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Influence of Place

Place. It is integral to who we are. In Arkansas we love to ask, “Where’d you go to high school?” It’s a loaded question of which the answer is not just the name of a school. It lets one immediately know something about the person being asked, cultural influences, socioeconomic status and a host of other assumptions.

The idea is expressed more eloquently in Winston Churchill’s quote, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” We build places and imbue them with character, sometimes deliberately and sometimes not. That character shapes the people who inhabit those places. It can elevate us to a more noble version of ourselves. It can instill a desire to protect those treasured ideas passed onto us from previous generations. And, unfortunately, sometimes place can serve as an obstacle we have to overcome before realizing our own human potential.

Place can also hold a special place in a person’s heart. It can root one’s sense of identity. Memories tied to place can create indelible links and shape communities of people across generations. This is all to say, place is powerful. Place can be special and extraordinary in a way that is seldom matched.

The focus of this edition of Block, Street and Building is built on the influence of place. This edition brings a new series of Treasured Places in Arkansas profiles. You’ll find places steeped in history and architecture like Eureka Springs and the Ohio Club in Hot Springs, to places of emerging community and character like Plaza Frida, K Hall and Sons and White Water Tavern, all in Little Rock. You’ll also read stories about indomitable cities and towns rebuilding cherished places and creating community in an effort to leave things better than they found them. It’s my desire these stories serve as hope and inspiration in a time of growing disillusionment, division and distrust.

I’d like to express sincere thanks for again being given the opportunity to serve as editor for this edition of Block, Street and Building. It’s an honor to play a role in such a unique publication with an important mission, celebrating the best of urbanism in Arkansas.

James Walden, AICP,
is an urban planning leader with Garver.