"Placemaking" - a new paradigm for true collaboration between authorities, real estate industry and local activists

While other fields like science or medicine have seen a stunning progress during the 20th century, urban development seems to be different: Newly developed neighbourhoods or cities are usually not considered to be superior to the historical ones in terms of livability, social cohesion or identity. Why is that? The rather few cases of successful newer neighbourhoods suggest that, to build a great city or neighbourhood, it takes trustful collaboration between very different disciplines, and an iterative process of co-creation and appropriation by residents and other local/civic actors. However, the professionalisation of disciplines over the last decades has usually lead to alienation of the relevant groups (like authorities, developers, residents/locals), rather than to a more professional collaboration.

As an antithesis to widespread urban planning practices, "Placemaking" has been coined as an umbrella-term in the late 1980es by Fred Kent and others in New York to describe a co-creative, community based…