Three New Placemaking Transformations | Placemaking Round-Up

Posted December 19, 2021 - 09:22

This round-up from the Project for Public Spaces connects people who share a passion for public spaces to ideas and issues, news, quotes, places, and events from the placemaking movement.

Where Resilience Meets Recreation

A picnic at Republic Square. Credit: Erika Rich.

This holiday season, we're thrilled to reveal three amazing public space transformations in Austin, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Thanks to funding support from the makers of Claritin®, we were able to provide direct grants totaling $150,000 as well as technical assistance to wonderful organizations working to ensure their public spaces were more resilient to natural disasters and joyous places where their communities would want to gather. Read more.

More from the Blog

Reimagining the Post-Covid Library with CloroxPro: A Q&A with Claudia Strange of the Fulton County Library System
December 1, 2021 • by Priscilla Posada

All Access Library: Fostering Community Connections with CloroxPro
November 18, 2021 • by Priscilla Posada

Why We Need Market Cities
October 8, 2021 • by Kelly Verel & Kurt Wheeler

A New Online Training

We're excited to announce that we're taking our long-running How to Create Successful Markets training online in March 2022.

Over the course of four weeks, you'll learn the essentials for creating a thriving public market, from engaging your community to measuring your market's value to the brass tacks of market management. Early registration opens on January 2, 2022!

LEARN MORE

More Events & Opportunities

Due January 10, 2022 • Call for Session Proposals: The Park People Conference 2022, Park People (Canada)

Have an event or opportunity you would like to share? Email us at [email protected].

Public Space News

Improving Walkability Where Car Culture Reigns. In 2018, the residents of Yakima, Washington, rejected a proposal for a downtown plaza in favor of keeping an existing parking lot. Today, there's an effort to develop a one-mile pedestrian-friendly loop around the downtown as a way of getting locals to warm up to more sustainable ideas. In response, Project for Public Spaces's Director of Design Practice Alessandra Galletti noted that by bring people together, public spaces can promote more eco-friendly practices.

“You need to sell it to people,” says Alessandra. “It’s not just utilitarian and sustainable. It’s also beautiful.” (Crosscut)

The Rise of the Citizen Developer in Buffalo. Exciting things are happening in Buffalo where we will soon be awarding a Community Placemaking Grant. A few years ago, the state of New York promised an investment of $65 million to a place-based intitiative in Buffalo's East Side. The Brookings Institution says their "ultimate goal is to give East Side building owners and community members the know-how to undertake a commercial redevelopment project." (Brookings Institution)

How Cities Can Prepare to Become Climate Havens. While American are more familiar with the idea of moving for better jobs or cheaper housing, moving to avoid wildfires, hurricanes, and drought is already happening. This article details what cities need to do if they really want to own the title of a "climate haven"—with one glaring omission: Investing in a city's public spaces to make them more enjoyable for current and future residents. (Grist)

Placemaking Playbook

As always, here's a roundup of placemaking projects and ideas that inspired us this week:

Paris looks to clean the Seine so it's swimmable (CityLab)
Three takes on why NYC needs to invest in public restrooms (City & State New York)
How Berlin became a beacon for alternative transportation (Streetsblog SF)
Amsterdam is making it easier for local community groups to take over touristy businesses (C ityLab)
A Detroit nonprofit is building pocket parks to help close the public space equity gap (Next City)