Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

In policy and academic discourses on urban matters, placemaking and quality of life are key concepts. Placemaking is defined as the act by city stakeholders: policy makers, visitors, workers, or residents to change or make better use of a neighbourhood or defined place for leisure, education, health, or work to enhance quality of life. Notwithstanding this, placemaking and quality of life are not examined simultaneously as a way of solving spatial and social segregation problems brought about by continued urbanisation and urban renewal. This paper explores the Lower Broughton neighbourhood in the Broughton ward (Salford) and the Kings Cross Quarter in the Kings Cross ward (London). It identifies the extent to which in these wards the neighbourhoods and local stakeholder views are being fed into the placemaking process through a variety of methods, and what effect this process has on their perceived quality of life. The paper concludes by considering whether current policies and processes lack the ability to affect change in sustainable urban development. Placemaking as a deeply engaged communicative process is increasingly seen as an alternative approach that can, as a process, work to enhance city quality of life by not just renewing old problem neighbourhoods or places but creating ways to integrate old and new alike and collaborate for the benefit of all. Placemaking, if carried out effectively, can be seen as a way of enhancing perceived city quality of life and this paper demonstrates some of the key ideas in developing this.