Learning from everyday placemaking for inclusive and socially sustainable places

Abstract

By 2050, the global urban population is projected to reach 6.7 billion, with nearly 90% of the growth expected to occur in Africa and Asia (UN DESA, 2018). Given this rapid growth, two things are evident. For one, infrastructure that secures livelihoods must be built and maintained. At the same time, the importance of qualitative aspects such as the increased quality of life in cities needs to be focused on. In order to strengthen urban quality of life, the development needs to be people-centred, should enable participation and promote responsibility for public spaces (i.e. United Nations, 2016). Therefore tools are needed that foster social sustainability, inclusion and bottom-up approaches to create places that are tailored to the peoples’ needs. This is particularly true in fast-growing cities.

Based on these premises, this contribution takes the people-centred development of urban spaces as its starting point and asks the following question: What can be learned from everyday patterns (everyday placemaking) in order to achieve an inclusive and socially sustainable design of places (strategic placemaking)?

Placemaking can generally be classified into two approaches: the everyday and the strategic. Everyday placemaking refers to the sociocultural appropriation of space. It is assumed that social structures can be experienced in spaces and that every society produces its own places. Therefore, places are not only physical but also social constructs that result from human interactions and are structured and shaped by a community's habits and routines (i.e. Healey, 2010; Lefebvre, 1991). Strategic placemaking is a spatial design strategy guided by planners and implemented by the community. Its aim is to enhance the quality of life and place by integrating creative, cultural, and social processes. This approach transforms physical spaces into socially meaningful places. Placemaking is an integrative planning approach that has been increasingly discussed as a possible effective instrument to enhance socially sustainable urban development (i.e. Healey, 2010; Schneekloth and Shilbley, 1995).

To answer the initial question, urban studies in the public spaces of mixed-use areas in two fast-growing cities - Phnom Penh in Cambodia and Hanoi in Vietnam - were conducted. A team of local researchers participated in the life in six different places for six days and analysed the places' rhythms using methods such as mapping, observing, and photographing. The places observed were community spaces, urban kitchens, living and dining rooms at the same time; many doors were open, which is a symptom of a neighbourly community and a signal of mutual trust. Despite the dominance and loudness of traffic, community life and social practices took place in front of the house. Thus, in addition to people who care about each other and their place, what is needed is an opportunity and a place that allows for appropriation and offers an invitation to linger and meet others.  The place studies showed that in this regard the best places are the most easily accessible ones - those in front of houses and those that give people space to express themselves. Hence, an essential task of planning in the sense of placemaking is to strengthen the connection between people and places through a bottom-up process and to take the rhythm of a place as the baseline for future improvements.

The contribution concludes with a manifesto for strategic placemaking to achieve inclusive and socially sustainable places in a rapidly changing world, based on experiences gathered in the given place studies.