Your place or mine? Overcoming neoliberal placemaking as commodification of built environments in the inclusive city
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper critiques the neoliberal application of placemaking in urban development, highlighting its often exploitative outcomes. While intended to promote community engagement and sustainability, placemaking frequently becomes a tool for commodifying spaces, resulting in gentrification, displacement, and cultural erasure. Using Rotterdam's Urban Leisure and Tourism (ULT) Living Lab as a case study, the research illustrates how top-down regeneration initiatives, masked as inclusive, marginalize vulnerable communities. It emphasizes the need for critical reflection on placemaking as a social practice.The study advocates for bottom-up, community-focused placemaking strategies to foster resilience and equity in disadvantaged neighborhoods. It explores how such communities can mitigate the extractive impacts of tourism and development while amplifying historically excluded voices. By sharing citizen perspectives from urban activation projects, the research underscores the importance of systemic, participatory approaches prioritizing local ownership, inclusivity, and sustainable resource management.Ultimately, the paper challenges the prioritization of short-term economic interests over long-term societal well-being. It calls for authentic, transparent urban planning models where developers and policymakers act on community-driven proposals. These approaches align with the paradigm of New Urban Tourism (NUT) and aim to build more inclusive cities that genuinely reflect and serve all residents' needs.
Source: Cities
Authors: Donagh Horgan, Ko Koens
Language: English
Subfield: Urban Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,000
OpenAlex ID: W4409111496