Riverside Placemaking outside Big Cities—The Case Study of Three Polish Rivers

Abstract

Most placemaking activities have both tangible and intangible aspects. However, the most significant division line comes from the driving force behind the process, which can be either top-down formal actions or bottom-up informal ones. This article presents how placemaking works and what types of related actions dominate in rural areas, focusing on the riparian zones of three lowland rivers in Poland with a total length of 300 km. The main goal was to demonstrate the specificity of placemaking in riverfront areas outside large cities and to investigate the answers to the following questions: (1) How do public spaces emerge there? (2) Which entities are responsible for their creation, type, form, and location? To achieve these objectives, a detailed field inventory from the water level and interviews with creators, caretakers, and users of selected places were conducted. This research showed that informal placemaking is very common outside of cities and is also integrated into the creation of less numerous but more impressive public and private recreational areas. In terms of form, “Do It Yourself” (DIY) objects overwhelmingly dominate in all types of places. Both of these characteristics, informality and DIY, clearly indicate the specificity of rural riparian areas and the need to consider them in planning and strategic actions in areas outside large cities.