Public space in the shadow of COVID-19: placemaking for spatial justice in Geelong’s ‘disadvantaged’ neighbourhoods

Drawing on empirical data from a regional Australian city, this paper investigates how public space is implicated in locational disadvantage, how COVID-19 is impacting inequality, and how placemaking can best serve "disadvantaged" communities. To explore public space's role during COVID-19, we assessed public open space coverage in three "disadvantaged" Geelong suburbs, interviewed local community workers, and analysed survey data from resident input to a local placemaking project. Findings revealed both quantitative and qualitative shortfalls in local public spaces; that COVID-19 amplified existing inequalities; that public space shortfalls compounded pandemic stressors; and that these shortfalls should be remedied via community-driven placemaking. Findings also yielded common themes linking place stigma, inequality, and place attachment, and underscoring how placemaking can reinforce or challenge existing disparities. We developed a holistic Framework illustrating the dynamic interplay of five important factors that emerged across our data: locational disadvantage, public space, place stigma, place attachment, and placemaking. Illuminating how place-makers might harness these dynamics to advance social goods and minimise social harms, our Framework seeks to support more "spatially just" placemaking. Amidst rising inequality, we argue that a renewed focus on the spatial dimensions of justice will strengthen placemaking's potential to mitigate the locational aspects of disadvantage.