments, their spirit becomes captivating, magnetic, and infectious – the essence of inspired hospitality in destinations where memories reside
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