Creative Placemaking

Every rural community has the same two problems – workforce development and housing stock shortages. Even if we are successful in convincing someone to move to town, we don’t have anywhere for them to live. We love to incentivize companies to move to town – but then why are we not incentivizing people? Mannheimer speaks about his experience running theaters and restaurants in NYC to his 8-week, 22-city trek across the country in 2007 and settling in Des Moines, IA where he founded the Des Moines Social Club, to his current work in rural America. From the Mississippi Delta to northern Minnesota, utilizing creative placemaking, Mannheimer and his team work to revitalize small towns through cultural and entrepreneurial concepts to create innovative housing, cultural amenities and new jobs through their belief that new technologies like pilot-less cars and 3D printed buildings can leap over urban red-tape to impact rural America in meaningful and economic ways. Zachary Mannheimer, Principal Community Placemaker at McClure and founder and former Director of the non-profit Des Moines Social Club, works with communities to define their unique and use the arts as a catalyst to create unprecedented community engagement.