How can cities, civil society and professionals meet the challenges of growing gentrification, displacement, and loss of affordability, especially in city cores? How can they also maintain quality of life, heritage, economic vitality, and other benefits of urban living? What role does public space provide in creating a forum for all within the city -- and how can this forum be made available to all?

 

We will examine these issues in the context of the United Nations' framework document, the New Urban Agenda, and in particular its call for "Cities for All". How can we implement this challenging set of goals? What are the tools, strategies and resources available to do so? In particular, what are the tools offered by so-called "placemaking" strategies -- a growing global movement, with a growing set of tools and approaches?

 

We will work in workshops exploring placemaking themes like (social,cultural) resilience, placemanagement, temporary functions and other placemaking knowledge. We will work on site with cases studies from cities and market parties from Sweden.

 

The conference will lead up to a launch of the European Placemaking Network -- a new peer-to-peer network for European cities, civil society, professionals and activists to share tools, strategies, evidence, and other resources. The European Placemaking Network will be affiliated with (but formally independent of) the global Placemaking Leadership Council, and other placemaking networks already emerging around the world.