Place Management for Social Transformation in South Africa

Written By Spaces for Souls

Event Recording: Place Management for Social Transformation

In partnership with UN HABITAT and Georgetown Global Cities Cities Initiative, Spaces for Souls led an Urban Thinkers Campus event focused on International Practices of Placemaking and Place Management in South Africa.

Placemaking may provide opportunities to improve the quality of life in communities through thoughtful, context-sensitive approaches to the enhancement of public spaces. However, in socially and spatially fragmented urban communities, placemaking initiatives that fail to respond to the specific social and economic challenges lack the depth required to actualize any meaningful improvements in the social or public spheres.

In efforts to expand the boundaries of traditional place management practice, our workshop introduced three case studies from communities across South Africa, each grappling with inadequate delivery of urban services, as well as present-day struggles connected to the former apartheid spatial planning system. These case studies demonstrated the necessary nature of addressing past and present social ills and illuminated insights to frame place management as a tool to advance social transformation.

Our discussion included how socially responsive placemaking practice materializes in these contexts and how place management takes shape in communities characterized by informal and inconsistent access to resources, yet housing changemakers active in advancing efforts to move closer to socio-spatial transformation.

Below, you can find the event recording separated into three sections including:

Spaces for Souls