ABSTRACT
This article develops a grounded theory of contingent placemaking based on three micro histories from the urban development of the historically Japanese American community of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. These narratives suggest that places – and especially ethnic and immigrant places – are made through continual negotiation between disastrous forces, accidental actions, and grassroots responses to those things. Communities with cultures of participation, engagement, and creativity can at times channel these forces into placemaking, demonstrating a form of resilience based on social capital more than physical interventions such as infrastructure. Additionally, beneath all of these processes is the place’s governing property rights regime, which communities must also navigate and engage. This theory of placemaking is especially useful for considering the current challenges that communities face, most notably pressures of gentrification.
