Livability is the sum of the factors that add up to a community’s quality of life—including the built and natural environments, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity, and cultural, entertainment and recreation possibilities.
8 Principles of Livability
1. What is Livability?
Livability blooms locally, not centrally. It cannot be planned, but must be tended to organically. It requires the fertilizer of local initiatives and the cultivation of civic responsibility.
Livability for all is an equitable distribution of housing, jobs, health care, education and respect.
Livability and livable places are defined as how hard people—local people—are willing to work to make their community a better place. A community must define for itself what livability means.
Without the ability to earn a decent income and provide dignity through gainful employment, there is no livable place for the left out or left behind.
2. Place Makes a Significant Difference
Partners believes that place triggers action: people's love of place and sense of place leads to a desire to fight for enhancing their place. The impact of the built environment on public health, civic pride and responsiveness, and economic well-being is critical.
Place is also unique: every community, large or small, has a distinctive character resulting from its history. Natural and man-made physical elements, social makeup, and combinations of public and private institutions both create and constrain opportunities for expanding and maintaining quality of life.
An amenity strategy can be the bridge for crossing chasms, and a new beginning to look at opportunities for working on problems perceived as unsolvable.
3. Quality of Life is a Strategy, not a Luxury
A community that satisfies the full range of its residents' needs is more attractive as a place to live, work and do business and, therefore, more likely to be economically successful.
Design, planning and architecture are essential tools for achieving a more livable place. Design is a strategy. It can create momentum, bring hope, serve as a demonstration of opposition or enthusiasm, and show changes coming.
Design is profitable, and amenities are investments. Design, environment, culture, folklore, archaeology and heritage broadly defined have the power of moving imaginations. By captivating the spirit with the involvement of an artist (who strives for quality, not quantity), we can create new perceptions. Creativity and originality have to become a hallmark of what you do.
Culture is an asset. The aim of community action is to enhance place. Cultural, spiritual and artistic initiatives can move imagination and bridge the differences among them.
Quality is essential. Do things well. Do something that bespeaks world-class activity.
Never ignore or forget the past when building the future.
4. Seizing the Opportunity
Funding is the least important issue. Funding will grow with the excitement, involvement and civic desire to have that building, program or institution that lives up to your dreams.
Use a disaster. Nothing creates a better opportunity for change than a disaster.
Create an opportunity if you don't have a disaster. You must develop a flagship idea for the future. One that embodies the spirit, hopes and dreams of what can be.
Involve a fun factor. Be entertaining, meet in a nice place, serve good food, and make the participation one of the most exciting and fun games in town.
Make participation labor intensive. This brings people together and invests them in the project.
5. People: Your Greatest Resource for Community Change
Respect the power of the individual. One citizen can trigger significant improvements in a community. In addition to one's direct impact, others learn by example how commitment to one's place can be marshaled into actions that get real results, leading to a multiplier effect.
Leadership is contagious. Do your best to facilitate it getting passed it along, and don't forget to do so yourself.
Most good ideas for community initiatives still come from a female volunteer.
Innovation, originality and risk-taking come from the individual. Entrepreneurship, implementation and the long-term commitment can come from the business community.
The new civic actors come in all shapes and sizes. Don't look to just the most obvious leaders for creative and positive change in your community.
Promote the collaboration of strange bedfellows. Bring together people who have not previously worked together.
Cooperation occurs because people need each other. It comes about when people cannot achieve a goal without seeking the support of others. This cooperation, or partnership, should be based on a principle of mutual self-interest: do for someone else that which at some point also benefits you.
Collaboration best comes at a time of problem, when people need each other; not at a time of wealth or business as usual.
Involve the whole community. First tackle those issues that unite you and then work together on the issues that divide you.
6. How Do We Work Together?
Get people of energy together to discuss what can be done with a community's natural assets. These intrinsic assets are easy taken for granted, and therefore, an outsider can be helpful in realizing them.
"Outsiders," or consultants, are change-agents in disguise. They can break through complacent leaders and jump-start a community. But, remember they are on a short assignment. They don't live in your community, and thus, they are not real "players."
Building of bridges between each of the sectors—public, private and civic—is essential to success. A public-private partnership must be put in place that will last 10 years to truly accomplish the hard job of civic change.
Contentious agendas such as racism and minority unemployment can make initial meetings difficult. In many cities, Partners has used agendas of arts or culture as a neutral meeting ground to get persons in leadership positions to begin working together on something nonthreatening. Then, as they become acquainted and develop personal rapport and ties, the leaders can address more serious problems.
Believe the glass is half-full, not half-empty. This philosophy of looking at opportunities instead of problems is essential for community change. An optimistic, entrepreneurial approach to problem-solving rather than mere problem-study or moaning and gnashing of teeth is essential to allowing goodwill, collaboration and sense of confidence to enable long-term problems to be addressed.
Build participation and cooperation. One of the goals of the process is to create new opportunities for participation. It is therefore important to bring together people who have not previously worked together. This is sometimes difficult, but always essential.
There is a need for a neutral community action center. Institutional gossip is very important. It can quickly facilitate the flow of civic information.
7. Get to Work!
Action speaks louder than planning. Talking about doing something in your community will only get you so far. Learn by doing.
Plan to plan. Knowing how to manage the process is a prerequisite to your community change process.
As with any long journey, and taking the first step in the community change process is the hardest and most intimidating. Major initiatives begin with small doable projects that build confidence, illustrate a vision and allow a broader constituency to join.
Don't bite off more than you can chew. Incremental change and small successes are healthy and realistic and will eventually grow into a comprehensive planning process.
Mount a 12-month campaign for building momentum, excitement and participation. Do not underestimate the enemy of apathy or fiscal deficits.
One community can be challenged and inspired by the successes of another. Learn from others and be competitive.
Think regionally. Community needs do not fit within political boundaries or the lines of demarcation between cities and counties.
8. A Positive Attitude is Key
Declare success frequently. Cities can live up to their press releases!
Nothing succeeds like success and nothing has a better chance for success than a situation in which people can participate, contribute and claim ownership of good civic ideas.
Stop and smell the roses. As in any long march, there has to be places of rest; places where there is cause for celebration to acknowledge achievement and to renew determination to succeed. A small victory every six months must be built into a program to create the pleasure of success, the determination to continue, and points for new people to join, be trained, and to be offered opportunities for participation in civic activities.
Public relations! Public relations! Public relations!
Partners' Community Technical Assistance program is designed to support public/private partnership in goal setting and visioning to help design action plans and to assist civic leaders in implementation.
For over 40 years, Partners has helped client communities improve their quality of life, and bring about better living conditions, economic expansion, and social growth. Partners believes that a high quality of life is the foundation for creating safe neighborhoods, satisfied residents, and business investment.
The Community Technical Assistance Program offers guidance on becoming more livable places. Partners comes to you and provides the training, stimulation, brainstorming, and the process of how to go from planning to action for your community problem solving. Partners works with a wide body of civic leadership, including local governments and elected officials, chambers of commerce, community developers, cultural organizations, and community-based organizations.
Download the Community Technical Assistance Guide to learn more.