What is crowdsourced placemaking? Why? How?

The tagline for this blog, 'Crowdsourcing cool places for creatives' is essentially the same as crowdsourced placemaking, since mostly creatives would participate. Now what exactly is crowdsourced placemaking?

Crowdsourcing - "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call." Alternatively, "the application of open source principles to fields outside of software." Definitions are from the blog and upcoming book, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe.

Placemaking - The best definition comes from a collection of definitions at Project for Public Spaces, such as "Placemaking is the art of creating public 'places of the soul,' that uplift and help us connect to each other." Also, the book Placemaking: The Art and Practice of Building Communities, defines it as "the way in which all human beings transform the places they find themselves into the places where they live."

So combining these definitions, one gets...

Crowdsourced placemaking - the act of taking development traditionally performed by real estate conglomerates and outsourcing it to a large, defined group of people in the form of an open call, to transform the places we find ourselves into the places where we live, as 'places of the soul' that uplift and help us connect to each other. That's all.

Why? Think of your district as an encyclopedia, full of resources and places to see. However, no one's using an encyclopedia anymore, they're all on the crowdsourced Wikipedia.

How? That's what this previous entry is for.

Image Source: Beale Street, Memphis by ɹɐǝʇuǝʌ1ǝ.