Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Placemaking/Displacement: Architectures Of Exclusion In The Bay Area, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

This working paper presents new research and argumentation regarding the way we think about the material culture of place and argues that thinking hard about place is essential for addressing social inequality in our cities. Drawing on new empirical research – ethnographic observation, photography, and interviews – it takes the varied communities and landscapes of the San Francisco Bay Area as a lens through which to interrogate the prominent trend of so-called “placemaking” in urban planning, development, and design. I argue that placemaking is intellectually incoherent and frequently elitist in practice, often ignoring existing places while portending a real possibility …