Deconstructing Placemaking: Needs, Opportunities, and Assets

by Mahyar Arefi

A new taxonomy of placemaking is needed; concerns have been expressed about the professionalization of placemaking through the proliferation of standards, zoning codes, and restrictive covenants. "Place matters" has become a mantra in many disciplines - architecture, urban planning and urban design, geography, and sociology to name a few. While conceptualized narrowly by individual disciplines, a holistic framework of placemaking is sorely missing. Mahyar Arefi seeks to fill this gap by exploring these how are places physically created, socially mobilized, and politically contested? This book explores three competing approaches to need-based, opportunity-based, and asset-based. Using a case study approach, the book delves into each paradigm and its stages of physical formation, social mobilization, and political contestation.

150 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014