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The need to better understand the way cities and human settlements work is becoming increasingly important, particularly with growing challenges such as climate change, social isolation, economic disruption, disaster recovery and rapidly changing technology.

Interest is growing in 'Place' as a concept and place-based approaches are being trialed around the world. ‘Place’ can provide a valuable focus point for government. It also provides a vision and process for different agencies, levels of government and local communities to better work together.

This course aims to provide some context and rigour to this interest.

Whilst it is primarily written for an Australian context, it may be relevant for higher levels of government around the world, including central, Federal, State, provincial or regional governments. Whilst State, provincial or regional and central or Federal governments are usually quite different in their priorities and resources, from a placemaking perspective, they are similar as they sit at the strategic level, distanced from individual places, but having responsibilities for many places, cities and regions.

This course provides principle-based and practical placemaking guidance applicable at the strategic level and therefore will often group central, Federal, State, provincial or regional governments together under the umbrella term of "higher levels of government". 

The course aims to help you to:

1. Understand the broad overview of the way cities and urban areas work
2. Identify the potential roles for higher levels of government and the opportunities for place-based approaches
3. Discover the ideas and insights from placemaking professionals with decades of experience
4. Think like a placemaker
5. Build the confidence and skills to use place-based thinking and processes in your work

The course is broken into three modules, with three lessons in each module. There are also tasks and templates you can use interspersed through the course.

The Course Guide is available below.

We hope you enjoy it!

I really enjoyed this course. I honestly would not call myself a placemaker or an expert in placemaking because I didn't think my skillset / experience or current work really fit into placemaking (which I perceived to be mainly tactical urbanism or activation) and now I see exactly how it can fit and the role I can play.

Feedback from a course participant

Get your personal Certificate of Completion

People who complete this course will receive a personalised Certificate of Completion, endorsed by Town Team Movement and PlacemakingX, to recognise your knowledge.

Remember to press the “Complete and Continue” button in the top right-hand corner after you have finished each lesson and task, including this final “What’s Next?” section.

Once you press the “Complete and Continue” button in the final “What’s Next?” section, you will be issued with a personalised Certificate of Completion.

Acknowledgement of the Placemaking Pioneers

Placemaking.Education acknowledges the work, ideas and inspiration of the founders of the placemaking movement and the early pioneers. This course has been particularly influenced by:

• Jane Jacobs
• Project for Public Spaces
• William H. Whyte, Fred Kent and Ethan Kent
• PlacemakingX
• David Engwicht at Creative Communities International

We also acknowledge and pay our respects to the indigenous custodians of the lands and seas around the world. They have understood, cared for and connected to country and 'place' for tens of thousands of years, in a much deeper way than placemaking and our society can conceive of.

Thank you! We look forward to learning more and improving what we do.

We acknowledge other significant contributors in the Acknowledgements and Additional Reading section at the end of Module 1.