Towards Better Participatory Planning: Guide to Place-Making
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Towards Better Participatory Planning: Guide to Place-making Master thesis in Spatial Planning Utrecht University Faculty of Geosciences Katarzyna Iwińska Student ID: 5894824 Under supervision of: Prof. Dr. Stan Geertman Department of Human Geography and Planning 2 Prologue and acknowledgments The journey through the thesis often felt like a journey without an and, similarly to place- making processes. It seems however that this particular journey has been accomplished, nevertheless, with great amount of lessons learned in the last couple of months. Having left Warsaw to study in Utrecht I knew I want to focus on participation in the planning field, the social side of urban development has always been my core focus. I did not know about place- making field though and having discovered it, I have a feeling of being in the right place of planning. Thanks to the conducted interviews I had an opportunity to meet great people, with open minds and open hearts, supporting others in changing their urban environments. One of the talks also lead me to start an internship at Stipo company, which I am currently enjoying to a great extent and discovering everyday new aspects of place-making but also the methods and strategies needed to work in the field. It also gave me an opportunity to participate in the Placemaking Week conference held in Amsterdam, with over 450 participants from all around the world. This experience showed me how many different projects are happening in those, often distant countries, yet all of them focusing on local places and local communities. The amount of energy and contacts gained during this week will stay with me hopefully for many more years. It is a shame that I got the chance to do the internship only in the last phase of writing the thesis, it seems there is still a lot to be explored. I would like to thank everyone who supported me through this, often bumpy journey. I would like to thank my supervisor, Stan Geertman for offering guidance and supervision in the last, too many months. I would like to thank my family also, without whom this whole year in the Netherlands would never happen. Last but not least, I would like to thank my boyfriend Olek, who was during all these months listening to my struggles and moanings and giving courage and motivating to finalize the below thesis. 3 Abstract Planning field has been evolving at a fast pace towards much more decentralized structure. Move from government to governance, initiatives originating within the civil society and many drawbacks of traditional participation indicate that there is a need for different approaches to be researched. One of them is place-making, a movement stemming from the opposition towards top-down, expert based urban development. Until now, there have not been many papers analysing the movement, therefore in the thesis it is analysed in-depth in order to see how can it can be of benefit to participatory planning practices. Initially, a literature review was carried out to comprehend the existing knowledge on place-making. After, through conducted interviews with organizers and participants of the processes, a better picture of the process and cases in the Netherlands was obtained. Place-making process aims at redeveloping places with the use of local community and while appreciating local existing assets. It puts a great emphasis on activation and empowerment of the users of the place, to allow for better collaboration in the later stage of the process and ultimately transfer of lead to the users. Furthermore, it encourages creation of places in a sustainable way; via collaboration among diverse actors from the area, both from public, private and civic sphere. Lastly, place-making adds further steps than only gathering ideas, such as programming and managing of the place by local users, who feel the mental ownership of the place. 4 Table of contents 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 8 1.1. Research questions ...................................................................................................................... 11 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .............................................................................. 12 2.1. Participatory planning ................................................................................................................ 12 2.1.1. Advantages of participatory planning .................................................................................. 12 2.1.2. Disadvantages of participatory planning ............................................................................. 13 2.1.3. Path towards self-organization ............................................................................................ 15 2.2. Project driven versus place and community driven approach ................................................ 15 2.2.1. Planning Professionals ......................................................................................................... 17 2.3. Place-making origins ................................................................................................................... 18 2.3.1. Around ‘place’ theme .......................................................................................................... 20 Trends in public space development .............................................................................. 21 2.3.2. Project for Public Spaces establishment .............................................................................. 21 2.4. Place-making definition .............................................................................................................. 23 2.4.1. Place-making content .......................................................................................................... 24 Creating better places ..................................................................................................... 26 2.4.2. Process ................................................................................................................................. 27 Place governance ........................................................................................................... 28 2.4.3. Types of place-making ........................................................................................................ 30 2.5. Disadvantages and challenges of place-making ........................................................................ 32 2.6. Synthesis ....................................................................................................................................... 34 3. METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................... 36 3.1. Research methods ........................................................................................................................ 36 3.1.1. Participant Observation ....................................................................................................... 36 3.1.2. Interviews ............................................................................................................................ 37 3.2. Limitations and generalisation ................................................................................................... 39 4. ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................................... 40 4.1. Place-making versus participatory planning ............................................................................ 40 4.1.1. Literature synthesis .............................................................................................................. 40 4.1.2. Empirical findings ............................................................................................................... 41 Participation – in all phases of the process .................................................................... 42 Design follows, from liveability to loveability .............................................................. 42 Outside-in approach ....................................................................................................... 43 Reverse city involvement ............................................................................................... 45 Cyclicality versus linearity ............................................................................................ 47 4.1.3. Process ................................................................................................................................. 49 Proactive research and involvement .............................................................................. 50 Place game ..................................................................................................................... 55 Place management team ................................................................................................. 58 Creating conditions for self-organization ...................................................................... 58 4.2. Success and failure factors of place-making ............................................................................. 60 5 Prerequisites ................................................................................................................... 61 Organizers ...................................................................................................................... 63 Scale ..............................................................................................................................