How Placemaking Lost its Way — And How it Can Get Back on Track

In an opinion piece in Strong Towns, Max Musicant and Shina Shayesteh argue that ‘placemaking’ has become a victim of its own success, with the term becoming diluted and monetized.

Per the authors:

Like so many other concepts that become buzzwords (often due in part to some real success and value), and then get used ad nauseum, “placemaking” has lost most of its functional meaning. When a once-specific concept starts to require qualifiers like “standard placemaking, “strategic placemaking, “creative placemaking,” “tactical placemaking,” or “placekeeping” to know what someone’s even talking about anymore, you know we’ve lost our way.

The authors point out three major problems with this loss: the vagueness of the term has led to a loss of meaning; its success has led to it becoming a “fundable priority” sometimes attached to projects that don’t truly improve a community; and ‘placemaking’ as a noun has turned an approach into a thing, expanding the term to include a variety of projects that don’t have lasting impact. “When everyone is imagining their own version of what this word means, collaboration becomes impossible.”

If placemaking is dead, what can be done to revive it? The authors offer three recommendations: eliminate the jargon; reclaim placemaking as a verb requiring context; and use more specific terms like “public art,” “play equipment,” or “seating” to describe projects that add to placemaking efforts, but don’t define them.