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In an era where celebrities, violence, and nationalism dominate perceptions of power, a more foundational and authentic source of power is how people and places build each other up. Public spaces, and the people that protect and improve them, transcend borders and reflect all stripes of humanity. People that practice placemaking to transform their communities are usually local and global citizens first, and bridge all kinds of barriers - from spatial and sectoral silos, to divides amongst demographics and disciplines.
Disconnection From Each-Other, and From Our Places, Is At the Core of What Threatens Our Health, Happiness and Humanity
Places fail and succeed at the scale of human interaction. How our public realm supports a full spectrum of informal to formal connection is foundational to a viable, equitable and thriving civilization. Our divides and our crisis of disconnection are so deep that they threaten our ability to keep humanity going on this planet. The dominant culture is one of "place-taking," extractive of the shared value of what people and nature have built up over time.
Placemaking is about building up the shared value of our public realm and deepening our connection to, and support of, each other and our places. Led by, and for, existing inhabitants, placemaking attracts people, tourism and investment on the terms of locals. The process of placemaking also sustains and integrates with "placekeeping" and "indigenous placemaking," preserving and adding layers of shared purpose and meaning to public space.
The best way to disrupt our downward spiral of place-taking is with the virtuous cycle of placemaking. While driving enough private value to sustain investment, placemaking aims to uncover the unlimited potential of what people can accomplish together through shared spaces. Placemaking works to grow the collective power of people and places to build each other up.
The best way to disrupt our downward spiral of place-taking is with the virtuous cycle of placemaking.
Public space networks are perhaps the soil or substrate of human civilization, and the people leading their ongoing placemaking and place management could be understood as the mycelium and seed savers that work to maintain the richness of the soil and life that it supports. Place-takers are like mono-crops in agriculture; they take from a healthy underlying ecosystem and deplete it over time. It is the richness of public space, and how people help them become purposeful places, that may be most foundational to the further success of civilization.
Organizing around public space hubs and networks of creativity, inclusivity, and openness, this softer power can build resilience from global threats like climate change, polarization, or isolation. If we think of the modern human world as rooted in and connected by dynamic networks of public spaces and people that support them, we can turn upside down how we invest in, govern and manage our cities to start with places.
The PlacemakingX Global Placemaking Summit recently convened 150 of the world's placemaking leaders in Mexico City to set the course for the global placemaking movement and supporting the 30+ regional placemaking networks with emerging cross-cutting global agendas.
This moment represents a major evolution point for placemaking, having launched the movement over 10 years ago from Project for Public Spaces. We started PlacemakingX in 2019, almost 5 years ago, with the goal of decentralizing and networking the movement globally, and have since seen strong self-organization around the very adaptive and nimble regional and national networks.
The regional networks include Placemaking Europe, Amaken Placemaking(Arab Placemaking Network), Placemaking America Latin, Placemaking Asia, Centre on African Public Spaces.
National and regional placemaking networks in a rough order of formation include:
2013: Placemaking Leadership Council (The network we founded while at Project for Public Spaces to launch the movement, with the goal of decentralizing after 5 years)
2014: Placemaking Aotearoa(New Zealand)
2015: Placemaking Brasil
2016: Placemaking Canada, Placemaking America Latina,
2017: Placemaking Nairobi, Placemaking Europe,
2018: UK Placemaking Collective
2019: Placemaking India, Placemaking Australia, Placemaking Colombia, Placemaking Asia
2020: Placemaking Japan, Fundación Placemaking México, PlacemakingUS, Placemaking Pakistan, Amaken Placemaking, Placemaking in the Nordics
2021: Placemaking Cuba, PLACEMAKING Malaysia, Placemaking Nepal
2022: Placemaking Western Balkans, Placemaking Bangladesh
2023: Placemaking Costa Rica, Placemaking Switzerland, Placemaking Pilipinas, Placemaking Thailand, Amaken Qatar, Placemaking Denmark
2024: Placemaking Mongolia, Placemaking Sweden, Placemaking Emirates, Placemaking Poland, Placemaking Norway (and more coming soon!)
Informed by, and looking to support, these networks, the next evolution of placemaking movement will include cross-cutting agendas that are being formed with similar structures and process to the regional networks. Each agenda has leaders that have emerged, and seeking out additional leaders, while helping to take responsibility for guiding and growing the learning, advocacy and action of the network.
We invite placemaking leaders to join these regional and agenda networks to help them realize their potential. Next we're looking to support more targeted Summits on these agendas, likely tied to other placemaking conferences or as stand-alone events.
As the movement has established and defined itself we also look to support adjacent causes and movements that are starting to see how a focus on place and placemaking can help them more systemically address their goals while leveraging talent, ideas, and resources for broader collaboration.
These networks and agendas are all designed to keep each-other accountable, challenged and inspired. Each part of the world is leading the placemaking conversation from different strengths. Whether from a dominant discipline, sector, or demographic, every strength has much to offer and teach the rest of the world, but also can dominate locally to the detriment of others being able to participate and shape the discourse, and their places.
The way to correct, and benefit from, our inevitable imbalances and misdirections in how we shape our places is to keep the learning feedback networked globally. In the end, we're all interconnected, and we will need to learn on a global scale how to work together on all scales for humanity to continue to have a place on this planet. The global placemaking community stands ready to support you from wherever you are at in your placemaking journey.
