Placemaking

This introductory chapter discusses the concept of “placemaking” and how it has developed and expanded since its relatively recent origins. This book extends the remit of placemaking further to consider issues such as finance, law, and digital technologies, in addition to some more familiar applications. The structure of the book and the contents of the following chapters are introduced.

Places are the product of a myriad of influences and complexity. However, underpinning all placemaking activity is the legal and regulatory framework which provides a set of governing principles concerning the use of land that includes planning and development considerations. In the United Kingdom, the laws governing the planning system have changed over time and dispersed into separate and increasingly disparate jurisdictional laws and policies. Although this is a system created by central government it, amongst others, has been clear in criticisms of the planning system, describing it as outdated and ineffective, recognizing the need for simplicity, clarity and faster results. This chapter discusses the role and scope of law and policy in placemaking. In addition, it examines the future of the planning system, exploring, among other things, the emerging priority of beauty in placemaking.

As placemaking is rapidly changing the urban landscape, the way in which we view real estate assets and their value needs to adapt to meet evolving community demands, where people create places where they want to actually live, play, and work. Increasingly, space in the city is linked to younger generations and the emerging knowledge (gig) economy. This interconnection is shaping current and future cities skylines, with buildings that offer new working and living environments. Foremost are co-living/coworking spaces which are looking beyond the offering associated with traditional office and apartment complexes. Owners and investors need to understand the new avenues to create real estate value and seek opportunities to reap commercial rewards far beyond the historical property investment arrangements.

The governance of our towns and cities requires an approach that connects people with nature and places. Digital technology can be the glue that does this, if it serves the needs of the various stakeholders, including urban communities. It means identifying the potential connections across people, digital, and place themes, examining successful approaches, and exploring some of the current practice (or lack of it) in spatial planning and smart cities. This can be considered using a range of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies with other methodologies which combine the use of socioeconomic and environmental data about the urban environment. This ambient domain sensing can provide the ecological and other data to show how digital connectivity is addressing the placemaking challenges alongside providing implications for urban governance and communities.

Placemaking plays a crucial role in enhancing the quality of life in cities, necessitating a holistic approach and the incorporation of smart strategies. This study addresses the gap in existing research by exploring the integration of systems thinking and systems integration in smart placemaking within cities to make the placemaking more resilient, connected, and smart. The city is viewed as a system of interconnected and integrated smart places, where attractions, communication hubs, public spaces, and infrastructures seamlessly connect. The outcomes of smart placemaking include economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, health and well-being, safety and security, cultural preservation, innovation, and resilience. The research develops a framework that highlights the interconnectedness and interdependencies between systems thinking, systems integration, and smart placemaking. The framework provides guidance for city planners, urban designers, and policymakers in implementing effective strategies for creating vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable public spaces within the broader context of a smart and interconnected city.

Sustainability features in the national and local policies of many countries, but there is often a lack of clarity about what it means in practice. Interpretations of sustainable development (or sustainable cities and places) vary widely between different countries and social, economic, political, and environmental actors and interest groups influenced by underlying values and specific contexts. Considering the already-felt impacts of rapid climate change and ecological breakdown, continuing with business as usual will add more pollution, resource depletion, and lead to economic and societal turmoil under a massive shift or collapse in ecological and climate systems. A significant factor in past and current policy failures is that “weak” rather than “strong” sustainability models have been adopted laced with a voter-enticing rhetoric yet delaying painful (to the current status quo), but essential, changes in production and consumption and a shift in focus away from profit toward human and ecological well-being. This requires clear and ambitious legal, regulatory, and policy frameworks, yet also flexible approaches and “agency” of citizens, employees, employers, and politicians for transformation across different geographical and institutional levels, moving away from competition and greed, making room for experimentation and creativity and old and new forms of collaboration and sharing. Relevant concepts, principles, examples and critiques can be gleaned from the ecological economic, social–ecological transformation, and planning literature, offering direction for the kinds of shifts in placemaking to achieve social and environmental justice and well-being.

Particularly in response to rapidly changing circumstances and environments, conservation involves identifying and retaining an element of heritage, stability, and familiarity in both existing areas and informing the design of new areas. Yet this is a complex and contested process. It involves processes of valuation and selection: so whose heritage is being selected, prioritized, promoted, and retained, and whose is marginalized, redeveloped, and vanishes? And individuals and communities do change over time, so the views and values of those communities are also likely to change. Incomers do not necessarily share the same values as long-term residents. On a wider scale, what is generally accepted as worthy of conservation also changes with, for example, postwar modernism, brutalism, and postmodernism becoming accepted but difficulties with problematic heritage ‒ of war, destruction, slavery and exploitation, for example – being contentious and potentially splitting communities. What one generation values, particularly if it is (relatively) new, can be seen by others as disfiguring, and this is very evident in the contentious heritage identification and conservation of urban art and graffiti. We use a range of examples from the United Kingdom, Europe, and elsewhere to identify and critique the processes and products – the landscapes of heritage manipulation, the decision-making processes, the power of individuals and communities. All these are critical factors in the complex interrelationship between placemaking and conservation, new and old.

This chapter discusses the findings of a research project rooted in the unique context of a former Victorian square in South London squatted in the 1980s and 1990s. Over three decades, squatters (later homeowners and tenants) mended derelict houses, created two community gardens and green streets, and set up a vegetarian café locally. The square, an oasis in the middle of London, is now a fashionable neighborhood to live and visit because of its enduring artistic flair and alternative cultural “feel.” Through ethnographic methods, our research focused on how residents transformed derelict buildings and neglected spaces and on the evolving dynamics of this neighborhood undergoing progressive gentrification, reflecting similar trends in many other neighborhoods in London. This chapter analyses these informal practices as examples of creative placemaking. Framed by the intricate interplay between the community's initiatives and the challenges posed by contemporary processes of regeneration and gentrification, we explore how such practices shaped both the material fabric of the place as well as its immaterial character: its sense of community and identity and the feelings and memories associated with its built environment. Informed by Lefebvre's theories on the social production of space and the right to the city, our analysis emphasizes the importance of informality, everyday practice, spontaneity, and self-management in shaping and sustaining a vibrant urban culture. By exploring how these elements intersect with forces of regeneration and gentrification, this chapter aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of creative placemaking, the complex dynamics at play in the ongoing transformation of urban spaces, and the resilience of bottom-up, community-driven placemaking initiatives in the face of external pressures.

This chapter focuses on the political dimension of placemaking. While placemaking has the potential to foment political change, recent discussion about placemaking seems to revolve around its methods and outcomes. Departing from the perspective of placemaking as outcome, this chapter positions placemaking as a dynamic process, shifting attention to the actors involved and their motivations. This political dimension is explored by adopting a framework of the right to the city, enabling a critical examination of existing power structures and circumstances in the transformation of the urban landscape. Drawing on a few cases of placemaking to illustrate the questions about who has the right to make places, this chapter emphasizes the need for structural change in the transformation of urban spaces for public use. As the current approach for placemaking is criticized for fueling social inequalities, asymmetrical political processes, and spatial issues, such as gentrification and displacement, a new framework is required to reorientate placemaking toward a people-led approach. This chapter shows how, by employing the right to the city framework, placemaking can be interpreted beyond its physical outcomes as a unique set of conditions and circumstances that facilitate or hinder people's ability to make a place. Moreover, the right to the city provides a lens to examine the processes involved in the transformation of the urban landscape and acknowledges the potential of placemaking to challenge these processes.

This chapter outlines a selection of significant ideas emerging from research investigating the implications of the redefinition of theories of perception presented in the book Overlooking the visual (Moore, 2010). This is based on a sequence of case studies beyond the academy, establishing a strategic landscape-led approach to placemaking at a regional scale that culminates in the West Midlands National Park, officially launched in 2018 at Birmingham City University. We argue that this is the perfect time to take stock, see the bigger picture, and take a new look at regional planning – not as it has been traditionally conceived, but from a landscape perspective. This is “landscape regional design.” This is essential if we want to create better, more resilient places.

This chapter reinforces the overall premise of the book: placemaking is here to stay, has become an integral part of decision-making for the built environment, has much of value to offer, and should encompass all layers of our diverse urban communities. Nevertheless, even dominant paradigms need critical attention, and this chapter reinforces the contributions of the individual chapters and the overall message that placemaking needs to be more holistic, to demonstrate more “joined-up thinking”, in a fast-changing world in which our growing urban areas need to prepare for climate change and other uncertainties.