Reexamining Notions of Placemaking

The placemaking ethos has produced many successful examples, according to an article by Zoya Gul Hasan, but "to delve more deeply into the process and outcomes of the placemaking movement is to find oneself in a mire."

Hasan asks if placemaking is "understood and defined clearly enough for it to be a useful tool for urbanists." Also the debate about placemaking has many critics and supporters: it's "simultaneously a much-lauded global movement, an academic discipline, a field, discourse, process, and tool, but is also, among other charges, heavily criticized..."

Hasan links to many sources that have raised questions about placemaking, regarding its connection to gentrification and the field of architecture, among other critiques. The article concludes by suggesting that 2018 should be a year of introspection by practitioners of placemaking.