Mind the Gap Between Placemaking and Placewashing
I'm a child of two worlds. I made my name in tourism strategy, city marketing, and branding — yet the course I teach is called placemaking, not by accident but by affection. Which is why I need to get something off my chest: placewashing is all the rage, but often for all the wrong reasons.
Lately, I hear people in tourism talk lyrically about "placemaking" when what they really mean is mood lighting and mood boards. Case in point: a New York hotel proudly told me it was doing placemaking. Translation: they'd hired a gifted interior designer to give the lobby a gritty, street-art vibe. Instant "street credibility", bottled and poured over the marble. Any bona fide placemaker would clutch their chest. Ask the folks from Reclaim the Streets, or the team at Stratosferico I met in Turin: placemaking isn't a décor: it's sharing power, making room for others, and returning value to the neighbourhood.
(By Aurelien Guichard from London, United Kingdom)
Let me make this concrete with a London icon: Battersea Power Station (Pink Floyd fans, insert porcine nostalgia here). The redevelopment ticks many shiny boxes: the turbine halls now host shops and restaurants; there's a heritage experience with a lift up the chimney; a new park along the Thames; better transport; cultural programming; and even a community choir. Homes, offices, and a hotel complete the mix.
The good bits: a landmark saved from decay; genuine public access to a once-forbidden temple of industry; improved mobility; lively programming; jobs and skills initiatives. It looks great, it hums, it photographs beautifully.
The awkward bits: a thin slice of truly affordable homes; a heavy dose of mall-logic; "public" spaces that are privately policed; value created that drifts pleasingly skyward to distant investors (economic leakage); and culture that's more curated for locals than co-created with them. That's not community-led placemaking; that's place-marketing with a gloss.
So what do we teach students and remind clients of Place Generation? Use a plain, sturdy test before you call something placemaking:
Affordability & inclusion: Does it deliver meaningfully accessible homes and everyday spaces?
Public realm & rights: Is the outside space truly public - places to sit, play, and protest without a security guard editing the script?
Local governance: Do residents and local makers decide - with budget, mandate, and continuity - or merely attend ribbon-cuttings?
Heritage as commons: Is history opened up for learning and encounter, or monetised as spectacle with a gift shop exit?
Neighbourhood benefit: Are there measurable jobs, learning pathways, and local supply chains — beyond glossy reports?
Hold projects to that bar and the difference appears at once: making places versus making pictures. Placewashing gleams. Placemaking quietly changes who is welcome, who decides, and who wins. That, for me, is where love of place begins - not in the lobby's paint finish, but in the people who get to call it theirs.
- BY FRANK CUYPERS
This article marks the start of our third series at Place Generation, following earlier explorations into place identity and sustainability beyond the rankings. Together, these series aim to deepen the conversation on how we understand, shape, and sustain the places we call home.
