Skip to main content

Placescapes + Public Housing: Toward a Critical Understanding of “Place” + “Placemaking” in Place-Based Health and Housing Strategies

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Representation, Re-Presentation, and Resistance

Part of the book series: Global Perspectives on Health Geography ((GPHG))

  • 231 Accesses

Abstract

Place-based strategies are increasingly explored to improve health opportunities, especially for public housing residents. However, most place-based efforts have failed to engage notions of equity, power, and participation in attempts to “revitalize” and re-design “place.” Drawing from critical theory, place-health, geography, and sociology literatures, this chapter introduces the “Placescape”—a framework developed to explicitly engage the sociopolitical mechanisms/forces that make, unmake, and remake residents’ place (and thus place-health experiences/opportunities) over time. The framework includes six core Placescape tenets (PTs): (1) Needs and Opportunities, (2) Mobility and Bounds, (3) Multi-nodal Place, (4) Power in Place(making), (5) Lifecourse in Place, (6) Agency in Place(making). This chapter presents a “pilot test” of the placescape via an intergenerational participatory research project examining place, embodiment, and health among public housing residents. Using a combination of four participatory methods, youth and adult residents documented and mapped 100+ place-based health exposures/opportunities—strongly illustrating/reflecting PTs 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 while moderately illustrating/reflecting PT 4. This chapter highlights the potential value of intergenerational approaches for deepening/mobilizing resident participation in placemaking processes, and the role of participatory research as resistance/for representation within contested urban spaces.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Petteway, R.J. (2022). Placescapes + Public Housing: Toward a Critical Understanding of “Place” + “Placemaking” in Place-Based Health and Housing Strategies. In: Representation, Re-Presentation, and Resistance. Global Perspectives on Health Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06141-7_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics