ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Web 2.0 social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram are increasingly supporting people–place relationships, and looks at what impact that is having in urban centers. It describes different social media platforms that have had a meteoric rise in use and application, and examines how they support a positive people–place relationship. The chapter provides a major case study of how Twitter has been used to discuss, debate, and design urban parklets. H. Rahmat has studied the impact of social media on small-scale grassroots place-making, and specifically the diffusion of parklets via Twitter. Twitter was used by official urban institutions to promote parklet programs, generally, and the guidelines for the approval and installation of parklets, specifically. Not only was Twitter used as a means of spreading general information about parklets, but it was also used as a channel of influence to persuade others to adopt the idea through peer-to-peer networks of individual citizens and businesses.
