Assessing residents’ perceptions of urban placemaking prior to hosting a major cultural event

What is it about?

Events are an important reason why cities regenerate today. This brings about a lot of change in cities and to help us understand this change, a focus on different principles of placemaking is very important to consider today. This study focuses on Rijeka, Croatia, the city picked to host the 2020 European Capital of Culture, and we conducted a survey to gain an understanding before the event, as preparations to hold the event were finishing. In this study to understand placemaking we look at levels of agreement based on age, gender, and if a person is originally from Rijeka, as this helps us understand perspectives in the current time based on local demographics. To help identify points to explore in the future, we also focus on participation, awareness and enthusiasm. We determine in this study that planners need to focus on effective promotional activities aimed at awareness and enhance enthusiasm to help increase perceptions of placemaking and increase local quality of life.

Featured Image