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Building the City Centreto be a DestinationThe second factor is to build the city centre around a series of‘places’. Application of the “Power of Ten” concept from Projectfor Public Spaces 3 provides a simple mental model to illustratehow to create a vital and engaging city centre. This conceptframes the city centre as a destination. Within a destinationthere needs to be 10 or more great places, and at each placethere needs to 10 or more things to do or reasons to be there.The “What makes a great place” diagram is also used as a modelfor holistic thinking about creating places. Project for PublicSpaces provide this definition of placemaking:“Placemaking is a multi-facetedapproach to the planning, design andmanagement of public spaces. Putsimply, it involves looking at, listeningto, and asking questions of the peoplewho live, work and play in a particularspace, to discover their needs andaspirations. This information is then usedto create a common vision for that place.The vision can evolve quickly into animplementation strategy, beginning withsmall-scale, do-able improvements thatcan immediately bring benefits to publicspaces and the people who use them.”The Placemaking initiative from the Urban Design Strategyallows Council officers to engage and work on all scales ofdevelopment in the city centre, to simultaneously work on thelong-term and short-term, and most importantly the hardwareand software of a place. This is achieved by face-to-face andongoing interactions that build relationships and allow anongoing conversation to take place with stakeholders in thecity centre.Recent examples of placemaking in Palmerston North arethe creation of Little Cuba 4 , the transformation of car parksto parklets for people on George Street, and the chessboard and bistro style chairs and tables by the ButterflyPond in The Square.Giant chess set in The SquareLovethe CityThe final factor is to cultivate emotional attachment to the citycentre. Emotional attachment matters because a high level ofcommunity attachment is correlated with stronger localeconomic performance 5 . A city’s most attached residents havepride in their city, a positive outlook for their city’s future, and asense that they fit in the place. These people are less likely toleave than less-attached people. The three factors which driveemotional attachment to place are:• Social offerings – places to meet each other and a feelingthat people in the community care about each other.• Aesthetics - the physical beauty of a place, including theavailability of parks and open spaces.• Openness – how welcoming the community is todifferent types of people, including families with youngchildren, minorities, and talented university graduates.The city centre is where all three of these factors come togetherand where a lack of any of them are most conspicuous andderided, and when they are present are enjoyed andcelebrated. Future investment in the city centre will be valuedand undertaken with a clear knowledge of why qualitydevelopment is critical to the future of Palmerston North. Inessence, a focus on emotional attachment to the city shouldcreate a virtuous cycle where people love the city and in turnmake it an even better place.3 www.pps.org4 The intersection of George Street , Taonui Street, and Cuba Street5 www.soulofthecommunity.org9DRAFT CCF FOR PALMERSTON NORTH [ Context ]