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An Overview of Creative Placemaking as an Enabler for a Sustainable Urban

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DOI: 10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.2056

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AicQoL2020Malacca
ASLI (Annual Serial Landmark International) Conferences on QoL2020
https://www.amerabra.org; https://fspu.uitm.edu.my/cebs; https://www.emasemasresources.com/
8th AMER International Conference on Quality of Life
Mahkota Hotel Melaka, Malacca, Malaysia, 18-19 Mar 2020
(Due to the Covid-19 lockdown, paper virtually presented on 25 Mar 2020)

An Overview of Creative Placemaking as an Enabler

for a Sustainable Urban Regeneration

Nurul Atikah Ramli1, Norsidah Ujang2

Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Design and Architecture,

Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

[email protected], [email protected]
Tel: 012-7134581

Abstract
As the rapid growth of cities continues to pose a significant threat to the well-being of people, its adverse effects have moved to the forefront of social
sustainability. Urban regeneration has become one of the adaptations in solving a social issue. Alongside these interventions, creative placemaking
emerges as an evolving field of practice driving a broader agenda for growth and transformation of cities. This paper reviews the concept of creative
placemaking as an approach to urban regeneration and theories extracted from planning and urban design literature. The findings provide an
understanding of the significant function of social attributes of place in crafting strategies in the creation of successful creative placemaking.

Keywords: Urban regeneration; Creative placemaking; Urban places; Social sustainability

eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC
BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour
Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning &
Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.2056

1.0 Introduction
The world is undergone an uncommon transition from rural to mainly urban living resulting in 55 percent of the world's population is now
living in urban areas (Rashid, 2018). This scenario is evident in major metropolitan cities where communities of different ethnicities
merging as the city grows and evolves. With extreme population growth and migration, it results in social issues such as alienation,
violence, and uncertainty, causing the concern of social sustainability in today’s urban areas (KARACOR, 2014). The failure to manage
social issues will erode community identity, social cohesion, and cultural values. In many cases, urban regeneration has been regarded
as the way to revitalize places while ensuring economic and social sustainability. Urban design these days has been challenged by the
contemporary ideas of regeneration proposing the creation of sustainable places, with a specific character, social cohesion, economic
prosperity as well as protection, and promotion of cultural values (Mrđenović, 2011). Urban regeneration also relates to the advancement
and change for the benefit of social, economic, and environmental aspects of the place (Ujang, Moulay, & Zakaria, 2018). Agreeing in
terms of the aspect of the place and looking at the fast urbanization and a constant increase in the urban population, the qualities of
urban spaces in cities also have become more crucial to be taken into consideration (Ibrahim, Omar, & Nik Mohamad, 2019).
Alongside urban regeneration, creative placemaking emerges as an evolving field of practice that intentionally leverages the power
of the arts, culture, and creativity to serve a community's interest while driving a broader agenda for change, growth, and transformation
of cities and places. The concept of creative placemaking supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 11), which promote an
environment to be inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable (UNESCO 2015). Though an adequate amount of research on creative
placemaking has been carried out as shown in Table 1 below, as to date, only a few studies have attempted establishing indicators for

eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC
BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour
Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning &
Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.2056
 Ramli, N.A., & Ujang, N. / 8th AicQoL2020Malacca, Mahkota Hotel Melaka, Malacca, Malaysia, 18-19 Mar 2020 / E-BPJ, 5(13), Mar 2020 (pp.345-352)

a successful creative placemaking (Esarey, 2014). The knowledge about what works at various urban scales and unwillingness to
assess performance outcomes of creative placemaking is also lacking (Markusen & Gadwa, 2010). Besides, studies on urban design
attributes of places that may influence the success of creative placemaking, particularly in the social dimension have not been explored.
Thus, this paper aims to address this gap by illustrating a more comprehensive understanding of how creative placemaking has been
applied in urban development towards achieving sustainable urban regeneration. The objective of this paper is to review two major
concepts which are creative placemaking and urban design attributes of the place. The literature study was geared by the main research
question – what are the most significant urban design attributes of places that support creative placemaking?

Table 1. The previous study on creative placemaking

Author(s), Year Findings of the paper
(Salzman & Yerace, 2018) Creative placemaking as socio-political events in engaging community.

(Arroyo, 2017) Creative placemaking as grounding practices expanding the application of creative practices to participatory
policymaking, where a comprehensive set of stakeholders can advance a more transformative model of equitable
development.

(Bennett, 2014) Identification of the benefits from the evaluation of the selected projects provided by ArtPlace America.

(Redaelli, 2018) Creative placemaking as a bottom-up cultural policy developed by the NEA, where it brings community
development and the arts together, demonstrating a convergence between government action and theories of art,
such as public art, community-based art, and social practice. Overall, this examination of the connections of urban
cultural policy with the art world and its theories created an understanding of how the two sectors already cooperate,
highlighting their common grounds.

(Morley & Winkler, 2014) Study on the livability indicator to reflect four key dimensions, which are resident attachment to the community,
quality of life, arts and cultural activity, and economic conditions in evaluating the impact of creative placemaking.

(Zitcer, 2018) Analyzing the emergence and ongoing contestation of this term, contrasting the way creative placemaking is
understood and enacted by actors in Philadelphia with definitions employed by national funders where he argues
that practitioner and community voices deserve amplification in the unfinished work of creative placemaking as
urban practice.

(Markusen & Gadwa Reflects on the origins of creative placemaking emphasizing three features (economic benefits, physical and social
Nicodemus, 2014) impacts, and the arts’ ability to inspire) as to evaluate how well the creative placemaking has been evolved in
practice over the last four years.

(Pak, 2018) Creative placemaking has been identified as having several opportunities for Singapore to gradually develop into
a more inclusive and genuinely participatory practice localizing social and spatial regeneration.

(Nicodemus, 2013) Creative placemaking has been introduced as a significant new U.S. cultural policy and funding trend; wherein
cross-sector partners strategically shape the social and physical characteristics of a place (ranging from
neighbourhoods to region) around arts and cultural assets.

(Forsyth, 2014) Identify that the emerging creative placemaking field has a different but complementary set of assets leads the
ability to address the intangibles that make a strong and vibrant community, mobilize social capital, bring
performance and participatory activities to public spaces and challenge preconceptions about what a city is
supposed to look like and how it works.

(Rembeza, 2016) Examine the role of creative placemaking in shaping an urban environment where the findings show the Mural
Arts in Philadelphia has significantly changed the appearance of the city and what is more crucial demonstrated
how participatory public art could empower individuals

(Newton, 2017) Creative placemaking activities are presented as pedagogical tools for connecting arts entrepreneurship and
community development goals where it was a desire to extend beyond the dominant paradigm of both arts
entrepreneurship and community development concerning the economic development of the individual and
collective.
(Source: Salzman & Yerace, 2018; Arroyo, 2017; Vazquez, 2014; Bennett, 2014; Radaelli, 2018; Morley & Winkler, 2014; Zitcer, 2018; Markusen
& Gadwa Nicodemus, 2014, Pak, 2018; Nicodemus, 2013; Rembeza,2016; Forsyth, 2014; Newton, 2017)

2.0 Materials and methods

The initial step to answering research question in developing attributes of places as an adaptation strategy for creative placemaking was
to analyses related papers and try to connect any identified relationship between attributes of places in urban design and its impact on
social sustainability. Within this process, relevant articles were sought from search engines, including Science Direct
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/), Sage Publications (http://www.sagepub.com/home.nav) and Emerald Publishing
(http://www.emeraldinsight.com/). As there are several terms related to attributes, urban place, and creative placemaking that discuss
issues relevant to the research question, synonyms were included in the search to ensure that any important publications were not
overlooked. Synonyms included are (a) urban design attributes = "urban design qualities" OR "urban design component" OR "urban
design elements” (b) urban place = “urban space” OR “urban square” (c) creative placemaking = “creative place-making” OR “creative
place making”. This process yielded a total of 121 articles. However, only 53 were used after the screening process during the second
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stage. Exclusion criteria included articles that focused on urban design attributes other than social and activity, which are meaning and
physical form as well as creative placemaking that is not focusing on the social dimension. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were
developed to determine relevant articles before the review (Moher et al., 2009).
This paper tries to connect the relationship between creative placemaking and social attributes of places in urban design based on
the selected publication. The data from these secondary sources were then analyzed to (1) capture and explore their concept and
importance in urban development as a tool for urban regeneration and (2) clarify their interrelated components in achieving social
sustainability. Of the usable 53 articles, 13% were found to cater social dimension in urban place and creative placemaking while the
rest were related to creative placemaking and attributes of urban place in general. A total of 14 articles were considered as the principal
references in constructing the four proposed adaptation strategies of creative placemaking for social sustainability (see Table 5), while
the remaining articles provided supporting references. The following section describes the concept of creative placemaking, its element,
benefits, and challenges in applying the concept in reality. It is crucial to address the outcomes of the reviews of the concept of creative
placemaking for further discussion in this study.

3.0 The Concept of Creative Placemaking

The placemaking itself is a process of making good places which usually embraced as a strategy to revive cities and communities. Kuala
Lumpur Declaration on Cities 2030 announced that it is also an innovative solution to be embedded within the way cities and human
settlements operate, fostering a culture of creativity and innovation. Innovation areas not only promote new ideas of creativity, but they
also develop a range of new jobs. At a time of rising social inequality, innovation areas must become an avenue to economic opportunity
for social. Hence, this paper concerns on creative placemaking, referring to the utilization of arts, culture, and creativity practices to
make a place more attention-grabbing (Cohen et al., 2018). It vitalizes public and private spaces, regenerates structures and
streetscapes, improves local business viability and public security, and brings various people along to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired
(Markusen & Gadwa, 2010). The term "creative" in "placemaking" can be highlighted as an aspect of a place where people come and
making places, celebrating the history and distinctive culture, add layers of meanings, and create a shared vision for the community
(Redaelli, 2018). For creative placemaking to take place, the components required are physical form, social opportunity, and quality
places (Wyckoff, 2014). The details elements of a creative placemaking to take place is shown in Table 2 below:

Table 2. The elements of creative placemaking

Author(s), Year Creative Placemaking and its elements
(Forsyth, 2014) Bring performance and participatory activities to public spaces

(Vazquez, 2014) Place-based orientation: Focus on connection, resulting in how people feel and respond to the elements in their
environment
Asset-based orientation: Focus on developing asset in terms of arts and cultural spaces, activating the creative
potential in communities
Cultural development: Focus on enhancing the environment for cultural which it works to build and sustain
environments which arts and creativity can flourishes
Community development: Focus on improving quality of life which it works to make places better meet the social
and human needs
Economic growth: Focus on enhancing and improving the standard of living for communities

(Zitcer, 2018) Arts and culture as tools for the creation of creative placemaking
(Source: Forsyth, 2014; Vazquez, 2014; Zitcer, 2018)

The substantial findings on the elements of creative placemaking listed in Table 2 shown above will result in the benefits and values
creative placemaking holds. Table 3 summarizes the findings related to the benefits of creative placemaking. It can be seen that creative
placemaking provides for the development of the social dimension in a place. Successful creative areas in cities are loci, where the
social plays a vital role in the city as an essential element of cultural creativity. Thus, further discussion in this paper is mainly dwelling
upon the social dimension.

Table 3. Value and benefits of creative placemaking

Author(s), Year Creative placemaking and its value and benefits
(Markusen & Gadwa, 2010) Impact local economy; increase the quality of life; encourage community building; bringing diverse
people together and increasing civic engagement, and community attachment embrace the attraction
of visitors, business and investments; creation of new job

(Forsyth, 2014) ability to address the intangibles that make a thriving and vibrant community; mobilize social capital;

(Vazquez, 2014) It can help community leaders better adapt to change, and make their communities more sustainable
The arts can provide the most significant returns on investment for the goals of both community and
economic development.
Creative placemaking enhances the creative economy, which provides more entryways to prosperity
for individuals and communities
(Source: Markusen & Gadwa, 2010; Forsyth, 2014; Vazquez, 2014)

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Prior to being receiving benefits of creative placemaking, there is also a challenge expressed by Zitcer (2018) where rapid adoption
of the term creative placemaking has driven to uncertainty and confusion over what activities need to be classified under that rubric and
how to measure their impact. This concern speaks to extensive pressures around the part of creative placemaking in advocating
gentrification. Gentrification may cause spatial changes, people displacement, and social changes (Sholihah & Heath, 2016). Thus, how
can creative placemaking solve the social issue towards achieving social sustainability and be an enabler for sustainable urban
regeneration? As briefly reported by Forsyth (2014), the thought of a poor community that cannot be a place of creative placemaking
has been disapproved. He further asserts, “People may not recognize it as culture, in the kind of high art elitist way in which numerous
individuals think of culture, but it is often there." An intervention might take part where the integration of arts, culture, and creativity can
act as a tool in the creation of creative placemaking (Forsyth, 2014). However, there has not yet been any documentation or framework
that can act as a point of reference to be adopted when engaging with urban place, creative spaces, and activity as in the process of
creative placemaking. Another issue of creative placemaking, specifically on social, are summarized in Table 4 below:

Table 4. Issues and challenges pertaining to creative placemaking

Author(s), Year Issue and challenges in creative placemaking
(Zitcer, 2018) The fuzzy concept leads to confusion: which means different things to different people. What the
terms of creative placemaking meant to each stakeholder?

(Frenette, 2017) Gentrification; Inequality; Displacement and dis-belonging

(Morley & Winkler, 2014) The need to have another dimension of indicator rather than just Livability Indicator

(Markusen & Gadwa, 2010) Lack of knowledge on what works at urban and regional scale resulting failure to specify goals,
reliance on fuzzy theories, underdeveloped of public participation and unwillingness to require
and evaluate the performance of creative placemaking
(Source: Zitcer, 2018; Frenette, 201; Morley & Winkler, 2014; Markusen & Gadwa, 2010)

3.1 Social Opportunity in Social Attributes of Place

The idea of thriving creative placemaking is not evaluated by how many new arts centers, exhibitions, or social-cultural areas are
designed. Instead, its success is evaluated within the ways innovative interventions contribute toward social outcomes (Bennett, 2014).
People affected by the issues being discussed in such gentrification should be allowed to deliberate solutions to the issues (Cohen,
Wiek, Kay, & Harlow, 2015). It can give an opportunity for the people to make a representation (Ismail & Said, 2015) in creating creative
placemaking. The inclusion of social can be an essential opportunity in improving quality in the provision of an urban place for creative
placemaking. The requirement is to provide qualities of spaces supporting a social and cultural life, opportunities for people to get
involved and feel included, and functions for the place and the community to evolve (Ujang, 2016). However, what are the opportunities
do social has concerning the social attributes of place?
In the sense of creative placemaking, people will be allowed to socialize in a vital urban space giving them a huge opportunity to enjoy
their environment. Intensifying and mixing between people and activities, makes places more diverse, exciting, and active space
promoting a spontaneous chance to interact (Government Architect NSW, 2017). Inclusiveness of place advances social inclusion,
ensuring that individuals have both the right and the opportunity to take part in and enjoy all aspects of community life (Lieshout & Aarts,
2008). It also improves community feelings, and the sense of ownership towards the city, and the sense of belonging to a place (Ujang,
2016). The value of a place is where people would not have an opportunity to involve the unique culture exposed and community
vibrancy, permitting them to learn about each other's cultural identity elsewhere (Forsyth, 2014). Thus, creative placemaking concerning
social attributes of place can be seen beyond just a space providing arts and cultural activity and should be recognized as a force for
creating opportunities and fundamental solutions to improve the quality of life for people.

3.2 Arts and Culture in Conceiving Creative Placemaking

Arts-based placemaking is an integrative approach to urban planning and community building that fortifies local economies and leads
to increased innovation, cultural diversity, and civic engagement (Guerrero Balarezo & Karimi, 2018). Undoubtedly, art-based
placemaking can also be defined as creative placemaking. This approach can be seen based on the idea that creative placemaking is
a progressively prevalent form of planning for revitalization, where its activities invoke arts and culture for community development goals
(Zitcer, 2018). Based on a few studies on arts affecting urban development, the vibrant art activities in a city not only produce profits to
the local economy but also contribute towards enhancing community well-being for rebuilding resilient and inclusive communities (Fun,
2013).
Creativity, on the other hand, is understood as a special kind of asset and human talent, becomes a vital component of knowledge
creation, innovation, and adaptation (UNESCO, 2015). Social in the context of creative placemaking enables the knowledge transmission
that precedes change (Cohendet, Grandadam, & Simon, 2011). Therefore, it is crucial to support places in turning into 'loci of innovation,'
where new knowledge is generated and integrated, practiced by people. Subsequently, this approach of using arts, culture, and creativity
as a tool in creative placemaking seems to have been effective in overcoming the gentrification and displacement problem taking social
dimensions into account.

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4.0 Creativity for Creative City

People’s creativity and innovation have been capitalized in advancing the concept of ‘Creative City’ as an urban regeneration strategy
for cities or places (Fun, 2013). But, does a Creative City considered as sustainable development? Creative City depicts a new approach
to urban planning and examines how people think, plan and act creatively in the city, which comes in response to other planning
recommendations and applications, such as the 'entrepreneurial' or 'sustainable' city (Deffner & Vlachopoulou, 2011). In Malaysia’s
context, Kuala Lumpur is earmarked to be developed into an internationally-recognized creative city, which will increase the
attractiveness of Kuala Lumpur and its surroundings for tourists, talent, and skilled workers (Cultural Economy Development Agency,
2018). Consistent with sustainable urban development conjointly mentioned in Agenda 21 for Culture and Sustainable Development
Report, the ‘cultural vitality’ has risen as the “fourth pillar” to ensure the sustainability of a city or place alongside economy success,
social equity, and environmental sustainability. Thus, with arts, culture, and creativity as a tool in creative placemaking, it also can relate
to a 'Creative City.'
Similar to the challenge of creative placemaking, Creative City's approach has its inadequacy, which is the threat of gentrification
through urban regeneration (Chang, Khoo, & Badarulzaman, 2015). There has been insufficient consideration from the views of the
city's citizens, although they are the central element of a city and an essential driver of urban development (Peng & Yang, 2013). Hence,
they contend that there is a need to reconstruct the concept of the creative city from the citizen's point of view. The theory of the Creative
City underlines that the 'person' ought to be at the core of planning, which sometimes is referred to as 'human potential' and in some
cases as 'citizen' (Chang et al., 2015). This idea can be coordinated with one of the components in creative placemaking, which is a
social opportunity. Social sustainability is, therefore, can be accomplished where further discussion in the following section.

4.1 Creative Placemaking Signifies Social Sustainability

Referring to the thoughts specified in achieving Creative City above, Salzman & Yerace (2018) had explored a new form of associational
behavior where they portray as creative placemaking that seeks to activate places through the actions of people in a built environment.
Social sustainability aims to offer opportunities, making a choice subsequently lead to a high quality of life (Jaffar, Harun, & Mansor,
2019). It defines people’s quality of life and depicts the degree to which a neighborhood supports individual and collective well-being
(Ujang, 2016). Creative placemaking in this context can be said as an essential strategy for producing the quality of life. Ujang (2016)
further affirms the need to provide public infrastructure is to support a social and cultural life, opportunities for people to get involved,
and functions for the place and the community to evolve. In this manner, the vital part of creative placemaking to take place is the
provision of urban place and how it can be encapsulated based on urban design attributes.

5.0 Findings: Linking Urban Design Attributes with Creative Placemaking

Most of the precedent studies discussed the concept of creative placemaking, which defines and standardizes the dimension of creative
placemaking (Morley & Winkler, 2014), analyzing its crucial consideration (Salzman & Yerace, 2018) and identify the benefits of creative
placemaking (Bennett, 2014). Hence, this paper has come to the main findings by identifying and characterizes the adaptation of urban
design attributes in creative placemaking. This study is vital; as to date, there is a lack of studies explicitly focusing on the integration
between the component of creative placemaking, which is the social opportunity and social attributes of a place. This can be confirmed
by Esarey (2014) who expressed that even though several studies have been conducted to grasp the economic, social, and
environmental impacts of creative placemaking in a bigger context, a few studies have solely attempted to form an indicator that might
evaluate the success of creative placemaking. Table 5 outlined the attributes of place as adaptation strategies that need to be considered
when designing a place for creative placemaking:

Table 5. Adaptation of Social Attributes of Place in Creative Placemaking

Derived and adapted from: Social Attributes of Place Adaptation strategies suggested in the creation of creative
placemaking
(Carmona, 2009; Carmona, Magalhães, & Vitality of place A vital place that consists of multiple activities, stimulating,
Hammond, 2008; Dempsey, 2008; Del providing more participatory activities and has the intensity of
Aguila, Ghavampour, & Vale, 2019). crowds could offer social opportunity to socialize among each
other
(Cilliers & Timmermans, 2014; Placesore, Diversity of place Diversity of place provide continuous activities, variety of
2015; Richards, 2015; Project for Public products and services, and have a mixture of people allowing
Spaces, 2016; Government Architect them to interact with each other, stumble onto the fun and
NSW, 2017) mingle with other people.
(Carmona et al., 2008; Dempsey, 2008; Inclusiveness of place Inclusiveness of place should be designed to be conducive,
Project for Public Spaces, 2016). welcoming to all and comfortable for a walkthrough, sit, play
and talk offering an opportunity to people with various types
of disabilities and ages to be in that place
(Markusen & Gadwa, 2010; Center for Value of place Place with value should have its uniqueness, providing more
Creative Placemaking, 2014; Ujang, 2016; performance and exhibition strongly related to culture, allow
Alzahrani, Borsi, & Jarman, 2017; sharing experiences and knowledge with others, support
Government Architect NSW, 2017). understanding, unity and promote community building which
gives people opportunity to gain benefits for their quality of life
(Source: Authors, 2020)

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The relevancy of the findings in this study only focusing on the social dimension due to the expounded issues discussed before,
which the main problem is gentrification, causing people displacement, and social changes. Hence, the relevant solution to the
mentioned issues is the integration of social attributes of place, which are vitality, diversity, inclusiveness, and value acting as an indicator
providing an opportunity to people in the creation of successful creative placemaking.

6.0 Discussion
The social opportunity in this context is where people have a chance to take part in the creation of creative placemaking that is intertwined
with the social attributes of place in urban design. It is believed that by referring an urban design as a tool towards sustainable urban
development, it can make and sustain multi-dimensional placemaking in urban knowledge, and innovation spaces offer a diverse range
of social, cultural, and democratic needs (Pancholi, Guaralda, & Yigitcanlar, 2017). The social opportunity also depends on the provision
of social attributes of a place. If a place is provided in the right manner, it will help in making various communities by bringing people
closer, cultivating civic identity, and catalyzing economic improvement. The attributes of a place that have been chosen to be discussed
in this section, resulting in the frequency it was mentioned in urban design literature that also can fit in the context of creative
placemaking.
Notably, the leading significant attributes of place in creative placemaking are vitality, diversity, inclusiveness, and value. It is
advisable to provide these attributes in designing places for creative placemaking. A vital place should be designed for people promoting
multiple activities, creating a sense of enjoyment, and should be stimulating with the human's presence. Diversity implies making spaces
multifunctional, embracing a richness in use, character, and qualities (Government Architect NSW, 2017), offering uses and activity
attracting people to participate (Government Architect NSW, 2017). Inclusiveness, on the other hand, is crucial and must seek to address
growing economic and social disparity and inequity by providing a place that is welcome to all and embraces the community and
individuals who use that urban place (Dempsey, 2008). Finally, in creating successful creative placemaking, the place must generate
continuous value for people and the community. For instance, the users have the opportunity to create and add value in raising standards
and quality of their life, as well as adding return on investment for industry (Government Architect NSW, 2017). Good urban place permits
spaces for social and cultural transactions through friendship, occasions, and events (Ujang, 2016). The transaction here can also be
defined as value. As briefly discussed earlier, these social attributes of the place offer social sustainability in which, in the context of
creative placemaking, it generates social opportunity. These significant discoveries underpin creative placemaking as an enabler for
sustainable urban regeneration.

7.0 Limitation of the Study

The review on the concept of creative placemaking highlights the importance of social dimension and its corresponding attributes in
placemaking efforts. The issue of social changes and displacement can be effectively approached by adopting the adaptation strategies
of creative placemaking. Based on the identification of social attributes of a place, we could develop the framework in analyzing social’s
needs and identifying people’s preferences and satisfaction in the creation of creative placemaking. Despite the multi-dimensional nature
of placemaking, this paper limits the discussion on creative placemaking and social dimension of a place since the components are
found to be the most relevant to the social and cultural issues addressed in the study.

8.0 Conclusion & Recommendations

This paper has highlighted the overview of creative placemaking as a sustainable urban regeneration approach. It recognizes the
adaptation of vitality, diversity, inclusiveness and meaningful value of place as strategies in designing a place. Besides, by integrating
arts and culture as a tool, it could generate social opportunities to people in multi-cultural and diverse contexts. In this regard, creative
placemaking signifies social sustainability in the increasingly globalized but individualistic culture. Finally, this paper elucidates a more
comprehensive understanding of how creative placemaking works subjected to the social attributes of a place in urban design that would
substantially aid planners and other decision-makers in crafting strategies in the creation of successful urban regeneration. Beyond
these strategies, the findings could be used as a basis in creating a Creative City that manifests cultural vitality alongside social equity
and economic success. Fig. 1. shows how major key concepts in this study are interrelated.

Fig. 1: Theoretical Framework of Creative Placemaking as an Enabler in Sustainable Urban Regeneration

(Source: Authors, 2020)

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Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the Universiti Putra Malaysia for funding and facilitating the research under the Putra Grant Scheme
(UPM/GP/2017/9577200)

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