Primacy of Place™

 Primacy of Place represents a community's strategic choice to dedicate its resources toward the improvement of life experiences for residents, businesses, and visitors.    

For more than 25 years, Ball State University’s Building Better Communities (BBC) has provided comprehensive services that take place in or for the benefit of community partners throughout the state of Indiana. These partnerships serve to engage university faculty, staff, and students in addressing a wide range of community challenges. The Primacy of Place Initiative is premised on the idea that a great state is comprised of great communities, and those communities can improve themselves in partnership with Ball State University.

Primacy of Place represents a community’s strategic choice to dedicate their resources toward placemaking and the improvement of life experiences for residents, businesses, and visitors.  Today, the most successful communities are those that recognize the critical importance of human capital in order to compete effectively for economic development. Talent is the single most important element in local economic development, and we believe quality of place is the primary factor in a community’s ability to attract and retain talent.

Primacy of Place activities planned for the upcoming year include:     

Primacy of Place Community Awards - The Primacy of Place Community Awards Program will publicly recognize communities making quality of place their priority because place matters to people and people matter to business.   

Primacy of Place Conference - The Primacy of Place Conference scheduled for September 20, 2013 is designed to bring together business and civic leaders to share and explore the art of developing, attracting, and retaining talent through quality of place initiatives.    

Primacy of Place Knowledge Groups - As part of the university’s focus on Primacy of Place, quality of place, and human capital development, Building Better Communities is collaborating on the creation of several extended knowledge groups. The groups will be a featured element of the Primacy of Place Conference as well as provide the intellectual and creative resource for deploying knowledge to Indiana communities. Knowledge groups are being formed around the following functional areas:  Arts Integration in Community Economic Development, Downtown Vitality, Community Wellness, Local Government, Design, Public Education Reform, and Community Readiness for Change.  

Primacy of Place Best Practices Databases  - The Primacy of Place Best Practices Databases are an important element of the strategy to establish Ball State University as Indiana’s unchallenged thought and practice leader in this realm. The databases, to be hosted on Ball State’s website, will provide an ever-evolving set of information in a variety of categories relevant to Primacy of Place.  

For more information or to become involved in the Primacy of Place Initiative, contact Building Better Communities at placemaking@bsu.edu or 765-285-2773.   

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