We’re very excited to announce that Baltimore, Maryland, US, will be the host city for the 4th International Placemaking Week, June 5-8, 2024!

This will be our first Placemaking Week since 2019, when we gathered over 600 participants from around the world in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a week of hands-on sessions, off-site workshops, tours, public space activations, and networking events. Since its launch in 2016, this conference has proven to be a vital platform to build connections and share ideas across borders, provoke local debate and action on public space, and learn about the host city’s places, issues, and initiatives firsthand. We know that Baltimore is the perfect place to gather our community of placemakers and honored to have a warm welcome from the city.

"By having the opportunity to bring Placemaking Week to Baltimore City, we’re able to showcase the incredible work being done by communities across our city and open our doors to placemakers from around the world,” said Baltimore’s Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “This gathering has always been a powerful catalyst for positive change, and as Baltimore plans the future of so many of our shared public spaces, there’s no better time to welcome so many incredible professionals in this space.”

For this upcoming Placemaking Week, we’re partnering with Baltimore’s Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) with seed support from the T. Rowe Price Foundation. The Neighborhood Design Center is a nonprofit with a track history of collaborating with residents and community leaders to co-create more than 4,000 community-led placemaking projects across Maryland. Today, the Neighborhood Design Center is committed to fostering equitable environments and true collaborations that lay the foundation for just futures through community design. With their support, Placemaking Week participants will have a unique chance to explore Charm City—its parks, commercial districts, streets, waterfront, and more. 

WHY WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT BALTIMORE

Dubbed time and time again as the coolest city on the East Coast, Baltimore, with a population of 600,000, punches above its weight as a cultural beacon. As one of the city’s most iconic artists John Waters puts it, “It’s the only city left that’s cheap enough to have a bohemia.” In recent years, there has been a surge of innovative public space projects including grassroots revitalization efforts in the Black Arts District, ambitious large-scale redevelopments like Lexington Market, and a citywide Placemaking Program that will bring art to Baltimore's streets and sidewalks. 

Baltimore's streets show its deep historical roots, with over 22,000 buildings on the National Historic Register of Places, marking pivotal moments in American history from the Revolutionary War to the Civil Rights Movement. The city is equally known for its openness to experimentation, from films by the aforementioned John Waters to the birth of Bmore club music that fuses breakbeat and house.

Here are three reasons to join us in 2024:

1. OUR LOCAL CO-HOST LEADS THE WAY IN PARTICIPATORY DESIGN.

Since 2019, the Neighborhood Design Center has led two major National Endowment for the Arts creative placemaking efforts: a community-led Our Town project focused on creative public lighting, and a first-of-its-kind community designer-in-residence program. In 2020, responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Neighborhood Design Center and Baltimore City led Design for Distancing, a $1.5M effort to establish 17 designer-conceived, quick-turnaround public space interventions in neighborhoods throughout the city. In the first six months of the project, the Design for Distancing website received over 15,000 visitors and the accompanying guidebook—which offered design solutions for use anywhere—was downloaded more than 10,000 times. 

2. BALTIMORE CHAMPIONS INCLUSIVE REVITALIZATION PROJECTS.

Major efforts to reimagine previously overlooked or abandoned sites are in progress: the Reimagine Middle Branch project will bring 11 acres of harbor shoreline back to Baltimore communities; just this year, the city received a $2 million federal grant to remove and reconnect the “Highway to Nowhere” that divides two West Baltimore neighborhoods; and the city’s Inner Harbor has seen major improvements in the form of the new Rash Field waterfront park and playspace, with more plans ahead. What better place to bring urbanists together?

3. BALTIMORE RADIATES BLACK CULTURAL VIBRANCY.

Recent years have also seen the emergence of many arts initiatives led by Black artists and organizations, including the Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts District, the Peale Museum, Kenya Miles’ Blue Light Junction natural dye studio, and Derrick Adams’ Last Resort artist residency. Baltimore also has a longstanding tradition of Black urban agriculture. Sites like the Black Yield Institute, BLISS Meadows, and Plantation Park Heights are thriving and leading a national conversation around Black land sovereignty.

Baltimore's rich history takes center stage with cultural attractions such as the National Great Blacks In Wax Museum, the only wax museum in the US dedicated to celebrating African American and Black historical figures, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, dedicated to the accomplishments of Maryland’s African American community, and the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park Museum, which celebrates the life of the writer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass as well as the contributions of local African Americans to Baltimore’s maritime industry.

4. BALTIMORE RECKONS WITH THE PAST TO CO-CREATE A NEW FUTURE.

Baltimore was the birthplace of legal segregation in the US. The effects of these racist systems are felt daily and deeply in the lives of Baltimore City residents. The ongoing struggle to combat vacancy—while equitably developing neighborhoods to stave off displacement—is just one of the more visible ways in which the city is grappling with its past. In spite of these challenges, the city is witnessing inspiring efforts to reimagine Baltimore’s spaces for all of its residents. Our mobile workshops will address issues around reclaiming public spaces from a range of perspectives, through spatial, cultural, and equity-based lenses. Urbanists will walk away with inspiration from among many local initiatives. 

‍5. BALTIMORE CELEBRATES ART & CULTURE.

Home to numerous prestigious higher education institutions, cutting-edge healthcare and research facilities, and a treasure trove of cultural assets, including museums, symphonies, and the renowned National Aquarium, Baltimore teems with talent and expertise. Through curated mobile workshops and tours, attendees will see how local creativity amplifies larger-scale placemaking transformations. 

Placemakers with a love for arts and culture can visit the largest makerspace in Maryland, OpenWorks, or visit Bookthing, a free bookstore with a 200,000-item inventory. And, of course, there’s the world-famous food scene to be sampled in Baltimore’s Lexington Market, a more than 200-year-old market that has relocated to a new 60,000-square-foot building this year, and is a source of inspiration for investing in local food systems.

‍SAVE THE DATE: JUNE 5-8, 2024

If you're passionate about placemaking and eager to learn about the bold, even radical, efforts to reimagine what a post-industrial East Coast city might look like, we invite you to join us for the most inspiring in-person placemaking conference of the year. See you in Bmore! 

‍To receive the latest updates regarding the conference Call for Proposals, which will open later this fall, and the event program, subscribe to our newsletter, the Placemaking Round-Up. Additional information will also be available on the conference website, so please check back regularly at placemakingweek.org.