How placemaking can empower urban communities, not tear them apart.

……That’s why we decided to use “transformative placemaking” to describe the focus and work of the new Bass Center. While it may appear to be just a jargon-y phrase among other jargon-y phrases (“strategic placemaking,” “creative placemaking,” and “tactical placemaking” among them), our purpose was to extend its meaning to encompass a broader set of outcomes (scope), affect larger geographic areas (scale), and promote practices and policies that benefit more people and communities.

First, transformative placemaking suggests a set of investments in both physical design and programs that not only create safe, attractive, socially interactive places where people want to “live, work, play, and learn” but which also empower broad and diverse networks of local entrepreneurs, community organizations, institutions, and workers to spur creativity, business development, and job growth. In short, it’s about expanding the scope of placemaking to include efforts aimed not only at improving our social, emotional, and physical well-being, but at remaking the relationship of place and economy in ways that generate widespread, and locally-led, prosperity……