ABSTRACT
The professions that form placemaking alliances today include urban design, urban planning, landscape architecture, engineering, geology, agricultural engineering, social science, ethnology and activism as well as liveability research, as tough as it is to pin down the full meaning of liveability in the context of cities. Urban design jobs are invariably clinched at the outset by private-sector or local-government clients tempted by a smorgasbord of alluring computer-generated imagery, area makeover and branding concepts and local job opportunities, with only a desultory minimum of public consultation about intentions. The 2009 United Nations IPCC climate summit in Copenhagen sharply emphasised the increasing number of climate-related catastrophes striking humanity. Sensitivity to liveability also entails registering demographic shifts. Placemaking tools now include geo-location technologies such as global positioning system (GPS), enabled mobile devices; geographic information systems (GIS), a tool traditionally used by geographers; digital visualisation through augmented reality; and drone cameras.
