Place Management

Place Management

Place management is the process of making places better. This is practiced through programmes to improve a location or to maintain an already attained desired standard of operation. Place management can be undertaken by private, public or voluntary organisations or a mixture of each. Despite the wide variety of place management initiatives the underlying common factor is usually a desire to maximise the effectiveness of a location for its users, whether they are residents, shoppers, tourists, investors, property developers or business owners.

[edit] Overview

Place management is defined by the Institute of Place Management as "a coordinated, area-based, multi-stakeholder approach to improve locations, harnessing the skills, experiences and resources of those in the private, public and voluntary sectors".[1] However, as a conceptual field it remains relatively underdeveloped because of its infancy.

[edit] Defining �Place’

Place as a concept can be defined from a number of perspectives. Geography appears to have the greatest claim on the study of place with the Royal Geographical Society defining geography as the вЂ?“the study of the earth’s landscapes, peoples, places and environments”[2]. The study of place does not however, belong exclusively to field of geography.

According to Parker the production of place knowledge can also take place within sociology, psychology, general business and management, retailing, architecture, marketing, political science, public administration, construction, anthropology, urban planning, property management and investment, mining, economics, food, tourism & leisure, health, education, and criminology.[3]

Arturo Escobar has defined place as “the experience of a specific location which involves a certain level of belonging, boundaries and connections to one’s everyday life, even when its identity may be created and seldom fixed in time” [4]

Regardless of the conceptual approach taken to arrive at a definition, a place in practical terms, which is relevant to the focus of place management initiatives, may include:

Cities or city centres

Towns or town centres

Neighbourhoods

District centres

Villages

Business improvement districts/ areas/ zones

Business revitalization zones

Community improvement districts

Industrial estates

Business parks

Out-of-town retail & entertainment centres

Leisure and tourism destinations

Parks & open spaces

[edit] Defining Management

Although this definition is not accepted uncritically, management is sometimes referred to as the planning, organizing, resourcing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management.

Despite a traditional association with commercial operations, the practice of management is widely accepted to take place in publicly funded and voluntary organisations, making it applicable to place management initiatives.

[edit] History of Place Management

Place management has its roots in the management of towns, cities, neighbourhoods and other locations. The reasons for the need for place management are compelling. Grimond claims that the proportion of the world’s population that has been situated in cities has grown from 13% in 1900 to nearly 50% now.[5] Changes particularly in healthcare and technology have led to dramatic shifts in migration practices. Fluctuations in the movement of people places a strain on both urban and rural locations.

Migration is not limited between rural and urban locations but can also happen between countries, creating issues relating to cultural integration. People will migrate for numerous reasons often linked with finding a better quality of life either through superior employment prospects, escaping war or poverty, or even to enjoy a better climate. This can create problems for locations which become exposed to increases in population, decreases in population, or a shift in the demographic composition of a population. Places subsequently act as focal points for the occurrence of phenomena such as �globalisation’ and the �clash of civilisations'.

Factors such as changing technology not only drive migration, but can in themselves trouble the prosperity of places. Grimond notes that technological development was a driver behind the Industrial Revolution which led to high levels of migration into urban locations. However, further technological development rendered many of the primary functions of successful industrial cities as obsolete towards the end of the twentieth century. Grimond cites New York as being one city which “went through a bad patch in the 1970s” while other major cities, such as Manchester in the UK which is famed for instigating the Industrial Revolution, also suffered. Rapid technological and industrial change not only creates jobs but can also cause mass unemployment, damaging local economies and leaving pockets of deprivation across regions.

Another important factor in the development of the field of place management is the impact of the retail sector. As a non-judicial parliamentary review of the UK retail sector states, retailing is a necessity for local populations, supplying food and goods in the absence of self agricultural practices. However, shifts in the sector influenced by national and multi-national companies have led to the globalisation of the sector, which raises concerns about the sustainability of the supply of goods and the effectiveness of local economies. Furthermore, all business practices,