Green placemaking on the peripheral prairie following a natural disaster

Abstract

Peripheral areas have utilized placemaking and tourism to address their economic and demographic challenges. When a 2007 tornado destroyed 95% of peripheral Greensburg, Kansas, the city used the subsequent window of opportunity to implement tangible, strategic combined green placemaking and place-making that involved green/advanced technologies and tourism based on the green buildings. However, the technocratic green solutions and placemaking did not fully acknowledge the structural issues related to Greensburg’s peripheral location such as increased transportation and housing construction costs that have hampered the city’s recovery. For peripheral areas following a natural disaster, national and state government support for affordable housing and for linking these areas’ unique assets and entrepreneurs to markets is required to compliment placemaking. Greensburg’s green pedigree also needs to be translated in an ongoing, understandable way to sustainability tourists. For such post-disaster peripheral places, placemaking should not be viewed as a panacea and solely through an economic lens, but rather as part of a long-term strategy for revitalization and for contributing to increased resiliency, community pride, and a new sense of place.

摘要

周边地区利用创造地方营造和旅游业来解决其经济和人口挑战。2007年, 一场龙卷风摧毁了格林斯堡95%的周边地区, 格林斯堡利用随后的机会窗口, 实施了切实可行的、战略性的、结合了绿色/先进技术和以绿色建筑为基础的旅游的绿色地方营造和场所建设。然而, 技术官僚的绿色解决方案和地方营造并没有充分认识到与格林斯堡周边地区相关的结构问题, 例如阻碍城市复苏的交通和住房建设成本的增加。对于遭受自然灾害的周边地区, 国家和州政府必须支持保障性住房, 并将这些地区的独特资产和企业家资源与市场联系起来, 以促进地方营建。格林斯堡的绿色传统也需要以一种持续的、可理解的方式向可持续性的游客传达。对于这些灾后边缘地区来说, 地方营造不应该被视为灵丹妙药, 并且仅仅从经济角度来看, 而是作为振兴长期战略的一部分, 有助于提高恢复力、社区自豪感和新的地方感。

Keywords:

• Peripheral areas
• placemaking
• rural tourism
• disaster recovery
• green architecture
• sustainable development

关键词:

• 关键词:
• 偏远地区、地方营造、乡村旅游、灾后恢复、绿色建筑、可持续发展

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Alan Lew and Professor Joseph Cheer and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts, which greatly clarified and strengthened this article. I am particularly grateful to Alan Lew who provided guidance, including his conference presentations on placemaking, encouragement, and support throughout this process from the initial submission through the revisions. I would also like to thank Stacy Barnes for Big Well visitation data and information/insights on Greensburg’s tourism development and marketing and its economic development; Xanthippe Wedel for historical data sources and her insights on the early population of Greensburg, Kiowa County, and western Kansas; Professor Derek Alderman for sharing his publications on Mount Airy/Mayberry; and Dr. Anne Gibson for cartographic assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Deborah Che

Dr. Deborah Che is a Lecturer in the School of Business and Tourism at Southern Cross University. Her research interests include sustainable economic development, natural resource-based tourism (i.e., agritourism, ecotourism, hunting) development and marketing, cultural/heritage tourism, and arts-based economic diversification strategies. A common theme in her research involves the interconnection between economic restructuring and shifting land uses. She has published in a wide variety of tourism, geography, and social science journals and books.