Comparison of Cases
| Case/Location/Scale | Principle Changes | Disruptions Involved | Stakeholders Involved | Tensions Revealed | Lessons for Designers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urbanplanen in Copenhagen, Denmark, housing block scale | Green space planning in an urban neighborhood | City of Copenhagen in partnership with national government rebranding the neighborhood via nature-based solutions; Environmental justice | Park planners, designers, local politicians, residents, and various facilitators including housing association staff, university researchers | Opportunity to create new common spaces for social change through nature-based solutions vs. loss of sense of place because place meaning uses of open space not seriously considered | Designers & planners can attend to local place meanings and sense of place to ensure their representation in design and implementation; sustained community engagement can lead to a healing process |
| Big Hole Valley, Montana multi-town rural area | Climate change and adaptation in rural landscape | Impacts of climate change on farmers’/ranchers’ livelihood; water availability/recreational access to the river | Residents, local land managers, climate scientists, USDA Forest Services researchers | Pride in local place history, identity around ranching, resident resourcefulness vs. recognition of the role of ag & ranching on climate change, concern over shift from working ranches to industrial ag or amenity-based economy | Designers & planners can engage community in collaborative scenario building to help develop adaptive strategies that are resilient to climate change but respond to local residents’ senses of place & concerns for maintaining a livelihood and pastoral landscape aesthetic |
| Gracia and Poblenou neighborhoods in Barcelona, Spain neighborhood scale | retail gentrification via rebranding the neighborhood | Physical and symbolic displacement; spatial disorientation, incongruities in self and place identity, desire for place continuity | Long-term residents, newcomers, university researchers, local business owners, city planners | Sense of discontinuity vs. continuity via changes to commercial districts & urban streetscape, ambivalence about a commodified sense of place, residents attracted to new aesthetics but rejected ideological connotations | Designers & planners must be cautious about manufacturing a new sense of place that creates dispossession, designers that attend to existing & locally crafted senses of place can ensure place continuity and cultural preservation in design and planning process |