We highlight here some great articles we’ve read this week dealing with art, creative placemaking, and building great communities. You’re sure to find some inspiration to make your life and our community even better!

1. How to Paint a “Love Letter” to a City: He says he hopes that people will be inspired by the work and make their own love letters to their cities … “I like to think of myself as a visual blues musician—I’m painting love songs”.

2.  Big Park, Great City?: Parks can raise city profiles, stimulate development, increase property values, attract tourists and, most importantly, improve the quality of life for urban dwellers.

3. More Parking and Walkable Michigan Cities: (The) parking commission was looking at a new pricing strategy … to encourage people to save a buck and walk or take a shuttle to get to work. The resistance? A “front door” mentality among downtown workers who want to be as close as possible to the entrance…. Michigan has 14 million off-street parking spaces — stunning, since our population is under 10 million.

4. Author Teju Cole on the Film “Red”: Kieślowski explores the experiences of two people who live in the same city, visit the same places, touch the same doorknobs. Does their proximity have any meaning? Will they meet?

5. Art Flies from a Chicago Rooftop: Each month, Lillstreet uses its airy Rooftop Project Space for “exhibitable work outside of a four-wall paradigm”.