March 5th, 2005 | Go to Placemaking Blog Home

Anchorage Park Closer to Becoming a Reality

Posted by: bfried@pps.org

Plans are moving forward to adopt PPS’s recommendations for a new park in midtown Anchorage that will attract people winter and summer.





Birth of a Movement

By Jay Walljasper

Over the past few years, people have grown accustomed at looking to Seattle (and the Pacific Northwest in general) as a source of new ideas and inspiration. Grunge rock, Microsoft, Starbuck’s coffee and amazon.com have all sprung out of Seattle into the center of American and global culture. In less publicized ways, the northwest region has also become a laboratory for new ideas about how we think about our places. Pike Place Market is widely celebrated as a national symbol about the possibilities of public spaces, and Seattle, Vancouver, and particularly Portland are looked to as beacons for new ideas in urban livability.

Pike Place Market is one reason Seattle and the Pacific Northwest are looked to as models for urban livability.

So it should come as no surprise that the first comprehensive meeting about launching a movement around the ideas of Placemaking should take place near Seattle, with a sizable number of Seattle participants. For three days in late February, more than 40 people assembled at the lovely Sleeping Lady resort in the Cascade mountains to discuss the prospects for improving our places–streets, downtowns, markets, gathering places, neighborhoods and more. It was a well-connected group, mostly Seattleites, who gathered: a Seattle city council member, prominent developers, the city parks superintendent, head of the county library system, head of the Seattle art museum, chair of the University of Washington urban planning department, a key official of the Seattle Housing Authority, a key figure in establishing Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, as well as leading environmentalists, journalists, architects, foundation officials, activists, public officials, educators, and more.

Place is an Environmental Issue

Seattle’s continuing population growth means that if residents are not engaged and excited about the places where they now live, exurban sprawl will continue its destructive march up to the foothills of the Cascade mountains–a point that was dramatically made the first evening with a map of projected 21st century growth in the Seattle region presented by Gene Duvernoy of the Cascade Land Conservancy.

“We can’t force people to live in cities if they don’t want to… That’s why place is a critical environmental issue.

The meeting was conducted with a sense of both urgency and opportunity. It was clear to all that we were not discussing mere aesthetic questions, but key issues affecting the future of Seattle, the Northwest and the world. As Ron Sher–a developer, business owner, and community activist–put it in his opening statement: “We can’t force people to live in cities if they don’t want to. So we must make cities places where people want to live. That’s why place is a critical environmental issue.” That theme was returned to by many participants throughout the following days.

Seattle’s Best

The first order of business was to identify the best-realized and least-realized places in the region as a starting point on how to think more meaningfully about the concept of public places. Given the wide range of professional backgrounds, there was remarkable agreement in people’s choices (with the contentious exception of one new shopping development downtown, West Lake Place, rated as best by some and worst by others). This reinforces the idea, long promoted by PPS, that identifying good places is not simply a matter of relative taste–as many design professionals and design critics would have it. It’s not true that some people are drawn to bustling sidewalks and others are inspired by wide, traffic-choked roads lined with strip malls. People may accept standard American sprawl because they don’t see other options, but it’s not what they would aspire to for their community. There seems something instinctual in the heart and soul of humans that attracts us to certain places and repels us from others.

An American Renaissance

Fred Kent and Kathy Madden of PPS offered a brief overview of the PPS approach to Placemaking, which helped instill the meeting with a common language in how to talk about place. A cheer went up from the crowd when they presented a slide of what residents of Littleton, New Hampshire came up with as the elements of a good place in a series of PPS-led meetings around transportation issues in the town.

  • Eat in diners
  • Ride trains
  • Put a porch on your house
  • Shop on Main Street
  • Live in a walkable community

These ideas were later emblazoned on T-shirts, under the title of “Recipe for an American Renaissance.”

Diversity Questions

A central topic of discussion through the entire meeting was diversity–both among public spaces themselves and advocates for this emerging Great Places movement. The group assembled was overwhelmingly white, with a preponderance of middle-aged men. Yet public places are most used and most needed by young people, immigrants, and low-income people. Presumably, these people would play a major role in the movement as it evolved. Several participants voiced the opinion that rather than expecting representatives of youth, low-income and immigrant communities to attend a conference conceived by someone else, the key to diversity would be to partner with already existing groups and movements within these communities.

Chaos is often an important ingredient in creating places that people love.

In a similar vein, several participants raised a concern that Great Places have a flexible definition, and that people in communities themselves are always the final arbiters of what constitutes greatness in their own places. A “great” Latino neighborhood or young people’s hang-out might look different than a “great” country club district. While these places would all share the fundamental characteristics of offering a place for people to gather and interact, the look and feel of each would reflect the people who use it the most. A presentation by Ethan Kent of PPS drove this point home by noting how chaos is often an important ingredient in creating places that people love–and these places don’t always reflect the tidy, charming qualities usually favored by upper-middle class Americans.

Think Globally, Act Locally

Discussing how to launch a movement was the not-so-hidden agenda of the Sleeping Lady meeting, and no one expressed dissent from this idea. But that still left a lot of ground to cover about the shape, focus, strategy and goals of the movement. There seemed general consensus that this ought to become a regional movement, focused on the Seattle region or Pacific Northwest, but built upon a foundation of work on the neighborhood level and eager to make connections with people pursuing similar goals around the world. It seems a great opportunity to dust off the old slogan, “Think globally, act locally.”

A Big Tent

There seemed a similar consensus that this is a non-ideological (or “post-ideological”) movement that has genuine potential for common cause with groups all over the political spectrum. The foundation of Placemaking is the principle that the people living, working and hanging out in a certain place are the people who know that place best and should be centrally involved in making decisions about its future. This message appeals to both conservative ideals of decentralized government and progressive values of community empowerment. Though the current constituency of the movement is mostly left-leaning–and it may alienate some fervent pro-market conservatives–there is every reason to believe it will attract social conservatives and people in the middle of the political road.

Conferees agreed that Placemaking could garner a very broad base of support.

It was deemed important that great places not be seen as a strictly urban phenomenon. Suburbs, which were well represented at the meeting, and rural areas, which were not, must also be viewed as places of potential greatness. A great small town, or outer-ring suburb, of course, would look much different than an urban center but still showcase the qualities we all associate with lively public space.

Another point of lengthy discussion was that this is a movement with a small “m” — an umbrella over which to unite many ongoing efforts in areas as divergent as inner city revitalization and environmental restoration. It is most likely a movement of movements, in the same way that Earth Day represented the unification of many longstanding conservation and anti-pollution campaigns into what we now call the environmental movement. Forging connections between all kinds of efforts–large and small, within existing institutions and outside–may be the most important element for the success of Placemaking work.

Where Do We Go from Here?

The meeting closed with a high degree of exuberance, as well as a few lively exchanges about what role big developers and community dissenters play in the whole process of making great places. How to keep the energy of the meeting alive after everyone headed home was a topic of discussion.

Karen True, who did a masterful job arranging the meeting, agreed to sign on as a coordinator in the coming months. A steering committee was formed. It was agreed that e-mail contact and a Web Site were essential and that a follow-up meeting be planned. On the indirect, but no less powerful, level, the cause of Placemaking will be carried forth from the inspiration and connections coming out of the conference.

For its part, PPS is planning to partner with local organizations in various regions across the continent and around the world to initiate more meetings with a similar goal: translating the wisdom and work of Placemaking into a broader social movement. “These ideas resonate with people everywhere we go,” notes PPS President Fred Kent, “and now is the time to turn these ideas into practical action in communities all over the planet.”

This is indeed a revolution, based on the simple idea that democracy cannot flourish in a culture where there are no places for people to gather.

He sees more regional Placemaking meetings like the one in Seattle leading up to a large event, modeled on the immensely popular Chautauquas of the early 20th century, where the Great Places movement is unveiled to the public as a whole. Kent, the lead organizer for the first Earth Day celebration in New York City, sees this event as a moment of similar magnitude. It would most likely take place in the Pacific Northwest, perhaps as early as 2006.

Next Steps

A long and intriguing list of ideas came up during the three days of meetings, meals, and impromptu discussions at Sleeping Lady. All of them offer opportunities to take action, both in individual initiatives and in coordinated projects, and plant the idea of Placemaking more firmly in a number of communities. Here are some of the ideas raised:

  • Establish a clearinghouse for information and educational efforts around creating and protecting Great Places. PPS would most likely play a large role here.
  • Launch a Great Places Speaker’s Bureau, which can spread the word everywhere from Rotary meetings to campus rallies.
  • Establish a research and education institute (think tank) to promote Placemaking and furnish data and analysis.
  • Develop a place curriculum for colleges and K-12 schools.
  • Create an inspirational video on Placemaking that can be widely circulated.
  • Introduce a Great Places seal of approval or certification, along the line of the LEED principles in sustainable building.
  • Find funding for a grant program to boost local efforts to make great places.
  • Hold a yearly national conference, perhaps following up on a series of regional ones, along the lines of Rail-volution, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and ProBike/ProWalk.
  • Design a Placemaking edition of the Sim City computer game.
  • Instill Earth Day 2006 with a strong Great Places emphasis.
  • Reach out to seniors’ organizations and youth groups — two groups negatively affected by current patterns of development.
  • Call Great Places town meetings in coffee shops, libraries, community centers, schools, church basements, parks, and anywhere else people will gather.

Talkin’ About a Revolution

Throughout all the discussions over three days there was a deep feeling that the underlying strength of this emerging movement is its literal grounding in real places, and that these places should form the basis of all we do. That means no strategy sessions at airport hotels. Reveling in the pleasure and capacity of genuine public places will give us the vitality and imagination to spark a real revolution in the way we live today.

This is, indeed, a revolution, based on the simple idea that democracy (and many other noble and practical goals) cannot flourish in a culture where there are no places for people to gather. As Harry Boyte, an authority on community organizing and key supporter of this movement in the Midwest, has said: “In the ’60s we thought the revolution was just around the corner. Now, we know it’s around every corner.”

And this revolution already has its anthem, a rhyme composed spontaneously in the Francis Scott Key tradition at one session and performed by “Big Rich” a/k/a Richard Conlin, whose day job is with the Seattle City Council. Here’s how it goes.

PLACEMAK’N

You gotta put your face
Into a human space
And you’ll create a place
That you could not replace

It’ll be for everyone
No, no one will be shunned
We can be so diverse
And it’s not for the worse

We’ll have our shops and parks
And room for dogs and larks
Somewhere where we can walk
And yes where we can talk

We’re saying “hi” to folks
And laughing at their jokes
We’re buying from our friends
So we can all meet ends

Some risks we’ll need to take
Make sure it won’t be fake
All folks should be involved
As plans we do evolve

Yes, there’s a movement coming
And it will keep on humming
Together we will work
No one will be a jerk

We’ll listen to each voice
Then we will make a choice
We’ll make a place for all
And we will conquer sprawl.



When Third Places Come First

Ron Sher doesn’t fit the ruthless developer stereotype. As a member of PPS’s Board of Directors, Sher was instrumental in organizing February’s Placemaking conference in Seattle. And as CEO of the Third Place Company he has devoted himself to creating retail places that foster community and change neighborhoods. How? By converting declining malls into thriving mixed-use centers with local businesses, community institutions, and common spaces that offer free activities and events.

Giant chessboards are a popular staple of Sher's developments.

Don’t get the wrong idea — Sher’s Third Place developments still turn a profit. But their success is measured by indicators other than money. Take Third Place Books and Commons in Lake Forest Park, Washington. Here, sales volume takes a backseat to less tangible things, like the liveliness of the conversation at book discussions.

Without these conversations, it’s hard to have a true democracy.

As you may have noticed from the names of his developments (there is another Third Place Books in Ravenna, Washington), Sher is passionate about “third places,” the phrase Ray Oldenburg coined to describe social gathering spaces outside the home and the workplace. The Seattle Times’ Sherry Stripling recently spoke to Sher about his belief in the ability of third places to create a more open society and foster conversation between people who hold opposing views. We are pleased to reprint an excerpt of her story below.

…Without these conversations, it’s hard to have a true democracy, says Ron Sher, who has been lauded by customers and by Oldenburg for creating common space in his developments – Crossroads in Bellevue, Third Place Books and Commons at Lake Forest Park, and Third Place Books in Ravenna. All three invite people to linger for chess, music and book discussions.

The concept is called “place making” and Sher is on the national board of the Project for Public Spaces, which will bring a group together in Seattle next year to plan a larger, public conference here for 2006 or 2007.

Environmentalists are among those interested, Sher says, because they believe one of the best ways to prevent sprawl is to make cities friendlier places to live.

And why is it important for democracy?

Just look at the polarization of Republicans and Democrats on a whole range of social issues, says [Mara] Adelman, an associate professor in Seattle University’s Department of Communication.

She’s studied the benefits of “weak ties” – the people you meet regularly at the dog park, the coffee shop, the bus stop.

The “strong ties” in our lives – family, friends, workmates – tend to be “birds of a feather,” Adelman says. They have certain expectations of how we’ll think or behave. The “weak ties” provide freedom of self-expression to test out new ideas – “and then you get to say good night and go home.”

Without third places, she says, “you can’t get into the gray areas and complexity.”

Read the full story: Conversation starters: “Third places” provide havens for diverse discussion.

Excerpts from Ron Sher’s Welcoming Remarks

Why Placemaking matters:

Why Placemaking is so important to me is impossible to separate out from my world view. We all have a perspective, a rationale, a reason for the work we are doing, beyond just doing good things, supporting ourselves and spending time with good people (not that this might not be enough reason). Until I was working on this conference my greater context wasn’t something I talked about much. I just knew intuitively that Placemaking was important.

When redeveloping the Crossroads Shopping Center in Bellevue I realized how much I enjoyed making places that supported the citizens and where people not only enjoyed being, but maybe even made a positive impact on their behavior as citizens. Then I learned of Ray Oldenburg and his Third Place theory. This became a metaphor for me in much of my work. Placemaking fits into a chain of things and taken to the extreme is a panacea for everything that is going wrong in the world and in our society.

Placemaking and democracy:

I am not talking of the “state-centered” democracy that we most often think of, but rather the society-centered democracy. Placemaking creates livable cities with safe, civil Third Places where democracy happens, can be learned, and modeled.

On the Placemaking Movement:

The question is how we are going to have a sustainable world where the quality of people’s lives is improved and where people have greater joy, greater meaning, and are more considerate of one another. The first to address the issue of how we could adapt from a need for continued growth was John Stewart Mill. He realized that added productivity and efficiency could be used to improve people’s lives. They could focus on the “art of living” when they were less focused with “getting on.” In modern terms he might see more public goods and free time as the answer to a long-term sustainable future. This would certainly be consistent with great cities, populated by many great places.

So a Placemaking movement can increase awareness and educate people not only to the value of places and how to create them, but how to activate them, how to behave in them. With my bookstores I have seen many, many people who intuitively understand place have a big AHA and go out of their way to support it. We can capture this enthusiasm for our Placemaking Movement.

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Town Square: Takin’ It to the Streets

By Jay Walljasper

Once in a while you come across a juicy tidbit of information that gloriously confirms something you always suspected was true. That happened to me last week when reading William Murray’s book A Walk in Rome–a collection of musings, memories and historical research from the New Yorker’s longtime Italy correspondent.

Authorities who want to corral and order pedestrians for the convenience of motorists really do exhibit fascistic tendencies.

Murray (whose obituary I discovered in the New York Times only an hour-and-a-half after finishing the book) notes that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was so deeply troubled by the chaos of people walking around central Rome that he enacted strict rules governing pedestrians. Everyone on the busy thoroughfare Via del Corso was commanded to walk in one direction on the east side of the street, and the opposite direction on the west side. This crude attempt at social engineering was, of course, a spectacular failure, and it provides an uplifting example of the creative human spirit triumphing over those who want to control us like so many sheep.

A wide smile crossed my face as I read this little story, since it substantiates my longstanding claim that authorities who want to corral and order pedestrians for the convenience of motorists really do exhibit fascistic tendencies. I have occasionally used that F-word to describe politicians and traffic engineers who impose impediments to the free flow of foot traffic. Now I have the historical record to back me up.

It’s pedestrians that bring life to a community, and it’s cars who suck all the life out.

But I am slightly embarrassed at how most modern-day North Americans willingly submit to this sort of auto-cratic injustice. Romans living under the bootheel of Mussolini’s fascist regime refused to accept this infringement of their right to walk the way they want to walk (as another grandson of Italy, Bruce Springsteen, put it). So why has no one in Winnipeg, a city famous for its radical history, torn out the sidewalk blockades at Portage and Main, one of the most celebrated intersections in Canadian history? Why don’t folks in Seattle, a hotbed of enlightened civic activism as seen by the recent Placemaking conference, revolt against the police department’s longstanding policy of issuing jaywalking tickets to innocent souls simply crossing the street? And why for crying out loud haven’t more New Yorkers, America’s closest counterpart to the colorfully anarchic Romans, resisted former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s campaign to confine pedestrian movement in order to promote more cars in an already traffic-choked city?

It’s high time that we stand up to planners and politicians who don’t yet understand that it’s pedestrians that bring life to a community, and it’s cars who suck all the life out. While it’s important to lobby public officials for traffic calming and other public safety improvements, it’s also important to assert the fact that our streets don’t exist merely for the ease of motorists. Traffic calming, after all, was invented by frustrated citizens in the law-abiding Netherlands, who illegally moved old sofas and planters into the street to slow rushing traffic when the local police weren’t enforcing speed limits. Improving the life of your community sometimes means takin’ it to the streets.

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A Tale of Two Conferences

By Shin-pei Tsay

As the Placemaking meeting kicked off in Seattle in late February, a virtual Who’s Who of well-known urban thinkers convened in New York City to discuss the future of communities at the Urban Age Conference. Organized by the London School of Economics Cities Programme and the Alfred Hauhaussen Society for International Dialogue, the conference was intended to foster discussion about how cities work and what can be done to improve them, but it also showed the deep divisions within the architecture and planning professions today.

Thankfully there are visions of thinking about and creating great places that can rise above all the polemics.

Heated exchanges erupted a number of times, as participants offered widely contradictory views on the nature and future of communities in the 21st Century. Encouragingly, several high-profile speakers at the conference underlined the necessity of public participation in charting a course for our cities and the importance of serving communities’ needs as the ultimate goal. At the same time, however, many influential “experts” expressed unabashed contempt for that viewpoint.

Theoreticians and practitioners, architects and community organizers, city managers and civic advocates often found themselves speaking past each other at the event, and were at a loss as to understand why they had all been invited to come together. Was the goal to build closer links between theory and practice? The divergence of opinion yielded some fascinating quotes, revealing the beliefs and biases that abound in the profession:

“Jane Jacobs was the first real brave attempt to understand how cities work.”

– Michael Sorkin, architect and author

“It is a shame that Jane Jacobs’ work has disconnected the study of cities from cities…she has created an era of hyper-nostalgia which gets in the way of progress.”

– Rem Koolhaas, Dutch urban theorist and architect

“When we ask, neighborhoods are what matter most to New Yorkers, and that is what we are trying to keep.”

– Amanda Burden
New York City Planning Commissioner

“Neighborhoods prevent the imagination of architecture.”

– Hashim Sarkis
Professor of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design

“Community organizing is the only way that we now have city planning trying to come up with innovative solutions.”

– Ron Schiffman
Director, Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development

“Public participation is what prevents city government from getting anything done.”

– Esther Fuchs
Deputy Mayor, New York City

Thankfully there are visions of thinking about and creating great places that can rise above all the polemics. As Enrique Peñalosa, the former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, pointed at the conference, there is no single idea of what progress means and to narrowly define it by the values of the developed world would be a mistake. He described how during his tenure as mayor, the city took some of the new thinking about improving urban life seriously and applied it on the streets of Bogota. While some in the audience sneered at this agenda, which Peñalosa boldly calls “creating happiness,” those that listened with an open mind may have taken away the most valuable insight of the whole Urban Age conference — a greater vision for our shared places.

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Reawakening in Seattle

Seattle is one of America’s most celebrated cities, but the quality of its public space hasn’t always kept up with its cultural and economic vitality. The public have nominated only three places in Seattle for PPS’s Great Public Spaces website, for instance. (To be fair, two others have been contributed by PPS staff — Pike Place Market and the Burke-Gilman Trail. You can submit your own favorite places for inclusion using our online nomination form.)

This state of affairs is not likely to continue. In addition to the creative energy unleashed at the recent Placemaking conference, the City of Seattle itself has been very engaged in improving its public spaces. PPS has been at the center of these efforts, helping local communities revive two parks that have not lived up to their initial promise: Freeway Park and Occidental Park.

Freeway Park

When Freeway Park was built in the 1970s, it was hailed as a major architectural and engineering accomplishment. Designed by the world-renowned firm of Lawrence Halprin & Associates, it was the first park to be constructed over a freeway, thereby “healing the scar” that I-5 created in downtown Seattle. Over the years, however, the park has fallen into disuse. As trees and shrubbery matured, the park became more shaded and concealed, discouraging some people from visiting. Seattle’s drug trade and homeless population found a home in Freeway Park. The murder of a blind and deaf homeless woman in broad daylight in 2002 spurred a city-wide effort to revitalize Freeway Park.

Park Place Plaza (top) is one of the places in Freeway Park that PPS workshop participants envisioned as more open and welcoming (bottom).

The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department asked PPS to assist it in developing a community vision for the park and the wider neighborhood through a series of collaborative workshops and visioning meetings with community groups and other major stakeholders in the area. This community process resulted in a collective vision for the park that balances the original design of the park as a green urban sanctuary with the need for more activities and attractions that can make sure it becomes a vibrant public place.

In particular, two major buildings on opposite ends of the park–the Convention Center and Park Plaza–need to be strengthened as anchors of activity to draw people in. The community also generated many ideas to highlight and improve several “places” within the park. Some of these places could be enhanced with seasonal horticultural plantings; others with public attractions such as an aviary or rotating art exhibits. Outdoor cafés are being considered for other parts of the park. These different destinations would form a loop linking areas together and making the entire park a fantastic place to walk. The community is also considering a number of new management options needed to ensure the long-term success of Freeway Park as a place people from all over the Seattle area will want to visit.

Occidental Park

The City of Seattle is also turning its attention to Occidental Park, a place that few people stop to enjoy even though it occupies a prime block in the heart of downtown’s historic Pioneer Square district. The park is thoroughly dominated by homeless people. City officials, including Mayor Greg Nickles, have recognized that the park has untapped potential to become the centerpeice of a dynamic neighborhood.

Nighttime movie screenings in Occidental Park were a big draw last summer.

PPS led workshops last spring to evaluate the park and develop short- and long-term strategies for improvement. City officials, eager to show residents that changes were afoot, acted quickly upon PPS’s recommendations to implement a series of experiments in the park over the summer. From small additions like public chess sets to large productions like outdoor movies and musical performances, the experiments helped officials understand what can be done to make it a park for everybody.

In addition, events like the “First Thursday” art market and a festival called “Discover the Klondike” that celebrated Seattle’s role as a staging ground for 1897 Alaska gold rush, delivered a large boost in visitors to the park. The adjacent Grand Central Bakery noticed the difference immediately, attributing an increase in sales to the new programming in the park. The Parks Department is now determining ways to market Occidental Park’s activities, such as identifying particular days of the week with specific events.

Looking Forward

The promising signs of community engagement in Freeway and Occidental Parks point to a new resolve around the city to improve its public spaces and neighborhoods. PPS is confident that Seattle’s highly engaged communities and forward-thinking leaders will keep the momentum going strong.

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