Placemaking is Trending.

It’s all the rage right now. And given soaring vacancies, market volatility, and struggling downtowns, it’s on the minds of cities, owners, developers, and operators too.

But what exactly is placemaking?

It’s pretty straightforward actually. My view is it all comes down to perception and use. It’s about how people see a place, and how this shapes its future use. Placemaking done right requires a strategic mix of branding, storytelling, and location activation.

That abandoned building. The unloved fringe neighborhood. The city reinventing its narrative… To (re)position a location in the minds of others, you need to nail your approach to placemaking.

In ten years of transforming places, I've learned that placemaking isn't just about attracting hipsters. It’s deeper. It's about creating lasting impact, not just commercial gain. But more on that later.

Is placemaking the solution to our ailing cities?

Let’s dive in and see.

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5 Strategies To Make Something Real

Today, places need to feel authentic. And to achieve this requires building connection and buy-in with future users. This means gaining local support for your vision and creating emotional ties between your audience and place.

So what’s the playbook?

Well, there isn’t really one yet. But I’ve had success using the strategies below. And I’m confident these can help the industry move beyond the typical beer festivals, yoga events, and street art exhibitions.

My hope is that we make places more authentic by using them.

#1: Develop A Narrative, And Own It

It’s an important first step in placemaking. This narrative is similar to your vision, but more nuanced. Your vision points to the future, while a placemaking narrative is grounded in the present. It’s the story that takes you from where you are now, to where you want to be.

A great narrative is blissfully simple. Not too witty, not too exclusive. It captures your concept in a short tagline so anyone can immediately grasp it. It moves beyond a single target audience, understandable to people of all ages and walks of life.

Once you’ve developed it, own it. Have conviction. It’s the glue that will bind your project together. But ‘ownership’ can be tricky. Remember, this narrative isn't solely yours—it's influenced by many. Engage neighbors, local businesses, and your future users in crafting a shared story. Then pitch it, bounce it off of others. But set some guardrails. Nothing kills a great narrative faster than too many voices involved.

#2: Launch A Community Hub

One of the best ways to connect people with your location is to get them physically on-site. And this can take various forms.

If you have an existing site, take over a small area with a light retrofit for quick use. Not possible? Build a setup further from construction, ideally with a clear visual connection. Cities launching a community hub can leverage public infrastructure.

Empowering your core target audience with this new hub is the goal. Many describe this early process as handing over the keys, and getting out of the way. Take this symbolically, not literally—or don’t.

But when opening up to your future users, don’t forget your neighbors. Curate activities to help give everyone a transparent lens into your vision, plans, and progress as the project moves forward. It’ll also reflect your principles.

Your community hub will be the gravitational pole during the early stages of your projects. And when done correctly, after it opens too.

#3: Leverage Context To Build Identity

By leveraging what’s already there, you can build upon the existing identity of your place. Link context, history, and even physical features of a location into your identity. And the key here is to do this visually.

A helpful trick is to use compelling imagery. Dig up historic images of your location, take photos of your location as it exists today, and progress this through construction until completion. Be bold and glorify the grit. Think James Griffioen’s coined ‘Ruinporn’ genre. Build a strong tie between visuals of the past and present, and your intended plans for the future.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, seeing it live is even more powerful. Bringing people on-site will further connect this context to identity. Do this through tours, project presentations, and other activities.

#4: Drive Brand Activations

Once you implement the strategies above, brands will want to associate with your place. This is great, as aligning with established brands can enhance your positioning. And the big brands—they’ll come with deep pockets too. But while inbound revenues are tempting, brand activations for placemaking should be a long-term investment rather than a quick commercial incentive. Done right, you can achieve both.

Host these activations throughout the project’s lifecycle. This means before construction, during, and after opening too. Early activations allow you to test and feel how your location is used. It signals a flow, a vibe, and ways others use your location that you may have never thought of. Test your space through brand activations and integrate your learnings into the planning process. Early use will influence future plans.

#5: Apply Innovation-led Placemaking

Targeting innovators like tech and startup firms is a proven placemaking strategy. It’s Richard Florida’s approach to the creative class, but with a more defined user group. Communities can work together to design attractive policy incentives including funding, tax benefits, and visas. Landowners and operators should actively support this, instead of sitting on the sidelines.

Similarly, cities and locations can leverage large-scale events that pull the international innovator community. This can range from renowned large-scale 50,000+ person events to smaller more focused formats. Not only will this further the positioning of a place, but it will encourage attendees to relocate their businesses (or themselves) to a location. And in the case of large-scale events, it’s a money maker for cities too. Web Summit and SXSW are great examples.

There are few are opponents to creating a welcoming environment for innovation, so it’s something I’d encourage moving on early.

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Moving Beyond Hipsterism.

Instead of trying to make places cool, we should focus on making them real. Our industry likes to talk about creating experiences. But my view is this incentivizes hipsterism instead of authenticity. And it triggers two main challenges.

First, placemaking is viewed as meanwhile—not long-term. Many even call it ‘Meanwhile Use’. But places are ever-evolving, constantly changing from cycle to cycle. We need to stop thinking about placemaking as something temporary, and rather as something in flux. We need to incorporate placemaking into our long-term business strategies. Our marketing, branding, events, and engagement strategies. Be it prior to launch, or 10 years in. It’s key to the places we’re trying to create, and our bottom lines too.

Second, it’s self-centered. Too often, placemaking is solely focused on the agendas of those behind it. The building owner looking to attract tenants, the mixed-use developer hoping to raise neighborhood rents, the city looking to attract businesses and create jobs. Placemaking isn’t a means to an end. It’s not something that can simply be outsourced to an agency and then call it a day. We desperately require a more authentic approach. One that’s community-led, one that secures local buy-in. It needs to be driven for the community, by the community.

We need to start having a more holistic outlook. Openness, more stakeholders—more community. The original definition of community, that is. Authentic placemaking ensures the community feels ownership and an emotional connection to a place. This is what makes places sticky. Not hipster attractors.

So is placemaking one solution for our ailing cities? Not yet. But it could be.

We’re making progress though. And hopefully, these strategies are a step in the right direction.

Let’s get to work….

[This article was originally published as a part of the Regenerator's Dilemma series.]