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Visitors to the Recharge Station can find free water and coffee, as well as blankets. Most importantly, workers at the Recharge Station can connect people with resources such as a psychiatrist and housing applications. Credit: Nancy Young
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We recently partnered with Fountain House—a national nonprofit fighting to improve health, increase opportunity, and end social and economic isolation for people most impacted by mental illness—to explore trust-building in social design. The result is the Recharge Station, a kiosk located in New York City's Times Square providing water, blankets, clothing, and other essentials as well as access to mental health services and housing resources. Read more.
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May 23-24, 10-5pm EDT • Placemaking in Small & Rural Communities Online Conference, U.S. Department of Agriculture
June 8, 1-2pm ET • Designing Cities with Public Trust, Next City & Co:Census
June 15-16 • Placemaking as a City-Wide Endeavor, Helsingborg, Sweden, Placemaking Europe
Now through June 30 • Apply for the 2023-2025 Levitt AMP [Your City] Grant Awards, Levitt Foundation
Have an event or opportunity you would like to share? Email us at [email protected].
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We recently worked with Republic Square in Austin, Texas to make this historic public space more resilient against flash floods through placemaking. Credit: Erika Rich
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Resilient Parks Still Need Community Engagement. The Battery Park City Authority is going ahead with plans of closing Wagner Park in New York City for two years in order to protect it against floods. In this case, some local residents feel that the proposal was rushed through without taking into account some of the community's input. As these types of projects become more common in cities, we hope that policymakers will center placemaking to make resiliency efforts such as this one more inclusive. (The City)
Transforming Underused Public Spaces. The Zela Davis Park Renovation Project in Hawthorne, California has received $3.4 million in local government funding to bridge its park equity gap by updating nine parks in the city. To ensure local residents had a say, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, in partnership with local nonprofit partners, held community engagement meetings and developed concepts that neighbors could then vote on. Now, there are plans to turn underused tennis courts and empty lots into vibrant parks aligned with local needs. (Next City)
Streets as Places. In this article, the Social Life Project explores how community engagement leads to great streets. The article dives into Project for Public Space's placemaking approach as well as other concepts including the Power of 10 and Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper strategies. As our founder Fred Kent has said, "If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places." (Social Life Project)
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As always, here's a roundup of placemaking projects and ideas that inspired us this week:
- Check-out the 2022 ParkScore report, an index measuring park systems according to access, investment, amenities, acreage, and equity (Trust for Public Land)
- A dispatch from Mexico City on how to use public spaces in unconventional ways (Designboom)
- Buffalo, New York leads the way in reviving legacy shops (Strong Towns)
- An essay explores grassroots solutions to place-shaping (Architectural Review)
- Designed by local artists and youth, eight "art benches" in the St. Croix Valley provide the community with books, art, and programming (St. Croix 360)
- A helpful guide to filling vacant storefronts (Next City)
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