Toward a Theoretical Understanding of Placemaking

Abstract

Historically, planners, community development groups, and other place-engaged organizations and practitioners have worked to elevate the importance of place and placemaking in economically, socially, and environmentally responsible development. However, recent studies have presented the concept of placemaking from professionally different perspectives using a variety of definitions to both rationalize and operationalize this still somewhat nebulous concept. This ambiguity surrounding the term placemaking is further compounded by the use of three different types of spellings for the term in the research literature, with none of the spellings having a clear, consistent, or universally accepted definition aligned to it. Without a common understanding of placemaking as a concept, or how placemaking works theoretically, measuring the value or impact placemaking has as a process on community development is conjectural. The purpose of this article is to provide a review of the academic research literature related to placemaking over the past 5 years, describe the current state of placemaking as a concept based on the issues raised in past literature, identify key theoretical principles that consistently support placemaking as it is being used in the research literature, and then use these principles to propose a theoretical model describing how placemaking works as a process. The theoretical model proposed in this work is offered for further examination, description, and testing and as a foundation for future research on the role placemaking plays in community development professional practice.