Summary
The NCRCRD Place Action Working Group is hosting the placemaking conference, In Pursuit of Place Summit on June 23 – 25, 2026 at Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Rural placemaking involves numerous types of community planning and design activities by a wide variety of professions and community stakeholders. It’s also a burgeoning topic of interest to rural communities as well as a field of practice and research for both Extension and academics.
In response to this growth, the NCRCRD Place Action Working Group, comprised of Placemaking Extension professionals from six North Central Region land-grant universities, formed with the goal of developing and sustaining placemaking systems for academics, practitioners, and local change agents.
To that end, the Place Action Working Group is hosting the conference, In Pursuit of Place Summit on June 23 – 25, 2026 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This hands-on conference is designed for placemakers – Extension professionals, placemaking practitioners, and local change agents – to shape the future of placemaking through engaging sessions, immersive tours of local placemaking examples in the Green Bay area, and plenty of opportunities to collaborate.
In Pursuit of Place Summit Registration and Information
About the NCRCRD Place Action Working Group
Formed in 2024 with a three-year grant from NCRCRD, the Place Action Working Group’s plans include: Establishing a core community of practice through monthly meetings; hosting an inaugural place action summit for academics and practitioners from various backgrounds; developing a virtual repository of place action resources, best practices, and case studies; and producing new place action scholarship.
The six North Central Region land-grant institutions participating in the Working Group include: Michigan State University, Purdue University, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and University of Wisconsin.
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The North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD) is one of four Regional Rural Development Centers in the United States. NCRCRD’s work links the research and educational outreach capacity of our region’s 34 land-grant universities with rural communities to help address a wide range of development issues unique to our 12-state region.
The Center’s work is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.