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Are you interested in place and place-making?

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Our summary today works with the article titled Place and Place-making in cities: A global perspective from 2010, by John Friedmann, published in the Planning Theory and Practice journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with James Mant in episode 334 talking about placemaking as creating the streetscape from the building to the middle of the road.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see the place and placemaking through interactions and citizen attachment. This article advocates for a collaborative approach to placemaking, emphasising the importance of local engagement.

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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today we will introduce a research by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original investigation, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole documentation. This conversation was produced and generated with Notebook LM as two hosts dissecting the whole research.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever felt that pull from a certain spot in your city, a feeling that goes way beyond just knowing the address? Maybe it’s that little park where you always seem to see the same faces or that one quirky bookstore you can just spend hours in.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Speaker 1: Today we’re diving deep into what transforms mirror urban space into a real place. Those hubs of community that feel so vital, especially with everything changing so fast in our cities.

Speaker 2: It’s a really fascinating question, isn’t it? And one that I think often gets lost when we talk about urban development. We tend to focus so much on the physical stuff. Yeah. The new buildings, the infrastructure.

Speaker 1: Like a concrete and steel.

Speaker 2: Exactly. And we sometimes overlook those less tangible things, those crucial connections that really weave our neighbourhoods together and make them feel like home.

Speaker 1: Exactly. And that’s why we’ve been exploring John Friedman’s work place and placemaking in cities, a global perspective.

Speaker 2: It’s about getting a deeper understanding of the soul of our cities, you could say, and Friedman gives us a really valuable framework for thinking about this. He challenges us to look beyond just the physical geography and really consider the human element, the lived experiences that actually give a location mean. Before we dive into the specifics, it’s probably worth noting something Freedman points out.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: While this whole idea of place has become a big area of study since maybe the 1990s,

Speaker 1: right? Across different fields.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Social sciences, geography. He notes that a lot of the research has really centred on cities in, well, the Atlantic region. Europe and North America mostly, and his work deliberately tries to broaden that perspective, looking much more towards the rapidly growing cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Speaker 1: Which is so important because our understanding shouldn’t just be based on London or New York.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Especially with the incredible pace of urbanization happening elsewhere. Yeah. With totally unique cultural contexts, how people interact with their city and Taipei is different from how they do in Lagos or Rio.

Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense. What is a place really? How does Friedman define it?

Speaker 2: He gives us a really useful starting point. He defines a place as small three dimensional urban space.

Speaker 1: Small scale. Okay.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Small scale, and crucially one that holds deep value for its inhabitants.

Speaker 1: So it’s not just the physical space,

Speaker 2: not at all. The key takeaway here is that a real place isn’t just bricks and mortar, it’s infused with a heart and soul of its people. It’s that blend of the physical surroundings and those really important feelings of community.

Speaker 1: And I know we also looked at Tim Creswell’s work, which adds another layer.

Speaker 2: That’s right. Creswell coming from human geography. He really emphasizes that place isn’t static. It’s not fixed. Okay. It’s constantly being shaped and reshaped through what he calls

Speaker 1: reiterative social practice. So like the daily routines.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Think of your favorite spot. It’s not just a location. It’s constantly being influenced by the everyday things that happen there, the interactions, the habits. Okay. He sees a place as an unstable stage for performance, almost like an ongoing event that’s marked by openness and change rather than something rigid.

Speaker 1: That idea of a performance stage that really clicked when we looked at the Su Tree Temple example in Taiwan. Yep. Can you paint a picture of that for us? What makes it such a good illustration?

Speaker 2: So imagine a typical Saturday morning. This is in Shia, a bustling town just outside Taipei, right? The air is just alive. You’ve got hundreds of motor scooters zipping through the streets, vendors shouting market saws, packed with fresh produce, seafood. Everything imaginable. Sounds

Speaker 1: intense.

Speaker 2: It is. And right in the middle of all this vibrant chaos stands, the Soso Temple,

Speaker 1: and it’s not tucked away. It’s right in the thick of it.

Speaker 2: Friedman’s description highlights this incredible mix of activities that we might normally think of as the secular and the sacred, like what people are there offering prayers. You can smell the incense. At the same time, there might be a sound truck parked outside blaring promotions for a local election, huh? Kids are playing games. Neighbours are stopping to chat, catching up on gossip. It’s this constant ebb and flow of daily life happening right in and around the temple grounds.

Speaker 1: So it’s like the community’s pulse is right there, and that connects back to Creswell’s idea then. Places being animated by these repeated social practices.

Speaker 2: Precisely. The religious rituals, the everyday shopping, even the local politics, it’s all happening in the same space. Wow. The temple isn’t just a building, it’s the stage, like Creswell says, for these recurring social interactions.

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: The daily routines, the big annual celebrations, they all collectively define the character of that

Speaker 1: place and that pattern continues even if the building itself changes.

Speaker 2: That’s what Friedman notes. The temple’s been rebuilt multiple times over centuries. It’s had ongoing renovations, but that fundamental pattern of social life, that performance of community persists, that’s what shapes and sustains the place.

Speaker 1: Fascinating. Beyond this dynamic social aspect, I. Freedman also lays out some specific criteria for what makes a place. The first one was small scale.

Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. He argues that these authentic places are typically pedestrian friendly. They’re built on a human scale,

Speaker 1: which encourages

Speaker 2: those spontaneous, unplanned encounters, chatting with a shopkeeper, bumping into a neighbour on the street. It allows connections to form easily, organically,

Speaker 1: which is so different from, say. Driving through miles of sprawl,

Speaker 2: totally different. It contrasts sharply with the isolating effect of these large car dependent areas,

Speaker 1: or those massive impersonal spaces like a giant shopping mall. You’re surrounded by people, but you don’t feel any real connection

Speaker 2: precisely, which leads right into his second criterion. A place must be inhabited.

Speaker 1: Lived in. Lived in. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Which naturally leads this ongoing process where residents shape and transform things physically. Maybe someone paints a mural or community garden pops up in an empty lot. And socially too, as people interact, build relationships, maybe argue resolve conflicts all over time. This is what distinguishes these genuine places from what Mark Ojay famously called non places. Uh,

Speaker 1: yes. The non places. Airports. Big chain hotels.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Those generic hotels or sprawling shopping centers. Freedman also mentions they often lack a distinct soul, as James Howard Kunstler might put it to they’re transient spaces, not really shaped by the long-term presence and shared history of a stable community.

Speaker 1: Small scale, yeah. Inhabited. And the third crucial element is that a place must be cherished. This sounds like the emotional core.

Speaker 2: This is where that deep value, that emotional bond, that sense of belonging really comes into play.

Speaker 1: And when does that become most obvious?

Speaker 2: Often when the neighbourhood faces some kind of threat, maybe proposed demolitions like we’ll discuss later, or even just significant changes in who lives there. That’s when you see that attachment surface.

Speaker 1: People rally together.

Speaker 2: Yes, neighbours organize to protect their community, or they make an effort to welcome and integrate newcomers. Friedman even suggests that the sheer number and variety of local volunteer groups in a neighbourhood can be like a tangible indicator of this deep rooted place attachment.

Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. If you really care about your neighbourhood, you invest your time, your energy, you show up. You mention another really interesting concept that builds on this centring. What’s that about?

Speaker 2: Yeah. This idea comes from the anthropologist step F. He suggests that for places to really come alive and hold, meaning they often need one or more centres.

Speaker 1: Centres like physical spots

Speaker 2: can be physical, maybe symbolic spaces, places that encourage people to encounter each other to gather. Think back to the Seuss, say temple.

Speaker 1: Oh, that’s clearly a centre for its neighbourhood.

Speaker 2: It’s the focal point, isn’t it? Where all those different threads of community life seem to converge. Flesh Wang describes placemaking as fundamentally involving gathering, centring, and linking. He contrasts these centred places, which are built on familiarity, shared experiences, trust with the modern obsession with progress.

Speaker 1: How does he see progress?

Speaker 2: He calls it a kind of vanishing point. Always focus on the future, always moving forward, potentially overlooking the vital importance of these grounded local connections.

Speaker 1: So these centres create a strong sense of belonging. Friedman calls it interiority or identity.

Speaker 2: Yes. But crucially, they’re not closed off or insular. They remain open to the wider world. And so they’re constantly evolving.

Speaker 1: They provide an anchor, but they’re still dynamic.

Speaker 2: Exactly. They provide that core sense of identity, but they’re subject to change. And it’s really interesting to compare this idea of centring with Randolph Hester’s concept of sacred spaces.

Speaker 1: These are the places within a community that hold such deep significance,

Speaker 2: cultural or personal significance. Yeah.

Speaker 1: That they really should be preserved in any planning decisions.

Speaker 2: HESTA argues, these aren’t always grand monuments. They can be buildings, outdoor areas, even specific landscapes that really embody the everyday life patterns and rituals of a community.

Speaker 1: So they’re integral to the collective identity.

Speaker 2: Deeply integral people identify with them profoundly. He uses the example of Manilla, that historic fishing village in North Carolina, right? And the sacred places. There weren’t necessarily churches or historic homes. They were often quite humble everyday spots, a particular fishing dock, a beloved local diner people gathered at.

Speaker 1: It’s fascinating that these places, which are so vital, are often the ones locals might just take for granted.

Speaker 2: Totally. They’re just woven into the fabric of daily life, almost invisible until they’re threatened. Hester really emphasizes the practical value of actually identifying and mapping these sacred places for urban planning.

Speaker 1: How’s it practical?

Speaker 2: It takes these often vague ideas like quality of life and makes them concrete, tangible factors you can actually consider in development decisions. He even said, I think that if he could only make one map of a community to guide decisions,

Speaker 1: it would be the sacred places map.

Speaker 2: Yes. Because it gives the most crucial insights into what truly matters to the people who live there,

Speaker 1: whether we call them centres or sacred spaces. These focal points are clearly fundamental for nurturing that vital sense of place. But what happens when these places are lost? That brings us to the really difficult side of this, the erasure of place. Displacement.

Speaker 2: Indeed. And Friedman is very direct about this. He describes the erasure of established places as a fundamentally violent act.

Speaker 1: Violent, that’s strong language.

Speaker 2: It is. But he argues it’s accurate because it inevitably severs established human relationships. It dismantles the social networks that hold a community together. It’s far more than just tearing down buildings. It’s ripping apart the social fabric

Speaker 1: and the example he uses from Beijing, the Huong demolitions. That really drives this point home, doesn’t it?

Speaker 2: It’s a truly stark illustration. Can you imagine waking up one morning and seeing a huge character painted on your wall a ZE, and you’ve got weeks, maybe just days to leave the place you’ve lived for decades.

Speaker 1: It’s horrifying to think about

Speaker 2: where your family has history, where your whole social world is based. Between 1998 and the run up to the 2008 Olympics, hundreds of thousands of residents were officially displaced from these old alleyway neighbourhoods in the heart of Beijing,

Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands. The scale is just staggering.

Speaker 2: It is, and for those people, the loss was so much more than just their physical homes. They lost the familiar faces, the intimate streets. They knew like the back of their hand. The lifetime of social connections

Speaker 1: and the new places they were moved to

Speaker 2: often modern apartment blocks on the city’s periphery. But these places frequently lacked the social infrastructure, the sense of community they’d known. People felt isolated, surrounded by strangers, cut off from the rhythms of their old lives.

Speaker 1: Friedman makes it clear this isn’t just a Beijing story. This happened

Speaker 2: all over. He connects it to Jane Jacobs’s, work on urban renewal, destroying vibrant neighbourhoods in the us. Peter Mars’s research on rehousing in Lagos, Nigeria just devastating social consequences, shattering livelihoods, breaking up families. Janice Pullman studies on favela evictions. Mindy fully loves concept of root shock as describing the trauma for displaced African American communities.

Speaker 1: It’s a recurring, deeply troubling pattern.

Sometimes older areas do need upgrading, but Friedman’s point is that this kind of wholesale erasure,

Speaker 2: it’s a human decision.

Speaker 1: Yes, with immense, often ignored human costs. Loss of cherished neighbourhoods, loss of that sense of place, loss of identity.

Speaker 2: And he points out how we use these seemingly neutral terms

Speaker 1: like slum clearance

Speaker 2: or gentrification redevelopment. They mask what is for the people elected a profoundly disruptive and often painful process.

Speaker 1: And the media often focuses on the shiny new buildings.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Celebrations of globalization, symbols of progress. While the human stories, the lives uprooted get pushed aside.

Speaker 1: It’s almost like some academic views. Like Nigel Thrifts, kinda lean into that.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Suggesting place isn’t as important anymore.

Speaker 2: Yeah, thrift and others have argued that in our super connected nanosecond world with technology, letting us communicate across any distance that the significance of specific geographical locations might be diminishing. They talk about these fluid flows of people, information, money leading potentially to a dis instantiated world where local ties weaken.

Speaker 1: But Friedman pushes back on that, doesn’t he?

Speaker 2: He does. He offers a really crucial counterpoint. He suggests that maybe this instantiated view is more of a class-based perspective. It might reflect the experience of those who are more mobile, who have the resources to travel and connect globally, who aren’t as reliant on their immediate neighbourhood for support.

Speaker 1: Whereas for many other people,

Speaker 2: for many, perhaps most people, their local neighbourhood remains incredibly vital for daily life, for social connection,

Speaker 1: for wellbeing. So for them, the loss of place has very real, very significant consequences.

Speaker 2: Which brings us, thankfully to the critical importance of placemaking,

Speaker 1: communities taking action,

Speaker 2: and some really inspiring examples of how people are actively shaping and sustaining the places they call home.

Speaker 1: Yes. Because after highlighting all that potential for loss, Friedman really argues for actively reclaiming and rehumanizing our urban neighbourhoods.

Speaker 2: He does. He makes that powerful statement. Making places is everyone’s job.

Speaker 1: I love that. It’s such a contrast to that purely top-down, bureaucratic planning approach.

Speaker 2: He emphasizes how vital it is for planners, for policymakers to actually engage with residents, to listen to them acknowledge their right to the city, their local knowledge.

Speaker 1: Because historically, most vibrant neighbourhoods didn’t come from a master plan, did they?

Speaker 2: Usually, no. They grew organically from people living their lives, interacting daily, shaping their surroundings over time,

Speaker 1: and the focus really needs to be on the needs of ordinary people. Sometimes it’s the small things,

Speaker 2: but sanitation, a safe playground, paving a rough street.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: These seemingly small improvements can have a huge impact on daily life and that sense of belonging.

Speaker 1: So where are the examples of this working? You mentioned Japan.

Speaker 2: Japan has this longstanding tradition of neighbourhood associations, takai.

Speaker 1: They’re known for strong community bonds,

Speaker 2: very strong, and while they haven’t always had huge formal political power, freed men highlights the Kobe earthquake.

Speaker 1: What happened then,

Speaker 2: when the central government systems were overwhelmed, these well-organized neighbourhood associations were absolutely crucial in the initial recovery efforts. They just stepped up and that experience helped fuel the MHI Zuri movement. Which is all about citizen participation in local governance. Now, there’s even legislation supporting NPOs involved in this. It shows how local initiative can really drive change.

Speaker 1: So it sounds like there’s no single magic formula for placemaking.

Speaker 2: No. Friedman concludes. There isn’t. It’s always deeply tied to the specific cultural context, the history of the place,

Speaker 1: but there’s a common thread.

Speaker 2: A common crucial thread seems to be the role of government, not necessarily controlling everything, but providing support, resources, enabling these autonomous neighbourhood led initiatives to flourish. I.

Speaker 1: We’ve really journeyed through quite a bit. We’ve seen how a place is so much more than just a physical spot.

Speaker 2: It’s actively created, continually sustained by the people who live there

Speaker 1: through their daily interactions, the shared spaces. They value that whole sense of community.

Speaker 2: And we’ve also looked at the darker side. The devastating impact on these vital places are lost through displacement.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that was tough, but important. But then we also saw the hopeful potential when communities are actually empowered to participate in shaping their own places, the

Speaker 2: placemaking initiatives. Yes.

Speaker 1: And as Friedman suggests, really understanding these dynamics, it helps you, our listener, see your own neighbourhood differently, right.

Speaker 2: To look at it with fresh eyes, appreciate the often unseen forces shaping its character. Yeah. And maybe even think about your own role.

Speaker 1: Yeah, your own role in shaping its future. So here’s a final thought to maybe chew on. Mm. In a world that seems so focused on speed, efficiency, global connections, how do we make sure that these small vital local places in our cities don’t get forgotten?

Speaker 2: That’s a big question.

Speaker 1: And how can we actively contribute to nurturing them, helping them renew themselves?

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What is the future for cities podcast?

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