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How can streets adapt to social distancing, protest, and extreme weather? How does gender affect a person's experience on the street? What does it take for a project to have staying power? And what is "shared space," anyways?
At our upcoming Reimagining Streets as Places training, course instructors from Project for Public Spaces and Mobycon will be joined by a top-notch guest presenters from NACTO, Street Plans, Main Street America, Connect the Dots, and NYCDOT to dig a little deeper into these topics and more. Learn more. |
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More Events & Opportunities
Sep. 14 Webinar: Real Play City Challenge, PlacemakingX & Real Play Coalition
Sep. 16 Webinar: How to Keep Parks Clean in a Pandemic, Next City
Sep. 30 Webinar: Don’t Just Tick the Box, Think Outside It: Reimagining Public Engagement in Parks and Public Spaces, Park People
Oct. 1 Call for Proposals: EDRA52Detroit: Just Environments, Environmental Design Research Association
Video Now Available: Does Planning Care about Black Lives?, plenary panel from Walk/Bike/Places conference
Missed any of our webinars on COVID-19 and public space? Watch the videos on our Events page.
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From the Blog
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In case you missed it, our partnership with Dutch mobility firm Mobycon has us both so energized that we decided to write guest posts for each other's blogs!
In our guest post for Mobycon, the Project for Public Spaces team explores what streets are for, how placemaking applies to streets, and why recognizing streets as our largest public space asset matters now more than ever. Read more.
In Mobycon's article on our blog, their team introduces how the Dutch approach to transportation planning can balance mobility with the need for streets that are safe, inclusive, and lively public spaces. Read more.
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Public Space News
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Lockdown vs. Harm Reduction in Hawaii: While much of the country has taken great strides in adapting their public spaces to social distancing guidelines, prior to this Thursday the Island of Oahu, HI, had prohibited all access to parks and beaches. Even now people may only use these spaces alone—not even with other members of their household (Honolulu Civil Beat). "This crackdown is really hurting people of limited means who are crowded into their apartments and houses and have no other alternative," said Meg Walker, Senior Placemaker at Project for Public Spaces.
Adapting in Downtown Detroit: In a new interview, longtime Project for Public Spaces collaborator Robert Gregory of the Downtown Detroit Partnership discusses how he has approached reopening the city's landmark public spaces and adapting his work life and workplace to the new reality (Authority Magazine).
Playful Learning Landscapes: A new report from our partners at the Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking explains how cities can design, implement, and maintain "playful learning landscapes"—programs and installations that invite children to learn in everyday public spaces (Brookings).
Public Health Needs Public Space: Researchers are making the case that the unequal distribution and investment in parks in American cities has contributed to higher COVID-19 deaths for Black and Latino Americans (USA Today). "Think of the potential we would have as a society if health wasn't a barrier for people, if everyone was in tip-top shape," says Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "One of the most cost-effective ways to improve health is to find open space and use it."
Failure is the Best Teacher: A rush to return to pre-pandemic life could cause politicians to give up the chance to address the failures of our status quo (CityLab). "Positive urban transformation," write Jennifer Bradley and Josh Sorin, "came out of an intense reflection on what caused such catastrophic failures and a deep commitment to find a better way forward."
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Placemaking Playbook
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Here's a roundup of 10 inspiring placemaking ideas from the week:
- Six key considerations for translating COVID streets into long-term streets as places (Planetizen)
- The clever signage in London that marks neighborhood streets open to pedestrians and users of wheelchairs, bikes, and scooters—not closed to cars (The Guardian)
- The newly legal home restaurants revolutionizing California’s food scene (Eater)
- A ballon on every mailbox to honor a "first class" mail carrier in Santa Rosa, CA (The Press Democrat)
- A manifesto for place-healing (Planetizen)
- A New NYC Club of Black and Brown Cyclists Takes the Streets (Curbed)
- The myth of pedestrian infrastructure in a world of cars (City Observatory)
- Janette Sadik-Khan’s case for returning urban space to citizens during and after the pandemic (The Guardian)
- The wide sidewalks that have helped Toronto commercial corridors weather social distancing (The Globe and Mail)
- The latest city to put an equity lens on its parks: Milwaukee (Next City)
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The Census Matters to Your Community
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The 2020 Census is in full swing here in the United States, but the pandemic and a shortened deadline have experts worried that we will not get an accurate count.
Why should you care? Because at the end of the day, the census is about money and power.
The number of people counted in your census district dictates how many seats your community gets in the House of Representatives and how many votes your state gets in the Electoral College that elects the President. Businesses, schools, and health institutions make location decisions based on census counts. And government agencies, nonprofits, and advocacy groups use the census to identify inequities and address them through funding and programs.
All of these decisions will have an impact on your work as a placemaker and your life as a person, so don't wait—get counted now! |
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