Strengthening Community Sense of Place through Placemaking

Peter J Ellery,Jane Ellery

doi:10.17645/up.v4i2.2004

Abstract

The concept of community involvement and the effect that the act of “making” has on the community itself is a key consideration in the placemaking discussion (Project for Public Spaces, 2015a; Silberberg, Lorah, Disbrow, &amp; Muessig, 2013). From a historical perspective, community development has been placed in the hands of individuals who are considered experts in the creative process. This approach often results in targeted criticism of the proposed development by the host community and a lack of trust in the motives and priorities of the professionals involved (Nikitin, 2012) and diminishes community involvement in the development of public space, a practice that empowers communities and fosters a sense of place among community members. This article discusses the theoretical foundations of community participation and the value of coproduction in the planning and design process, explores the role of placemaking as a strategy for developing a host community’s sense of place, and proposes a continuum of placemaking strategies based on Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation to increase the likelihood that a sense of place within the host community will be developed as an outcome of the planning and design process. This continuum is designed to help planning and design professionals better understand how they might include the community in a co-produced process and to highlight the degree to which a placemaking approach to community planning and design promotes a sense of place as an outcome of the process.

Highlights

Sense of place is a concept that encapsulates the many different ways in which people form connections with the environments they occupy (Cross, 2001; Ruddick, 2014)
Urban Planning, 2019, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 237–248 and the aesthetic, tactile, or emotional bonds individuals form with a geographical place or setting (Steele, 1981); historical perspectives or the connection individuals create through the presentation and repetition of events within a certain place (Tuan, 1974); and sociological perspectives that consider community attachment and local sentiment based on how individuals both understand and are oriented toward a place (Jackson, 1994)
This article will investigate how placemaking has the potential to create a sense of place as an outcome of the planning and development process by exploring the question, can an understanding of the connection between placemaking and sense of place be used as a rationale for increasing citizen control during community change efforts?. This will be explored by summarizing findings related to participatory approaches as represented by diverse organizations in varied disciplines, highlighting the value seen when community members are at the forefront of community change processes, and connecting citizen power and community engagement to create a framework for thinking about a sense of place as an outcome for community change efforts

Summary

Introduction

Sense of place is a concept that encapsulates the many different ways in which people form connections with the environments they occupy (Cross, 2001; Ruddick, 2014). This will be explored by summarizing findings related to participatory approaches as represented by diverse organizations in varied disciplines, highlighting the value seen when community members are at the forefront of community change processes, and connecting citizen power and community engagement to create a framework for thinking about a sense of place as an outcome for community change efforts. This understanding of the connection between engagement and sense of place that emerges will allow community planners and developers to embrace a coproduction process as more than just a way of developing spaces that meet the needs voiced by a host community. The empower end of this continuum has a public participation goal of placing the final decisionmaking in the hands of the public and holds a promise that the professionals leading the project will implement the decisions the community makes

Informing

The Value Proposition

Using Placemaking to Create a Sense of Place

Conclusion