Operationalizing Community Placemaking: A Critical Relationship-Based Typology

Placemaking is a relatively new planning technique formulated as an alternative to formal, comprehensive, top-down land-use planning. Instead of the statutory process and product, placemaking offers an open-ended, unstructured framework for planning and implementing focused interventions. This study applies a critical look at how this relatively loose framework operates in practice. Based on an investigation of community placemaking projects in southern Israeli cities, we present four models of placemaking, organized around two main axes: the goal axis, which ranges from a broad community goal to a narrow, predetermined aim, and the motivation axis, which ranges from internal to external motivation. The four types of placemaking emerging from the combination of these considerations are (1) traditional, (2) governmental, (3) artistic-economic, and (4) segregative, based on the varied socio-spatial relations between the stakeholders. This typology serves as a warning sign for possible ways that processes with loose boundaries can be exploited, and the setbacks to which they can lead. It offers a helpful framework for further advancements in placemaking, making it an effective tool for socially and environmentally sustainable urbanism.