A huge victory for pedestrian advocates in NYC! After decades of activism to turn Brooklyn’s Prospect Park into a car-free zone, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this week that beginning on January 2, 2018, the entire 526-acre park will be free of private cars at all times.

Topics: Parks, Transportation

As tactics for attacking urban areas evolve, city leaders are considering design tweaks to protect public spaces—such as squares, markets, transit hubs, and tourist hotspots—against vehicle attacks and other growing threats. Many of these “solutions” involve ramping up security measures, however, which brings up age-old debates on whether these measures reflect—or in fact contradict—the ideals of “true” public space.

Topics: Democracy and Public Space