Begin with the landscape. Why did people settle a place? Syracuse NY began next to a salt spring. Tucson, Arizona, a waterhole in the desert. New Orleans, a portage where the Mississippi River was connected by a ridge to Lake Ponchartrain. Look at how the landscape shaped the place through its history. Ask if the connection to the land is still powerful, what it means, and if it has been lost or damaged how it can be restored.
Look at the cultures. Who lived here, how did they live, what survives from their past? Languages, churches, foodways, rituals, celebrations? How is the personality of the place shaped by cultural memory? What does that enable, and what does it make difficult or impossible? A place populated by Eastern European immigrants early in the 20th century may offer a different set of possibilities than one settled by Latinos late in that century—in terms of skills, attitudes, family structures, and community support systems.
What did people build here, and how? The wood-framed shotgun houses of New Orleans tell the story of African influence through Haiti (in their shape and colors), of Italian-style brackets with Eastlake jig-saw ornamentation (in their decoration). The stone houses of rural Pennsylvania speak of the landscape, the skills of immigrants from Germany and other countries, and the rigors of life in a time when homes were almost little forts, during the Indian wars. They are often small with small rooms because they were difficult to build. Their thick stone walls speak of permanence, of a place where the settlers really settled in.
Ask what bonds of affection tie people to the place. Find the sites and the stories that are radiant with meaning about the character of the place.
This is the starting point of a process that will eventually involve all the professionals who engage meaningfully with places. It will involve planners and economic developers and artists and preservationists and many others. And it will require that everyone work together with a sophisticated awareness of what is being called systems-thinking, understanding how complex systems work and why it is difficult to change them. In the end, it can transform a community.
Our workshops and supporting materials can help to guide you through discovering the character of a place.