I’ve been trying to make sense of placemaking recently. Though every architect talks about it, and it is always set out as the touchstone for good new urban design, placemaking and making successful communities can appear to be increasingly at odds.

There is a homogenisation of built form masquerading as placemaking that doesn’t seem capable of providing all the characteristics that actually make good places.

In many neighbourhoods placemaking is failing to forge real communities. The price point excludes the local community and the objective of being authentic and inclusive becomes, in reality, quaint, expensive and exclusive.

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