Rural placemaking for sustained community well-being

Rural spatial development policy increasingly aims to improve quality of life and meet broad sustainable development goals. The New Rural Paradigm marked a shift towards supporting place-based, participatory local projects. In Denmark, this coincided with the 2007 structural reform whereby 273 municipalities were merged into 98 while giving municipalities full planning sovereignty over their territory, including the open countryside. Hundreds of place-based, participatory local spatial projects have since been carried out. This chapter examines the potential of such interventions in the built environment to enhance rural quality of life in peripheral areas affected by population loss. An inventory of projects receiving public or philanthropic funding in the 2010–2016 period was assembled to identify projects that (1) involved built interventions (buildings, open spaces, landscape projects), (2) were carried out to enhance quality of life, (3) were publicly accessible or open to a larger public, and (4) community-driven or participatory. Of 734 such projects that were found, 13 were selected for in-depth study using spatial and functional analysis, document studies, and site visits and interviews with key actors. The chapter finds that quality of life is pursued by (a) creating spaces shared by locals and non-locals alike, (b) reinventing cultural heritage, (c) creating green meeting places, and (d) forging new spatial connections, all with a focus on sustained community well-being. Importantly, the project communities often outlast the projects themselves, sometimes with long-term placemaking effects.