Local Environment

We are as much peoples of where we are as we are peoples of what we do. Mountain people. People of the plains. River people. People of the seaside. Especially when the local environment isn't always friendly. Like the volcano in the background here, or on a coast frequented by hurricanes. It takes a special culture to live in a place where great beauty can occasionally turn deadly.

But never turn your back on it. Our first year in Miami Beach brought several hurricanes to the region, and the first one didn't seem fierce enough for evacuation, so we went out to Ocean Drive where one of the restaurants was hosting the first hurricane party we had ever seen. We hung out for awhile, then walked out to the beach and sat on the sand, watching the storm move in for an hour or two until making our way back to where we were taking shelter that evening.

So embrace the characteristics of your hometown about which visitors often say "that's not normal," and become some of the people of that place.

Seasonal Enjoyment

It was bitterly cold on that late January day when I arrived in Quebec City for the first time, at least from my perspective, having just flown up from balmy Miami. But a walk around Old Quebec, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that first afternoon made clear that the Québécois embrace winter dearly... and actively. To them, it's the season for getting outside, and with vigor. So do like they do, and welcome that season of the year that sets your region apart from all those other places from which your visitors arrive in that season of the year.

What of Popular Culture?

As much as some of my hardcore traditionalist colleagues might like to think otherwise, we cannot pretend that popular culture does not exist. The proper question is one of balance. Post-World War II, American culture became arguably as homogenous as in any nation that large in world history. The American Top 40 dominated the airwaves. On TV, you had a choice of three channels, and hot dogs, hamburgers, and apple pie became national icons.

So it's OK for the superstars to show up every year or so for a big gig, but annual events are by definition rare. If you want to enjoy your town every day (or at least every weekend), you need artists and performers from across the spectrum of the arts. Film is an exception, because actors show up only on the screen, not in person. So have a good cinema to supplement the in-person acts.

Stadiums & Arenas

Few settings set a larger stage for fanatically-fueled togetherness than filling a stadium or an arena to cheer on the home team. Some of the settings below are for groups as small as one person, but this particular stadium holds about a hundred thousand people, which is more than the population of the college town in which it is located. It is used for games only eight or nine times a year, but exploits on the field can become legendary, remembered generations into the future.

Streets

Of all the settings on this page, stadiums, arenas, and amphitheaters seat the most people for a single event. But the most frequent setting for enjoyable experiences is the street, and it's not even close because while there's usually just one stadium or one amphitheater in town, there are streets all over. And the best indicator of a place with an enjoying society is whether the artists show up; artists of music (like these two and their dogs), of food (sidewalk cafe), of acting (mimes, etc.) of athletics (acrobatic troupe), visual arts (portraits), and more. Cities should do everything they can to make sure their streets are filled with artists. If the townspeople enjoy the artists, visitors definitely will because the townspeople are the high standard, as they see the artists every day.

Civic Spaces

Civic spaces are just behind streets as the second-most frequent setting for enjoyable experiences. And the artist types are similar, but the enjoyable experience types can be paired, like these people enjoying both music and dinner. Pairing works better in civic spaces because they tend to be wider than sidewalks, and may be wider than Open Streets as well. Civic spaces capable of hosting enjoyable artistry include (from urban to rural) plazas like this one, squares, greens, and parks with subtypes of each.

High Place

Never pass up a high place; it affords views you'll never see from ground level. And if you have acrophobia like I do, it is a challenging delight that can be terrifying, depending on what is between you and the ground far below. But in spite of my fear, the vistas are well worth the anxiety.

Water's Edge

The opposite of a high place is the water's edge, and humans have been drawn there since time immemorial, and from an early age, like this woman's daughter. Modern infrastructure practices seek to bury water in pipes and other underground structures, but bring water back into the sunlight, and you're creating joy for many.

Sidewalk Cafes

This is one side of the courthouse square in Huntsville, Alabama. For all my life, ground level space all around the square had been occupied by attorneys' offices, as is common practice across the country because many of their trials were right across the street. But in Huntsville, many of those square-fronting buildings were only lightly occupied above the first level so a visionary city leader persuaded the attorneys to move their offices up one level and rent their street-level space to restaurants on the condition that they had more seating outside on the sidewalk than indoors.

Cities are well-served by encouraging sidewalk cafes all over town, with the courthouse square being just one such setting. But this was such a brilliant move and it activated downtown so well that I have no better image with which to lead this discussion.

Food Halls

A food hall might seem similar to a sidewalk filled with cafes because there are multiple restauranteurs in both settings, but there's a big difference beyond the former usually being indoors and the latter being on the sidewalk. A sidewalk cafe is a place you might go regularly because they serve a favorite dish of yours. A food hall, on the other hand, tends to be filled with outposts of new restaurants in town serving their latest offerings in hopes of you coming to their main location soon. So while you might revisit your "old faithful" dish at a sidewalk cafe you frequent, a food hall is more of a culinary exploration of things you might never have tried before.

Meeting Hall

Meeting hall discussions can often get contentious. As a matter of fact, they usually do because a meeting is rarely called so everyone can just sing Kumbaya. But people meeting to do the hard work of moving a community forward has a way of bonding us, so long as the contention stays civil. And we owe it to ourselves individually and as a community to have good-neighbor discussions.

Place of Contemplation

A Place of Contemplation, sometimes called a Meditation Garden, is a place where one person can quietly settle their mind and focus on important things without all the normal distractions. This one opens to a somewhat longer view, but some would appeal for more enclosure to limit visual (and auditory) interference.

Promenade

A promenade is a strolling place, often with nature on one side like along a waterfront with urbanism on the other side. It may also be along an Open Street like this one with urbanism on both sides. Either way, it is a place to see and be seen. A promenade may be fronted with many uses, but they tend to be more enjoyable and less utilitarian. People don't typically, for example, buy a quart of oil on a promenade.

Secret Garden

There are similarities between a Secret Garden and a Place of Contemplation, with the difference being the entry sequence. A Place of Contemplation is a place for only one person, but the entry sequence may be obvious to anyone in nearby garden rooms. This Secret Garden is a classic, and I almost didn't find it because the entry sequence from the right took several tight and unexpected turns from the principal plaza of the inner-block outdoor rooms. But once Wanda and I discovered the Secret Garden, it was clearly designed as a place for a small group of people to enjoy, not just one person. Because how much fun is a secret if you can't share it with a friend or two?

Local Music

Work to attract fan-worthy musical acts to your streets. This is a family act of mother, father, and daughter who have been performing on this French Quarter street corner for so many years that the daughter is all grown up now. And every time I see them, they're surrounded by dedicated fans, of which I am one, and Wanda as well.

There is one step up, which is attracting acts to off-street venues, and I don't know anyone who has done a better job than South Main in Buena Vista, Colorado. South Main is on the south end of Main Street, one of those rare places where the place name actually means something. And that south end is where Main Street meets the headwaters of the Arkansas River and its world-class rapids. Both the Town Founders and several of their high-level staff are X-Games competitors, someof which are champions. So with a mostly-young crowd, music is a major part of the South Main vibe.

The settings began mostly at South Main, with Buena Vista nearly a ghost town when South Main started. But in recent years, South Main has done such a great job bringing in talent that several of their acts, both at South Main and further up Main Street in downtown Buena Vista, first hit the big time as top acts in Denver, a 3-hour drive away. And downtown has experienced an amazing renaissance, thanks in large part to the local music, which now drives a lot of other local excellence as well.

If people dedicated to their craft can pull off such a transformation in a near-ghost-town, you can too, don't you think?

Local Food

There is, and rightfully so, much concern about GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) which are found throughout the industrial food chain. They are necessary to industry for several reasons, including the fact that because the industrial food chain depends on insanely low wages to deliver food at everyday low prices, hand-tended food like most fruits and vegetables cannot be grown nearby in countries with minimum wage laws. So a tomato coming from Panama to Pennsylvania must be genetically modified to be tough enough that it can be jostled around in the back of a refrigerated truck for several weeks without turning into red mush. Never mind the fact that it tastes more like moist wood fiber than an actual tomato.

Local food, on the other hand, need not touch the industrial food chain because it comes from nearby, so the local tomatoes can be heirloom varieties which have been delicious in these parts since at least your great-grandparents' day. And because many people tend to value delicious over cheap and tasteless, those local farmers who never touch the industrial food chain can actually earn a fair wage because the dollars spent by those enjoying the fruits of their work mostly don't leave town.

That's the technical side of local food; here's the delicious side: if you transform your town into a foodie destination based on local food, local chefs tend to get really creative in pushing the local cuisine forward, like this sauteed Brussels sprouts dish from Cochon Butcher in New Orleans, which were the best I've ever tasted, and nothing like Grandma's Brussel sprouts. Nothing against Grandma, but let the chefs cook!

Farmers Market

Local chefs aren't the only ones who can cook; you can, too! But if you want to participate in the local food scene, you need a farmers market where you can buy local produce, delicacies, and proteins.

Many towns assume that they need only a single farmers market, but that's not enough in a robust foodie place. It's not uncommon for neighborhoods to have their own farmers market so everyone can walk or bike to their market instead of having to drive halfway across town.

Local Craft

This is an Antigua Guatemala gallery capital, both Shaker-like in its simplicity and highly elemental, composed primarily of two radial profiles. This is what the Vernacular Mind can do with earthy local traditions. And because a vernacular tradition is by definition a living tradition, local craft continues to evolve over time in response to both local conditions and cultural changes. What a joy to see local craft taking on a life of its own and maturing through the years!

Local Art

This is a garden wall screening private courtyards outside the mill-turned-lofts building in Cabbagetown, an Atlanta mill village that has been recovering from serious disinvestment for years. The garden wall was boring, until Cabbagetown got a great idea: let local artists come in once a year and do murals on the wall panels. This not only makes the streetscape more interesting, but helps promote the work of the artists and attracts people to walk by and check out this year's new murals. Do similar things to help your local arts community.

Arts & Entertainment District

Many cities have entertainment districts, which get interpreted as "that's where you can get drunk in public." Tuscaloosa takes a different approach, which their graphics confirm, with ARTS being triple the size of ENTERTAINMENT, as you can see.

And they back it up with the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center and a number of galleries and artist studios downtown. And then there's the Art Walk on the first Friday of each month; we're regulars, and it's both pleasant and also eye-opening, as it's not just the same old stuff in each gallery. Couple that with the thriving art scene just across the river in Northport, and there are numerous studios and galleries in this arts epicenter.