Place-Making and Sustainable Community Development

Abstract

This review chapter explores place-making in terms of how it is linked with sustainable community development (SCD). Place-making as it relates to sustainable community development has not been understood in the practice of sustainability, urban planning, and community development. Here, place-making is a process of planning, designing, managing, and programming spaces to create patterns and activities in cultural, social, economic, and ecological terms to achieve a better quality of life, a prosperous economy, and healthy environment. As informed by research, it can be an approach to sustainability thinking as a strategy for transforming cities and public spaces to promote well-being and prosperity in a local place, urban area, or neighborhood. In the long-term, the theory and practice of sustainable community development relative to place-making will evolve and eventually produce well-grounded meanings and conceptualizations as we engage in more research on sustainability and sustainable development.