BROOKLYN, NY- A heated controversy about bike lanes near Prospect Park ended today with a surprise announcement from the Mayor’s Office, City Planning Commission and NYCDOT that the contested street, Prospect Park West, will be excavated and transformed into a 25 foot deep waterway as part of Vision 2020: The NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan.

With the proposed new canal on Prospect Park West, inner Brooklyn will have a waterfront of its own.

While the announcement brings an end to months of fighting between pro- and anti-bike factions, a new set of debates lies ahead. Already, local interest groups are arguing over the possible uses of the waterway. NYCDOT will begin working with local stakeholders in May to develop plans for specialized lanes in the canals, including ones for jet skis, kayaks, sailboats, swimmers, and cruise ships.

The waterway will be constructed in two phases, ultimately cutting across 9th Street in Brooklyn and linking up with the Gowanus Canal, which is currently being cleansed of pollutants after being declared a Superfund site last year by the EPA. The Prospect Park West/9th Street Waterway will be the largest and most forward-thinking infrastructural project in New York City since the creation of Central Park in the mid-19th Century. It will generate roughly 8,000 jobs over the next 9 years.

The East Lake Farmers Market is one of Birmingham's existing centers for fresh food

PPS has long known that public markets play a key role in alleviating these health concerns. Partnering with Main Street Birmingham and, supported by funding from the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) program, PPS led a Placemaking workshop last summer and worked with local residents to help them build a vision for markets in their city.  The community’s participation will inform a study, which had two primary objectives:

• Increase the number and accessibility of quality markets in “food imbalanced” neighborhoods
• Coordinate and connect many market-related activities through a local Market Alliance

PPS’ markets team has proposed what we call “Healthy Food Hubs” throughout the city of Birmingham.  These hubs are places where people can do much more than just buy fresh, affordable food.  Food Hubs are vibrant community centers where neighbors can meet each other, attend cooking classes, learn about nutrition, and get health care.

Based on feedback from residents and the city’s various demographics, several concepts were proposed, including community garden-based farmers markets and the expansion and integration of the peddler and farm stand systems into retail and civic areas.

A plan for a Healthy Food Hub on Birmingham's Main Street.

For a city like Birmingham, recently named America’s second most obese city according to Forbes, where 31.3% of Birmingham’s residents have a BMI of 30 or higher, there can be no “silver bullet” solution. Providing all neighborhoods with access to healthy, fresh food is one way to start to mitigate obesity-related health concerns.

Download this guide for free.

The next step in implementing these initiatives in Birmingham is to find sponsors who will fund the the Market Alliance to begin work to start new Healthy Food Hubs, to connect community groups to the movement, and to set up a process for markets to accept SNAP (food stamps) and other Federal nutrition assistance coupons.

Main Street Birmingham’s Sam Crawford believes that “PPS has given the City of Birmingham and its many partners an excellent tool that will be used to establish a network of ‘public spaces’ that can become catalysts for further economic opportunity and where residents can work, play and access healthy foods in a safe friendly environment.”  We at PPS are also optimistic about the prospects of changing food and public space access in Birmingham and using public markets to improve the public health of the city.

Looking to set up SNAP at your market? Download a free copy of PPS’ Guide “SNAP/EBT at Your Farmer’s Market: Seven Steps to Success.”

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To learn more about setting up a great market in your neighborhood, come to PPS’ Spring Training session “How to Create Successful Markets,” May 20-21 in New York City.

The Human Cities project, founded in 2006, seeks to promote and transform urban planning processes in order to enhance sustainability and build human capital through civic engagement and grassroots movements.  As contributors Anna Meroni and Paola Trapani attest, “public space is the accessible field of opportunity and interaction, where people can meet to share experiences and visions, where they can try out new paths to solve their own problems and improve the quality of life.”

Human Cities is a collaborative effort among four different research institutions in four European capitals – Brussels, Milan, Glasgow, and Ljublana – and serves as an invaluable resource center for individuals and organizations looking to transform their communities from the bottom up.  They also host an annual festival, which features a number of representatives in the fields of architecture, planning, design, academia and public service discussing a variety of approaches and case studies for thinking about and fostering sustainability and quality public space.

This focus on public space reflects a growing understanding of the need for places that encourage people to congregate and ultimately enhance the lives of citizens.  In the introduction to the book’s second section, “Public in Place,” PPS Senior Vice President Kathy Madden advocates for a different approach to designing public space – specifically through observation and community outreach – in order to influence the work of designers, government officials, and others who make decisions about the public realm. “Only then,” she writes, “will public spaces achieve their full potential to positively impact the lives of citizens in every community in the world.”

Traditionally, planners and architects have aspired to create eye-catching designs that focus on the physical structure of the city.  However, Human Cities reflects a shift in European design culture from an aesthetic-oriented approach towards a place-based, civic engagement model.  Contributing author Ezio Manzini maintains that while communities and social networks cannot be engineered like material infrastructure can, planners can craft the urban environment to encourage a “convivial, welcoming, safe city created by its own inhabitants.”  By encouraging a holistic, interdisciplinary way of thinking about public space, “the material city and the social city generate each other.”  This concept of social design is a key component to bridging the gap between the physical nature of a space and its functionality.

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Human Cities: Celebrating Public Space is now available for purchase.

Jay Walljasper

PPS Senior Fellow Jay Walljasper, author of The Great Neighborhood Book, is the editor of a new release titled All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons. In his new book, Jay discusses the commons — the things in life that belong to everyone, from water and wilderness to the internet and public spaces.  Once we realize that we are all “commoners,” each of us can shift our focus from “me” to “we” in order to better our own lives and those of others.

Showcasing first-person stories, cartoons, real-world examples, photographs and thoughtful analysis, All That We Share offers its readers practical steps for improving the collective well-being and brings to life the promise of the commons as a new social, political and community tool.  In a time when the economy is shaky, politics are volatile and people are wondering about their futures, this book offers a genuine measure of hope that people like us can make a difference around the world.

All That We Share has already received rave reviews from a number of publications and authors.  You can pick up a copy at The New Press website.

“It’s amazing how much can change in a single day. In November, Fred and Norman from PPS came to our city, a suburb on the island of Montreal, to give a Placemaking workshop to our Council and staff from several different departments.

Fred Kent working with a municipal employee to re-envision the city center of Cote Saint-Luc

It started with how we work. The workshop was completely transformative in terms of our internal interaction and collaboration. People from various departments have started consulting with each other on a daily basis. Every department knows what every other department is doing. Staff members who attended have really been infused with a great deal of ideas and inspiration. Many came back from the weekend after the workshop with a list of things they wanted to do. Better still, they’ve been doing them. For example, in the spirit of lighter, quicker, cheaper, (the new mantra of our city), we put lovely Christmas lights outside of City Hall to spruce up for winter.  A small change, but people have commented and love it.

Given that it has been budget time, we’ve added all sorts of items to ours to forward our Placemaking mission, which indeed has become just that – a mission. We see everything differently now through the Placemaking lens. Our Council so strongly believes in it that it has put its money where its mouth is. We’ve allocated about $25,000 to fix up the plaza in front of the City Hall/Library complex, the area where we did the place audit. We’ve also planned to change the intersection right in front of this complex, possibly with a roundabout or some pedestrian-friendly variation.

Workshop attendees discuss possible changes to the City Hall and Library complex

Now that half of the Mall across the street has been completely torn down, we wanted to get moving on the surrounding area. We met with the contractors about the Main Street plans and we completely changed them according to the principles we learned.  Thanks to PPS.”

Côte Saint-Luc faces many of the challenges that other communities of similar size must confront – a lack of cooperation between public agencies, the need for upgrading its public spaces, establishing priorities and alleviating traffic congestion, among others.  Despite these issues, Tanya’s testimonial shows that with a place-based approach villages and suburbs can enact high-impact change rapidly and effectively despite limited resources.

PPS Vice President Phil Myrick and Senior Vice President Steve Davies are both big fans of Vienna’s Rathaus Christmas market because it’s a destination that attracts people and encourages solidarity among the Viennese, regardless of the inclement weather.  Steve is particularly fond of the hot mulled wine offered at a number of kiosks, keeping patrons in good spirits despite freezing temperatures.

The Rathaus market attracts Viennese to the city center, even in the dead of winter.

Other PPS employees enjoy New York City’s Union Square Holiday Market, which is located just up the street from our offices.  Vendors from around the Northeast US sell artisanal items and seasonal beverages and food.  Union Square is one of the most popular meet-up spots for New Yorkers, and even in winter it is still a great place to congregate.

NYC's Union Square Holiday Market is a huge draw for an already bustling plaza.

Edinburgh, Scotland’s Winter Festival is one of the more ambitious outdoor holiday markets.  Combining a marketplace with a carnival, visitors can enjoy a number of activities that aren’t usually associated with wintertime, such as a carousel and merry-go-round.

Edinburgh's Winter Festival combines typical wintertime attractions with those you might find at a summer fair.

These examples show that there is no one way to curate a great winter market — what does your local holiday market offer that makes it unique?