Placemaking
Placemaking is an urban design approach that prioritizes the creation of public spaces tailored to the needs and preferences of community members. Emerging in the 1960s as a response to earlier urban planning practices, which often neglected the input of residents, placemaking emphasizes function over form. It aims to foster community well-being by incorporating nature and encouraging social interaction within these spaces. The concept encompasses four main types: standard, strategic, creative, and tactical placemaking, each with distinct methods for enhancing community life.
Standard placemaking focuses on improving the quality of life through basic enhancements like parks and public infrastructure. Strategic placemaking utilizes targeted improvements to stimulate economic growth, while creative placemaking integrates cultural elements such as art and music. Tactical placemaking takes a phased approach, allowing communities to test ideas through lower-cost initiatives before full implementation. While placemaking fosters vibrant community identities and connections, it has faced criticism for potentially leading to gentrification, which can displace original residents. Overall, when effectively executed, placemaking has the potential to enrich community life and promote well-being.
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Placemaking
Placemaking is a concept in community planning that emphasizes creating public spaces focused on the needs and preferences of the people who will use them. The concept, which originated in the 1960s, represented a departure from the previous community development style built around urban housing, shopping centers, and traffic patterns. Placemaking takes into consideration the area’s function over its form, is adaptable and inclusive, usually incorporates nature, emphasizes the overall health and well-being of the area’s users, and includes their input. Each of the four main types of placemaking has different features. However, they all emphasize serving the needs of many members of the community in which spaces are located.
Background
During the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century and continuing into the early part of the twentieth century, people increasingly moved from rural areas into cities in pursuit of jobs. The focus of these cities was often access to transportation or other assets needed for manufacturing, not the convenience or comfort of residents. In the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s, a focus of the national government was addressing a housing shortage. Along with this, there was an increase in shopping centers and the roads connecting them. Although the wave of post-World War II prosperity resulted in many people relocating to the suburbs, communities were often designed to use available space and incorporate as many people, stores, or vehicles as possible. There was little or no consideration of the needs or preferences of the people who used them, and almost no input from them was considered in the design process.
Community planning began to change in the 1960s. American Canadian journalist Jane Jacob and American urbanist William H. Whyte proposed urban designs that focused on the needs of the people who would use them and the function of the place, rather than transportation accessibility and connectivity. This was the origin of the placemaking concept, though the term was not used until several years later.
During the 1970s, urban planners began emphasizing areas that incorporated public spaces such as waterfronts, parks, and plazas that allowed and encouraged community gatherings. By 1975, Fred Kent had founded the Project for Public Spaces. Kent had collaborated with Whyte on the Street Life Project, which studied pedestrian behavior in New York, and was a recognized expert in the new form of urban planning. He began speaking about placemaking and assisting communities around the world by training planners and helping them implement placemaking concepts. By the early 2000s, the term was expanded to include creative uses of space, such as music and art-focused areas. These new spaces emphasize flexible and innovative ways to create community areas with the needs and preferences of end users in mind.
Overview
Placemaking is an urban design technique that emphasizes function and the needs and welfare of the people who will use a space during planning, design, construction, and upkeep. It goes beyond the physical area a place occupies and the purpose for which it will be used to consider the cultural identity and social needs of the people who will be using the space. Placemaking helps create an overall environment that meets people’s needs for connection and community and contributes to their well-being.
The four main types of placemaking are standard, strategic, creative, and tactical. Each type takes a slightly different approach to the goal of creating an appealing place that serves the physical, social, and emotional needs of its users.
Standard placemaking is the original and most universal form of placemaking. It focuses on designing places that enhance the quality of life for the people who will use them. Some examples include improving building facades and streetlights to create a more uniform and attractive downtown and adding parks and playgrounds to residential neighborhoods.
Strategic placemaking takes the concepts of standard placemaking and uses them for a specific purpose that will benefit the area and people in other indirect ways. A community may renovate dilapidated warehouses to create modern condominiums that will attract skilled workers or convert them into a museum highlighting the area’s past to attract tourists. In each case, strategic placemaking is intended to benefit the people who use the spaces while also improving the overall economic health of the area.
Creative placemaking focuses on ways to add art, music, and other forms of culture to an area. It can include such initiatives as art walks with street performers and art displays in stores, street corner performance spots for live entertainment, and outdoor concerts. Like other forms of placemaking, the projects can be permanent or temporary in nature. As long as the ultimate purpose is to improve the community to the benefit of its people in some way, the project is considered a type of placemaking.
Tactical placemaking uses the same goals and objectives as the other types but implements them in a different way. Instead of starting with a plan and going right to full implementation, the project is rolled out in stages. Tactical placemaking projects are often lower-cost and lower-risk in nature; for instance, an unused parking lot can easily be turned into a seasonal farmer’s market. This allows urban designers to test out interest in and the execution of projects before committing to a full launch.
Overall, placemaking helps create a sense of identity for a community and its people. This in turn attracts more people with similar interests to an area, increasing the sense of belonging and community for all. This creates vibrant, lively communities that can grow, support the people who live and work there, and attract even more people. Experts say that when placemaking is done well, it improves living conditions and contentment for the people who live and work in a community, contributing to their overall health and well-being.
Not everyone agrees that placemaking is a good method of urban development. Some criticize the practice for causing gentrification. Gentrification is what happens when poorer areas are improved by renovating rundown structures and improving such things as building facades, lighting, and the quality of housing. These changes tend to displace the original residents in favor of wealthier people who can afford the improved housing. In this case, critics say, placemaking hurts rather than benefits the original community.
Bibliography
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