Place-making is an important theme for PASCAL.  A recent posting by Chuck Wolfe on the Sustainable Cities Collective website usefully identifies a number of aspects of placemaking which, in his view, are likely to be dominant in 2012. His list spans:

• renewed attention to the romantic city,  and the extent that this can be 'created' through professional actions;
• more roles for social media in redefining the way governance of cities occurs, and the links between communities and governance structures;
• new regulations of urban places, particularly in the promotion and use of public spaces;
• counter-intuitive solutions for infrastructure and economic development, stressing the importance of innovation;
• 'urbanism without effort': rethinking the essence of places which already  exist and which clearly 'work';
• new ways of conceiving urban opportunity, through innovative finance arrangements, co-operatives, social enterprise.

The full posting, with links to some other supporting material,  is here.

Food for thought indeed for the ways in which PASCAL might contribute to this field.  Some of these issues are already coming up in the discussions within the PIE programme, but they do amount to a formidable agenda on which the PASCAL perspective stressing social capital and the role of learning seems to be particularly apt.  Please add your thoughts.