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The Story Behind the Place: Creating Urban Spaces That Enhance Quality of
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Article  in  Applied Research in Quality of Life · December 2015

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-014-9336-0

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Applied Research Quality Life (2015) 10:589–598
DOI 10.1007/s11482-014-9336-0

The Story Behind the Place: Creating Urban Spaces

That Enhance Quality of Life

E. J. Cilliers & W. Timmermans & F. Van den Goorbergh &

J. S. A. Slijkhuis

Received: 25 February 2014 / Accepted: 9 June 2014 / Published online: 22 June 2014
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
(ISQOLS) 2014

Abstract Stories play an exceptionally important role in how people assign value to a
place. Taken together, all those stories essentially give a place an identity. The aim of
placemaking is to ensure that the people using a place can appreciate that place.
Placemaking approaches are focussed on strategic interventions in a place and aimed
at changing the meaning and value of that place for local people, thus creating a
qualitative place for enhanced storytelling. Using greenery is a common approach in
place-making. Urban greenery has gone through a process of emancipation in the past
15 years. This emancipation has led to awareness that urban greenery is about more
than just ecology and biodiversity, but also has social and economic consequences for a
city’s fortunes. It is clear that green spaces do not stand alone: they are part of a
complex urban system, and the use of green spaces in this complex system has
immediate repercussions for how the city functions. With the changing role of green
spaces within cities, the need to manage these spaces is emphasized. In this sense, the
place-making approach, along with the storytelling approach could provide valuable
insight on the planning and management of green spaces within the urban environment,
with the aim to enhance quality of life by means of the social connection between
people, the users of the space, and the qualitative place provided. This research
illustrated that green space managers would need more social and organizational skills
to manage modern urban green spaces in an attempt to create qualitative, usable spaces
for citizens, spaces that are built upon stories and spaces that would further enable
future stories of citizen life.

Keywords Storytelling . Citizen spaces . Green spaces . Green interventions . Quality of life

E. J. Cilliers : W. Timmermans : F. Van den Goorbergh : J. S. A. Slijkhuis

Van Hall Larenstein, Wageningen University of Applied Sciences, Wageningen, The Netherlands

E. J. Cilliers (*)
Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North West University, Potchefstroom 2520, South
Africa
e-mail: [email protected]
590 E.J. Cilliers et al.

Storytelling

People are all attached to particular places, each in their own way. They may not only
have personal experiences, emotions or memories of a place, but can also share many
common experiences and histories. The value people assign to a place has both
quantifiable and unquantifiable aspects. Places have a social reality, a psychological
reality, perhaps even a mythical reality, consisting of past events, images, stories and
various other aspects that are difficult to pin down (Timmermans et al. 2013).
Ganley (2010:10) states how a single, majestic tree was saved by the story told by a
10-year old, using no metrics, no data, armed only with stories about the greatness of
the tree. The developer, in the end, decided to save the tree. The question is then asked
what else could have been saved if the rest of us had slowed down enough to share
stories about what really mattered about a place. “Would telling and listening to stories
have helped us acknowledge each other’s perspectives? Instead of drawing lines in the
sand, could we have found common ground? Instead of polarizing us, our differing
views on that landscape’s future might have led us to innovative solutions. Controversy
but not conflict. Doubt but not intractability” (Ganley 2010:10).
Scholarship abounds about the importance of civic engagement and the effectiveness
of participatory planning processes; yet storytelling remains on the fringes of planning
for future urban areas. Planning decisions are based on zoning regulations, traffic
stipulations, and planning requirements. “We challenged each other, questioned one
another’s numbers, hoarded information, lobbied this neighbour or that until little
neighbourliness remained. Not only did we lose the historic site, we lost one another.
Stories might have saved us”. (Ganley 2010:9).
Sandercock (2003:11) argues that stories have a special importance in planning
which has never been fully understood nor sufficiently valued. Planning is performed
through stories but stories are also considered a catalyst for change (Sandercock
2003:11). From the dawn of community, wisdom has lived in stories, whether cave
paintings, fables, or religious texts. By illuminating the human experience of facts,
stories place the facts in context, helping them to blossom into a truth, not just
information. “Displays of information, code and legislation alone do not make a
community more liveable. Data-driven design isn’t enough to pull townspeople togeth-
er to make decisions that will affect generations to come”. (Ganley 2010:11).
Storytelling has a part to play in the current data-driven, expert-dominated world of
land-use planning. Not to replace data, surveys, interviews, dialogue or action projects, but
to enhance community values and its uniqueness (Ganley 2010:35). Stories, in this sense,
also play an exceptionally important role in how people assign value to a place. Taken
together, all those stories essentially give a place an identity. People use a place in a
particular manner for a particular period of time, which means the place takes on a different
value for them compared to other people who do not use that place or use it in a different
fashion. Such places have a narrative value. This value is then converted by people into
norms and standards, and also into emotions and dynamism, and this therefore affects the
way people respond to a place. This narrative value ties in well with the interaction
between people and their physical environment (Timmermans et al. 2013). In light of
the storytelling-approach lies a great opportunity for improving the reception of strategic
interventions to transform vacant urban spaces into useful places. Storytelling, in this sense,
is perceived as an initiator for spatial development that will enhance quality of life.
The Story Behind the Place: Creating Urban Spaces That Enhance 591

Creating Places for Storytelling

From Space to Place

Space is a valuable resource. Space is limited. Consequently the use of space needs to be
carefully planned in line with a comprehensive, holistic vision. Spaces, places and
buildings are more than just props in people’s lives; they are imbued with meaning
and resonance, as they symbolize people’s personal histories, interpersonal relation-
ships, and shared events in people’s extended relationships, families, communities and
wider culture (Butterworth 2000:iii). A place is a usable space, a space that serves a real
purpose, has real value and lots of human energy. Many places have a personal
significance for people but research shows that people prefer to put their effort into
places that have a public, shared significance. Planners are the first to handle this
transformation from spaces to places. This comprehends a dimension which is in
progress, to conceptualize things that are emerging (Sentürk and Kovacheva 2009:16),
using spaces to plan and transform these spaces into meaningful (living) places.
The value people attach to places is often diverse, mixed and complementary
(Timmermans et al. 2013). This value can be translated into quantifiable and unquan-
tifiable data. In the place-making literature, public spaces are described along four
dimensions: in terms of their sociability, on the basis of their use and the activities, by
considering accessibility and connections, and in terms of comfort and image. These
dimensions all have measurable, relatively quantitative features but also qualitative
features that cannot be measured, as presented in Table 1.
Public spaces are among a city’s most underutilized and potentially valuable assets.
Because they belong to everybody, they are perceived as belonging to nobody (PPS
2012:1). The social value of public space is wide ranging and lies in the contribution it
makes to ‘people’s attachment to their locality and opportunities for socializing with
others, and creating memories of places’ (Dines et al. 2006). The value of a place is a
complicated formula involving the appreciation of various aspects in a dynamic and
changing context. Place-making is about creating lively places by integrating multiple

Table 1 Quantifiable and unquantifiable features of a place

Features of Unquantifiable Quantifiable

a place

Sociability Diversity, stewardship, cooperation, Number of people, social networks,

neighbourliness, pride, friendliness, volunteers, use in the evenings,
interaction, welcome feeling. street life.
Use and Pleasure, active, vitality, special, genuine, Ownership of local businesses, land use,
activities usable, indigenous, sustainable. house prices, rents, shop sales.
Access and Continuity, closeness, connectedness, Traffic data, transport flows, through traffic,
connec- readability, suitable for walking in, easy, pedestrian activity, parking data.
tions accessible.
Comfort and Safe, clean, ‘green’, suitable for walking in, Crime statistics, health statistics, condition
image suitable for sitting in, spiritual, charming, of the buildings, environmental data.
appealing, historic.

Source: Based on Baltimore City Department of Planning (2010:90), PlacemakingChicago (2012)

592 E.J. Cilliers et al.

functions in a single place, and organizing vibrancy and variety in those functions
(Timmermans et al. 2013). Good public in this sense, should be flexible and respond to
the evolution of the urban environment. Remaining open to the need for change and
having the community maintain control over enacting that change is what builds not
just great public spaces, but great cities and towns. The best spaces evolve over time
when you experiment with short-term improvements that can be tested and refined over
many years (PPS 2012:12).

Place-Making

The concept of place-making is based on the premise that successful public spaces are
lively, safe, distinctive places (PPS 2010:10), places that serve a purpose in the complex
urban patchwork for the people who use them. In the Lively Cities EU programme,
place-making is seen as the process whereby people transform forsaken, little-used
places into lived-in places that people enjoy spending time in. Place-making is geared
to public space as a whole rather than individual buildings, structural items or green
elements. It aims to create a sense of belonging (Timmermans et al. 2013).
The aim of place-making is to ensure that the people using a place can appropriate
that place, the place in its entirety, not the individual buildings, structures or greenery
objects. Place-making is thus the process by which people transform the locations they
inhabit into the places they live. “The Place-making process, when it is conducted with
transparency and good faith from the bottom up, results in a place where the commu-
nity feels ownership and engagement, and where design serves function” (PPS 2012:4).
When cities and neighbourhoods have thriving civic spaces and places (adhering to the
features captured in Table 1), residents have a strong sense of community. The
objective of place-making is to create such spaces. When planning for certain uses
and functions within a space, one needs to understand the scope, characteristics and
complexities of the users of the space.
“To create a lively place we need to focus on people. What planners and architects
ought to do is to turn the conventional way of planning up-side down and introduce a
more controversial planning process with the people and the life of the cities and public
spaces in focus. Instead of starting with the buildings, we need to envision the future
life of an area first. This way we can form nice spaces that are inviting for people and
take in consideration people’s needs and behavioural patterns, and when the spaces are
formed we can develop guidelines for planning of buildings” (Soholt 2004:8). People
need to connect with their environment and feel a sense of belonging, to feel good
being there, therein lies the good life” (Ryan 2006).
In practicing place-making, planners are directly engaged in the production of mean-
ingful place, along with the input of the residents, the actual users of the space (Cilliers et al.
2012). As most quantifiable and unquantifiable features of a place (refer to Table 1) has a
strong social connection, the storytelling approach can enhance place-making in this sense.

Green Interventions

Place-making approaches are focussed on strategic interventions in a place and aimed at

changing the meaning and value of that place for local people. Using greenery is a common
The Story Behind the Place: Creating Urban Spaces That Enhance 593

approach in place-making. Over time, practical and theoretical evidence has been accumu-
lated supporting the view that greenery acts as a cohesive force. The idea is that instead of
seeing green spaces as the end goal, it can be used as an instrument to shape spatial planning.
Green spaces, in this sense, can be used as a tool in a strategic intervention, where
inspiring initiatives are used to get people more involved in the city. This ties in with
the current growing focus on civic participation at a time when government organiza-
tions are increasingly withdrawing from the social arena.
Green spaces, when planned correctly, provide certain qualities that help to create
sustainable places and contribute to place-making. These qualities of green spaces are
(1) welcoming, thus places with a positive image, (2) distinctive, using natural features
to reinforce identity, (3) easy to move around, (4) resource efficient, (5) safe and
pleasant and (6) adaptable, implying multi-usable spaces (The Scottish Government
2011:22). Detailed information regarding green planning tools is available in the LICI
report (Cilliers and Timmermans 2012) as part of the INTERREG EU project Lively
Cities: reclaiming public space for public use.
Two examples of such green interventions was seen in Gravenzande (The cherry
picker project) and Presikhaaf (Guerrilla gardening project), both in the Netherlands.
The first project in ‘s Gravenzande in the Staelduinse Bos, a woodland area, the aim
was to get a different perspective on the standard view of park management and
planning. A cherry picker (a hydraulic platform) was hired to give visitors a completely
different view of the area they were visiting. The result was a new dialogue between the
two parties (managers and users of the space) as a result of the different view and
different perspective provided (Timmermans et al. 2013).
The second project in Presikhaaf in Arnhem used Guerrilla gardening campaign as a
green intervention. Young people were asked to plant trees at spots the young people
thought most appropriate. The local youth liked the fact that the project was so different
to the standard participation projects organized by the parks management, which often
seem bureaucratic (Timmermans et al. 2013).
Both green intervention projects got local communities involved and interested in
the place and environment that they are using. Storytelling was used to capture the
value and the way they perceived the area. Green interventions in the two case studies
were found to enhance the ownership of public spaces and contribute to place-making
approaches, enhanced quality of life by creating future storytelling places.

Practical Storytelling Places

Green spaces are an important factor in the city marketing and urban renewal of the
metropolises and major cities around the globe, considering the upgrading of the city and
improving its competitive position as a place to live and work in. Medium-sized cities in
Europe such as Eindhoven, Tournai or Aberdeen have a significant regional function but they
do not have the appeal of major cities with an international profile such as Amsterdam,
Brussels or Edinburgh. Even so, these cities are also seeking future opportunities in terms of
marketability, job provision, quality of life and creating a unique selling point. The storytell-
ing approach aims to create useful places, focussing on the idea of lively cities arising from
the unused parts of the city, offering all kinds of opportunities for making cities livelier
(Timmermans et al. 2013). Three practical examples of storytelling places, along with green
594 E.J. Cilliers et al.

planning interventions were evaluated for purposes of this research, namely, Eindhoven and
the social sofa, Lille and the food stalls, and Louvain-La-Neuve and its green graffiti.

The Social Sofa in Doornakkers, Eindhoven Doornakkers is a district in the east of

Eindhoven and one of forty ‘krachtwijken’, a Dutch term for disadvantaged districts
identified by the government in 2007 as requiring extra attention. It has little greenery
and numerous small unused spaces, mostly alongside the roads. New district centres
have resulted in a natural route through the district, known as De Omloop (the circuit).
Through place-making, a range of ideas for increasing the value of the public spaces for
local people was introduced. This included three signposted walks, a tea garden, free
Wi-Fi offered within a school playground and two social sofas (Timmermans et al.
2013). The social sofas provided place for residents to use and experience the green
spaces, creating an inviting place to recreate and socialize. The green planning inter-
ventions enhanced possibilities of future storytelling and quality of life.

The Fool Stalls in Place François Mitterrand, Lille: Place François Mitterrand is a grey
square near the station in Lille, on the edge of the city centre. The square is mainly used
as a thoroughfare. As part of place-making, an artistically designed food stall was places
within the square to encourage people to spend more time in the square. Various forms of
public furniture were also introduced to support the food stall, such as seats, protection
from the rain and sun, picnic tables and bookcases with books for the use of the general
public (Timmermans et al. 2013). These interventions transformed useless space into
useful place, creating locations for people to interact and experience the green spaces.. It
created a setting for storytelling and contributed to the overall quality of life.

Green Graffiti in Place des Wallons, Louvain-La-Neuve Place des Wallons was once
one of the main meeting points in the town of Louvain-La-Neuve, but in the course of
time it has turned into a thoroughfare taking people from the university area to the town
centre. Despite its central location, it had little value and contribution in terms of urban
functions. However, its size, accessibility for pedestrians and its closeness to key
stakeholders made it the ideal location to introduce place-making approaches. Tempo-
rary furniture was introduced in the area to intervene in the current movement patterns
and the layout of the square. By continually moving temporary plants and street
furniture to different positions in the square, they made people think about how they
used the square. Storytelling was used as a means to collect the residents view and
perspectives in terms of development opportunities for the area, how they perceived and
valued the area. This approach initiated a sense of place, engendering a new feeling of
appreciation for the square. Based on interviews, it was evident that the square needed a
stronger identity as a green space. Green graffiti and green roofs were used in this sense
and to draw the square’s users’ attention to its value as a place (Timmermans et al. 2013).

Management of Green Spaces to Enhance Storytelling and Quality of Life

Green space management (focused on park management) evolved in the nineteenth

century, aiming to make cities more attractive by reintroducing green public spaces in
The Story Behind the Place: Creating Urban Spaces That Enhance 595

cities which were characterized by rapid growth and lack of such spaces. Creating an
attractive, comfortable living environment was prioritized, and the provision of green
spaces was believed to encourage the usage of urban spaces, along with the perspective
of the citizens and users of the space (Timmermans et al. 2013).
Ecological objectives were soon added to the list of prioritization when considering
green spaces, influenced by the rise of the environmental and nature movement in the
1970s and 1980s. There was growing realization that cities were not necessarily a threat
to biodiversity, but that that cities could also have a positive effect on biodiversity and
could even become significant habitats for many plants and animal species
(Timmermans et al. 2013 .
A new form of green space management developed that was geared to ecological
management. Along with this phenomenon, green spaces were being included as a key
element in the spatial design of new urban developments. However, the increasing
urban population placed immense pressure on these green public spaces. In addition,
the changing composition of the urban population in an increasingly multicultural
society implied changes in how these green public spaces were valued and used. This
gave a new interpretation to the requirement that green public spaces in cities should be
usable and appealing. The emphasis was now on the purpose of the green spaces, along
with the accessibility thereof (Timmermans et al. 2013).
This led to a form of green space management that was still focused on the usability
and attractiveness of green public spaces but that also recognized their ecological
qualities and their significance for the people who use them. Under pressure from the
growing urbanization, urban green space management made efforts to upgrade the
greenery in cities. Initially this was done using quantitative data. Over the past 15 years
there has been growing criticism of this quantitative, technocratic approach to green
public spaces. The essence of the criticism was that the green spaces were reduced to
numbers so that they could be incorporated in the municipal accounts, purely in order
to enable transparent reporting on expenditure and activities, without any thought for
the usability or attractiveness of the green spaces (Timmermans et al. 2013).
The 1990s saw increasing criticism of this quantitative approach, which did not fit in
well with the main social issues of health, recreation, the economy, living conditions
and the environment. The argument went that greenery could be used to make cities a
better place to live. In this sense the direct and indirect benefits of green spaces came
into play. There was greater recognition of the urban functions that green public spaces
could fulfil, resulting in a more qualitative approach to urban parks management,
whereby green spaces were a strategic tool in the effort to improve urban living
conditions and achieve social objectives. Recently, with the objectives of place-
making and the aim of creating lively and liveable places, the management of green
spaces are even more critical.
The reality, however, is that green space management is still captured in the previous
era, technocratic and based on quantitative information to control the green spaces by
establishing their purpose and functions, rather than focussing on achieving social
objectives. In the light of the changing approach to planning of green spaces within
urban areas, the need arose to rethink the role and function of green space management
(Timmermans et al. 2013).
Green space managers need social and communicational skills in addition to the
more technical and ecological expertise that were the basis of their profession in
596 E.J. Cilliers et al.

Table 2 From conventional planning to place-making through storytelling

Issue Conventional planning Place-making

Location of development Determined by developer Determined by public policy and values

obtained from storytelling
Scope of development Economic feasibility Social enhancement
Approach Top-down Bottom-up
Open space Open space planning considered after Open space are prioritized through
development took place community values connected to such
spaces and captured through storytelling
Focus op planning Providing infrastructure and buildings Proving in needs of communities
Methodology Quantitative Qualitative

previous eras (Timmermans et al. 2013). In this sense, the place-making approach,
along with the storytelling approach could provide valuable insight on the planning and
provision of green spaces within the urban environment to ensure functional, valuable,
usable spaces and places. Sandercock (2003:11) agrees by stating that stories can make
us better Planners (and green space managers) by “expanding our practical tools,
sharpening our critical judgement and widening the circle of democratic discourse”.
Furthermore, future-oriented storytelling is not simply persuasive, but also constitutive
as it shapes community, character, and culture (Throgmorton 2003:6).

Conclusions

Places should be understood as multidimensional. One cannot make a “place” more

sustainable without having some sense of what “place” means, and it turns out that, as
literary critic Lawrence Buell (2001: 62) puts it, “place may seem quite simple until you
start noticing things”. The city is a complex system where small changes can have big
effects and where it is usually difficult to predict the consequences of any action. Public
spaces are a vital ingredient of successful cities as it help to build a sense of community,
civic identity and culture. Public spaces facilitate social capital, economic development
and community revitalization (PPS 2012:1). Planning for green spaces in cities requires
an interest in and a feeling for the complexity of the urban system that is difficult to
comprehend. Linking the quality of public spaces and the quality of life is a complex and
multifaceted area that suffers from a meagre evidence base (Beck 2009:246). In this
sense green space managers need more skills, and different skills to their purely
technical or ecological professional expertise (Timmermans et al. 2013). The point of
departure should be the combination of participation with place-making and storytelling.
Storytelling is an initiator of change and development, in the sense that it captures
the local communities’ views and values linked to a specific space. It initiates devel-
opment that is in line with actual needs and that will enhance the quality of life of local
communities. Storytelling should take place before development to capture these
unique values and community perspectives and developed accordingly. However, the
development should also provide for future storytelling possibilities by creating inter-
active, lively and qualitative spaces.
The Story Behind the Place: Creating Urban Spaces That Enhance 597

In projects such as Guerrilla Gardening or Nature seen from the Cherry Picker, or the
green graffiti in Louvain-La-Neuve or the food stall in the Place François Mitterrand in
Lille, greenery acts as a cohesive force in the intervention, showing residents and
businesses that it is possible to tell new stories about their place, their square, their
neighborhood or their city (Timmermans et al. 2013).
While a green intervention may end with the planting of a tree, it lives on in the
stories of the people who planted that tree. An experiment with temporary street
furniture may result in a new layout for a square but that result only has a value if
people tell stories about it, if people talk about the experiment that inspired them to
create that new layout. Stories change people’s appreciation of places and change the
way they feel about places.
The management of green spaces are essential in the approach of transforming space
into place. Green space Managers should understand and promote the approach of
storytelling in an attempt to guide future development and planning to enhance quality
of life. Storytelling could be used to transform the conventional way of planning and
enhance place-making and setting the scene qualitative living, as captured in Table 2.
Storytelling is an approach that enhances the social connection between people, the
users of the space, and the qualitative place. Urban planners, developers and authorities
should realize that it is the people that make the place, and in this sense provide urban
infrastructure and qualitative spaces that will contribute to quality of live, built upon the
stories and values that local communities connect to these spaces and create a future
setting for everyday stories to be lived.

Acknowledgments This work form part of the INTERREG EU Project LICI (Lively Cities), http://www.
lively-cities.eu/.

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