The concept of ‘Place’ entered the urban planning an design discourse from the 1970s and has proven to be much more than fashion because of the depth with which it resonates with everyday concerns about the values and transformation of our cities and landscapes. While developers and politicians have long reduced such discourse to profitable slogans, we also find highly fluid conceptions of place identity and urban character guiding planning policy and practice. I suggest that this can be problematic - our concerns for the protection and creation of place need to penetrate to the assemblage of interconnected parts and morphogenic processes from which it emerges.