Room 1
11:30 - 12:00
English
Talk
Everyone
Access to Mobility & Urban Space
Opening Keynote - Access Ain't the Issue: The Failure of Placemaking in Detroit

Short thesis

Conventional placemaking strategies privilege the values of practitioners and inaccurately reflect the needs of the communities they seek to serve.

Description

This talk challenges us to reconsider how we honor the contributions, lived experience, and aspirations of existing long time residents. For too long, placemaking efforts have failed to acknowledge the wisdom of neighborhood folkways, resulting in interventions that are oftentimes alienating.

Placekeeping, however, respects, affirms, and build ups up the customs and practices that are already cherished.

With a shift from placemaking to placekeeping, other challenges to equitable development like access and inclusion, find their resolution.