Growth of the Placemaking Movement

Learning cities and placemaking share much in common in the aspiration to build better human-centred cities. The placemaking movement has grown from a small organization in New York named the Project for Public Spaces (PPS [1]) to a large international movement across 3,000 communities in 47 countries.

During this development PPS has made partnership arrangements with a significant number of like-minded organizations including the US Habitat, Brookings Institute, US Conference of Mayors, and South West Airlines. PPS is currently seeking to bring the large number of people interested in this idea into an international organization.

People and place are two of the key aspects of good cities so that much could be gained from partnership arrangements that brought these aspects together in strategic development to build better human-centred cities. This might be the first step in partnership action towards cities that are smart, resilient, healthy, green, learning-focussed and, above all, human-centred and inclusive.

The documents featured and attached below illustrate the growth of the placemaking movement...