Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (14)
"Lola -Very interesting to learn of your family connection to the Grand Excursion of 1854!  And yes, I was aware of the Emma Bull War of the Oaks book - I read it shortly after it first came out and it helped inspire my sense that good old Minnesota…"
Feb 2, 2015
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (12)
"Aleksandar - I've read many of Friedman's columns but not "The World is Flat" book.  My understanding of it, though, is that it's really kind of the opposite of placemaking - i.e., emphasizing the increasing commonality of life throughout the 21st…"
Jan 23, 2015
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (8)
"Thanks, Aleksandar, for that link.  I wasn't familiar with it but yes, in my profession we do think increasingly about emergent systems and how this way of thinking can better serve the common good.

And thanks, Bonnie, for your encouragement.  I've…"
Nov 29, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (7)
"I have no illusions that terrapsychology and creative placemaking can be a recipe for world peace.  But I do hope - and have experienced - that they can sometimes bring about reconciliation in surprising ways.  I think theycan do so by moving us…"
Nov 16, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (5)
"Patricia - Exciting to hear that you read this blog while visiting our city.  Yes, bike trails, creeks and other waters are all treasured assets in this region, even in wintertime (which unofficially began today with our first snowfall of the…"
Nov 10, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (4)
"Fascinating work!  Dallas never fails to surprise me with the creativity that some of its citizens exhibit.  And certainly in my field of city planning we work from the perspective that visions of the future often are effective in helping to bring…"
Oct 26, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (3)
"Thanks for that suggestion, Aleksandar.  I probably won't be able to join - with my other responsibilities I'm needing to limit myself to my weekly (for now) blog, and a little dialogue with folks who comment.  "
Oct 25, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (3)
"Interesting observation about Aristotle's four causes correlating to synchronicities - i.e., what seems to be an amazing coincidence makes perfect sense as some other cause seeking realization.  I've heard Richard Tarnas propose that perspective as…"
Oct 20, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf left a comment for Kaeti Gugiu
"Hi, Kaeti - I appeciated your comment on my blog. Your story sounds fascinating. You mentioned leaving Bryn Mawr for the West Coast.  I'm always fascinating by migration from East Coast to West.  (Plus, my undergrad degree was from Swarthmore so I…"
Oct 16, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (2)
"Fantastic, Aleksandr!  I didn't know about that song and I appreciate you pointing me to it. "
Oct 12, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (1)
"I'll have some more extensive comments about Richard Florida in a future blog.  But briefly - I have a different understanding of creative placemaking than he.  His emphasis on the "creative class" implies that some occupations are creative and the…"
Oct 7, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking (1)
"Bonnie - I appreciate your reference to James Hillman.  It turns out that he was an important influence on my outlook.  I'll be discussing that in Post (3) forthcoming."
Oct 7, 2014
Mark VanderSchaaf commented on Mark VanderSchaaf's blog post Synchronicity at Joshua Tree
"All -
Thanks for your responses to my little summary of Joshua Tree.  This was my first adventure with blogging (I'm a lagging baby boomer when it comes to social media) but you're inspiring me to consider more..."
Sep 22, 2014

With today's blog post, I'm going to be wrapping up my series on Urban Terrapsychology and Creative Placemaking for the foreseeable future. 

In my last post I discussed how the people of the Upper Mississippi Valley became aware that the 1854 Grand Excursion went awry in some ways that were evident at that time, but in other ways that weren't evident until our own time.  The problem recognized in 1854 was Saint Paul's failure to exhibit appropriate hospitality to visitors.  The…

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In my last post I related how I discovered the story of the Grand Excursion of 1854 and determined that it was an event that I had intuitively been seeking for years - an event that could be repeated in some sense during its 150th anniversary in 2004 as a way both to celebrate ten years of riverfront revitalization and heal some deep wounds to the psyche of the city of Saint Paul. And indeed, as soon as I made that proposal, it was immediately embraced by city leaders all the way up to the…

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I began the year 1994 with a sense of anticipation.  To summarize items discussed in my previous blog posts: After three years of learning from mentors to think terrapsychologically, I found myself with -

* An awareness that my city of Saint Paul, MN was strong on neighborhood-focused soul, but weak on having a strong sense of itself as a centered city with a healthy ego. (Thanks to Robert Sardello for that insight.)

* Recognition that Saint Paul's inwardness stemmed in part from…

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My previous posts have discussed various elements that provided me with terrapsychological insight during the early 1990s.  Today I will outline an experience that was more unusual than those I've previously recounted - a relationship with a kind of meditative mandala that seemed to open my consciousness to archetypal dimensions of the region where I live.  And synchronistically, it was this mandala that led to my most successful and influential project as a city planner, which I will…

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As the year 1994 began I was prepared to translate the lessons I had learned from depth psychology into my work as a city planner in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  Perhaps the single most important lesson I had learned was to reframe the question that city planners first ask when embarking on a project.  That question had already evolved during the course of my lifetime in a positive way.  (Warning: Huge generalization coming.)  In my youth the question typically had been "What do experts think is…

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In 2014 the posts for this blog focused on the ways in which I began to view the world from a terrapsychological perspective, with my last post describing a 1993 conference entitled "What Makes a City: Myth and Maps" which my wife and I organized to begin community-wide discussions of this perspective.  In 1994, our work gained national attention and also led to an idea for a project that would apply the perspective to issues of riverfront development in the Upper Mississippi River…

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My last blog post described the 1993 "What Makes a City" conference in Saint Paul that featured Gail Thomas of the Dallas Institute and my spouse, Elizabeth VanderSchaaf, as co-keynote speakers.  Together they provoked reflection in the Twin Cities community about how to discern the myth (deeply true story) of a city, and how to perceive landscape patterns that manifest that myth. 

One objective of this conference was to prepare the way for launching an institute similar to the…

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1993 would be my final year of collaboration with the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.  But what an eventful and fruitful year it would turn out to be!

The 1992 Saint Paul Neighborhood Forum, described in my previous post, whetted the appetite in my community for approaching the city archetypally.  So later that year I began exploring opportunities to expand both the audience and the scope of the discussion.  I was able to find allies at a local Catholic women's…

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In early 1992 I had the opportunity to bring the insights I learned from the Dallas Institute into the life of Saint Paul, the city where I was working as a planner.  Several images and ideas were inspiring me at that time: the need for cities to advance culture but avoid the traps of imperialistic "civilization," the importance of having places of soul but also a strong civic spirit to bring a broader identify into focus, attentiveness to seven generations back and seven generations…

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For the last two weeks my blog has described how my emerging terrapsychological perspective in 1991 was enriched by mentoring from Robert Sardello of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.  He provided me with important insights about how cities should be centers of culture, nor civilization, but also how it is necessary for cities to have both strong souls (typically rooted in neighborhoods) and strong spirits (typically centered in downtowns).

I had another important…

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