INTRODUCTION
Our great and inspirational cities and villages are overcome by centrifugal powers following the dictate of the market, plain tourist demand or rational decision making and smart technologies. The basic foundation underpinning the city, a place from the people and for the people, were we meet, work, love, share, discuss, which we call home, is challenged. Proper placemaking offers alternatives to how cities are designed, developed, restructured and governed. Placemaking is not about yet another hipster coffee bar in a derelict area, drawing in new crowds and raising rental prices. It is a collective organic process that brings together people, spaces, heritage and opportunity to work together on real places, that have ownership, rhythm, surprise and offer a sense of belonging, of home. It is not an easy process, nor does it provide easy answers for every space or neighbourhood. It comes with frictions and quests for different ownership structures or business models. It challenges the status quo and many of the current legal frameworks governing our cities. But when done properly, and honestly, placemaking may just be the answer that will make our cities feel as home for all of us. In Part II we demonstrate along three lines how you can work on cities for all, exploring the great width and variety placemaking can take. The first step is to design with the people. These chapters will engage you in the process design of collaborative city making, participatory methods, lessons on facilitation and good practices. Upon designing collectively, with all the new and varied stakeholders, one will come across unexpected questions and demands for new financial solutions or legal frameworks. As such, the second step is to think about different ways to accommodate these codesigned wishes. These chapters will guide you through proven yet new models to build long lasting coalitions backed by solid financial foundations enabling you to go from placemaking to place management. And then, even if you’ve everything right it might be necessary to pay extra attention to some underrepresented or disadvantaged groups in society. The last chapters of Part II provide approaches and cases studies on how to fully engage them. But we start Part II with an essay on the Learning City, which both invites and challenges you to take on an attitude of curiosity, being open to anew, fresh insights from different stakeholders and to approach the city as a collective endeavor, constantly adapting to new needs and desires.
207