(from older PlaceWorks blog)

I have just finished reading (April, 2010) Stewardship Begins with People: An Atlas of Places, People, and Handmade Products published by the National Park Service Conservation Study Institute. It is a slim volume, but a platform for some big ideas. The Atlas considers conserved landscapes and the cultural and production traditions that are associated with them, profiling a number of great “place-based development” projects (to use the parlance of this website), and by extension encouraging all of us to think more expansively about relationships between people and land.

As a point of departure, it may be useful to understand the various approaches the National Park Service takes to landscape conservation. The Atlas mentions, in addition to National Parks as we would expect, National Monuments, National Historical Parks and Reserves, National Historic Sites and Landmarks, and National Heritage and Recreation Areas – each with its own set of rules and regs, governing structures and processes, even goals and objectives. Those projects considered in the Atlas have in common a focus on “working” landscapes and the complex weave of natural, cultural and economic systems that define them. A tip-o-the-hat to NPS for trying multiple approaches to managing these landscapes (and to Atlas authors for explaining them), offering those of us who are attempting to figure out how place-based development might work a great learning opportunity.

Continue reading CSI Atlas Project →

(from older PlaceWorks blog)

Music and place? But music is so portable, how can it be “of” a place? Thinking of jazz, that quintessential “American” music. Jazz is played all over the world. In bars in Copenhagen, hotels in Bangkok. And jazz has its roots in West Africa, or some of its roots. Other roots are detectable reaching to/from every part of the world. And yet we think of it as American music. It was “invented” here and does seem somehow emblematic of a mix of cultures and a style of life that is of this American place (and time?).

On our recent trip to South Africa (see earlier posts), we had only a few encounters with the music of the place, but they offer a chance to ruminate on the subject (music and place) based on at least some specific experience. I didn’t know much about South African music to begin with – Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba. Oh, and Ladysmith Black Mombazo, and Dave Matthews. These were South Africans who had brought their music(s) to our shores. But what would I find in the place itself? Continue reading Music and Place →