Ethan Kent

Ethan Kent is an authority in the practice of Placemaking, working to support Placemaking projects and organizations around the world. During over 14 years at PPS, Ethan has learned from and photographed public spaces in more than 700 cities and 50 countries. Ethan has been integral to the development of Placemaking as a transformative approach to economic development, environmentalism, transportation planning, governance and design.

Having worked on over 200 PPS projects, Ethan has led a broad spectrum of Placemaking efforts, providing comprehensive public engagement, planning and visioning for many important public spaces.  Highlights have included: Portland Oregon’s Pioneer Courthouse Square; Times Square in New York; Kennedy Plaza in Providence, RI; Pompey Square, Nassau, Bahamas; Garden Place in Hamilton, New Zealand; and Sub Centro Las Condes in Santiago, Chile. He has also worked with some of the most high profile developments in the world to help maximize public space outcomes in Hong Kong, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sao Paulo.

Utilizing lessons learned through his project work, Ethan regularly creates and conducts Placemaking training courses for professionals of various disciplines, from city planning staff in Vancouver, BC, to community development corporations in Detroit; from public housing developers in Sweden to traffic engineers in New Jersey.  He has also trained hundreds of professionals across Australia and New Zealand, through leading more than 25 training workshops.

In order to begin to institutionalize Placemaking in cities, Ethan has initiated and led local partnerships with public, private and non-profit leaders to build capacity on all levels, shift organizational culture, implement demonstration projects and develop local campaigns for Placemaking. Ethan has applied this strategy in a wide range of cities including Chicago, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Baltimore, Seattle, San Francisco, Omaha, Flint, MI, Midland, MI, Brunswick, ME, Bellingham, WA, Richmond, VA, Adelaide and Melbourne, Australia, Mississauga, Canada, in New Zealand and state-wide in Michigan.

This approach has had the most tangible effect in New York City where Ethan co-founded the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign, as an effort to challenge auto-centric transportation policy and inspire a new public vision of streets as dynamic destinations. To launch the campaign, he directed an educational exhibit called Livable Streets: A New Vision for New York, then initiated and helped manage demonstration Placemaking processes with local stakeholders in some of NYC’s most important yet auto-dominated areas including Times Square, 9th Avenue in Hells Kitchen, the Meatpacking District, Myrtle Avenue, Columbus Avenue, Petrosino Square, Union Square and Grand Army Plaza. The campaign and its demonstration projects have led to the creation of a bold shift in NYC transportation policy including a Public Plaza Program, managed by former PPS staff, that is reclaiming street space for dynamic new public spaces throughout the city.

Education

Ethan studied sociology, environmental studies and economics as an undergraduate at Bowdoin College. He explored local development issues in the context of globalization during a year of travel around the world as a participant in the International Honors Program. Ethan did his graduate work at Antioch University Seattle’s Center for Creative Change in Environment and Community. He attributes his Placemaking education, and any miseducation, to the communities he has worked with, and to his father who founded PPS.

Writing and Photography

Ethan’s writing has appeared broadly, being featured in NewStart Magazine, Streetsblog, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Downtown Idea Exchange, Planetizen and many others. His photography from around the world is featured in PPS publications and a broad range of media.

Presentations

An inspiring and persuasive speaker, Ethan has brought PPS’ Placemaking message to many groups around the world. Ethan’s recent keynote presentations include:

• Future of Place, Placemaking Conference, Institute for Quality Communities, Norman, Oklahoma
• Auckland Conversations, Auckland, NZ
• Placemaking and the Future of New Urbanism: Localism, Shared Responsibility and Citizen Empowerment, Ax:son Johnson Foundation, Engelsberg, Sweden
• Board of Commissioners Retreat, Bridgeport Downtown Special Services District, Bridgeport, CT
• Placemaking Leadership and Strategic Planning Forum, Pimpri-Chinchwad, India
• Toronto Building Industry and Land Development Assoc, Standard Hotel, New York, NY
• What if we Built Australasia Around Places? International Cities & Town Centres Conference, Gold Coast, Australia
• Shifting the Focus to Placemaking, Adelaide, Australia
• Transforming Parramatta Through Placemaking, Parramatta, Australia
• “What if the Place Leaders Led with Place?”, Place Leaders Association, Sydney, Australia
• Myrtle Avenue BID Annual Meeting, Ridgewood, Queens, NY
• “What if We Built Michigan Around Places?”, Placemaking Leadership Forum, Lansing, MI
• “Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper”, University City District, Philadelphia, PA
• Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Council, Chicago, IL
• “What if We Built Adelaide Around Places?”, Smart Start, Adelaide, Australia
• “Inclusive Spaces for a Sustainable City”, Training Workshop, Ministry of Social Development, Public Space Recovery Program and UN Habitat, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
• COM:PLOT 2011:Código:Ciudadano, Guadalajara, Mexico
• “What if We Built Stockholm Around Places?”, City of Stockholm Stratgic Planning, Stockholm, Sweden with SpaceScape
• Ruas que constroem comunidades, Workshop Inserção do Transporte Sustentável no Morar Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Villes et territoires en mutation, L’Ordre des urbanistes du Québec, Montreal, Canada
• Streets as Places, Historic Preservation and Downtown Conference, Poultney, VT
• Pavement Politics: Times Square and the Changing Face of New York’s Streets, Urban Design Week, Times Square Alliance, New York, NY
• NextGen Pre-conference, Congress for New Urbanism, Madison, WI
• America’s Cities: The Burden of the Past, or the Promise of the Future?, NYU Law F0rum, New York, NY
• Retrofiting and Planning Sustainable Suburbs, Toronto, Canada
• Libraries as Catalysts for Placemaking, Melbourne, Australia
• What if We Built Sydney’s Waterfront Around Places?, Sydney, Australia
• Destination Downtown, New Iberia, LA
• Ambiente y Espacio Público, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Virginia’s First Cities Annual Meeting, Portsmouth, VA
• Rural Community Development, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Oneida County, NY
• Placemaking and Preservation, Annual Meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, DC
• Urban Land Institute and Kamehameha Schools, Honolulu, HI
• Spirit and Place Festival, Indianapolis, IN
• Mayoral Conversations, Hamilton, New Zealand
• Arlington Street Infrastructure Forum: Envisioning the Future of Arlington’s Streets Y2100, Arlington, VA
• Investing In Our Existing Neighbourhoods, Prince Albert, SK, Canada
• What if We Built Melbourne Around Places?, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia
• Public Spaces Seminar: Equity and Social Integration, Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and UNDP, Santiago, Chile
• Sustainability Series, Bismarck, ND
• What If We Built Richmond’s Waterfront Around Places?, Richmond, VA
• Moving the Economy, Toronto, ON
• Executive Director Retreet, Neighborworks America, Old Saybrook, CT
• International Forum on Public Spaces and Sustainability, Bogotá, Colombia
• The Sustainable Tourism Planning and Development Laboratory, Providence, RI
• Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation, Brooklyn, NY
• Center for Architecture and the Built Environment, London, UK
• NY State Chambers Alliance, Albany, NY
• Strategic Thinking Forum – City Safety Commission, Melbourne, Australia
• Neighborhood Summit, “Great People, Great Places, Great City”, Garland, TX
• International Cities, Town Centers and Communities Society, Auckland, NZ
• Foro Internacional de Parques, Bogotá, Colombia

He also has given workshops and panel presentations at conferences of the The Urban Vision, The BMW Guggenheim Lab Mumbai, ProWalk/ProBike, CommunityMatters, Urban Land Institute, Local Initiative Support Corp., Civic Tourism, Placematters, CAPACD, Bronx Parks Speak-up, Planners Network, Eco Metropolis, Car Free Cities, NYS Planning Federation and the World Social Forum and to many university audiences including Cornell, Yale, Columbia, Reed, NYU, Bowdoin, New School, Pratt, Hunter, University of Toronto, University of Washington and Harvard.

Board Affiliations

Steering Committee Member, The Future of Places Conference Series
Steering Committee Member, CommunityMatters
Board Member, Congress for New Urbanism New York Chapter
International Advisory Board Member, 8-80 Cities
Board Member (06-09), Make Music New York