Our City: Countering Exclusion in Public Space

Never has there been a more important time to strengthen our connections with Europe. Hence, following our first ever celebration of European Day on May 9th and our hugely successful away-day to the European Placemaking Conference in Valencia, it was wonderful to be involved in the launch of a great new book “Our City – Countering Exclusion in Public Space”.

The book, which runs to over 400 pages brings together the best of current thinking in the practice of Place Making. The means’ contribution sits alongside collaborators from all across Europe and beyond. The wealth of ideas in the book and the diversity of approaches suggests a discipline that is confidently finding its place.

At the British launch of the book, jointly hosted by The means and Better Bankside, there were contributions from Peter Williams, Jacqueline Bleicher, Maria Adebowale-Schwarte, Nezharpi Delle Odeleye and Roger Estop, before a stimulating audience debate.

Peter took the opportunity to emphasise the points in his chapter that creative dialogue with the private sector is not only essential for successful placemaking outcomes but that conversation needs to find ways of avoiding the adversarial traps of the past. He also explored whether some of the investment developers make in late stage PR activity might not better be spent on earlier community engagement aimed at identifying the optimum ways schemes could relate to their context.

To read the full chapter by Peter Williams, you can download the pdf article below.

The book is available here https://stipo.myshopify.com/products/pre-order-our-city-countering-exclusion-in-public-space