The Four Freedoms of the 21st Century / Image: Noel Hidalgo

“Today we will talk about the future that we make,” said #CivicTech activist Noel Hidalgo in his opening remarks at We Built This City: The State of Civic Technology, a panel organized last week as part of Social Media Week in New York City. Hidalgo went on to outline what he calls the Four Freedoms of the 21st Century (detailed above), which build upon the historic goals outlined by FDR in 1941.

In Hidalgo’s update, each new goal shifts from a focus on individual human rights to more social, communal aims. To speak and worship, to live free from fear or want—these are things that we do as individuals. To connect, learn, innovate, and fight tyranny—these are things that we do together. These freedoms don’t replace FDR’s original four, but build upon them, offering a thoughtful set of next steps for anyone thinking about how new social technology can be used to create more equitable communities.

Democratic governance, after all, is a social process, and new tech is only making it moreso. At that same panel, PPS’s Daniel Latorre noted that “Beacuse of all the technology that’s sprouted up, there’s a greater potential for how ‘informal’ citizens can work with the ‘formal,’ staffed citizens who run the city’s departments.” But, he and the other panelists asserted frequently, it is critical to remember that all citizens, whether they work formally for City Hall or not, are just that: citizens, neighbors, equals.

A city is the physical point at which thousands or millions of individual social networks overlap. It is the interconnectedness of our many varied webs that creates a unique sense of place within each neighborhood. The interaction between people is what flavors public spaces, and makes one place feel distinct from the next. As SeeClickFix founder Ben Berkowitz put it at another SMW event, It’s My City: Civic Participation in Urban Development, “Every individual carries their neighborhood…and your personal neighborhood evolves as your life changes.”

Technology is making it easier for people to connect to the places that they inhabit by leveling the social playing field. The tools that are being created are not ends in and of themselves; much like the Placemaking process, they are the means for bringing people together: to connect, to learn, to innovate, and to feel welcome to do so. Below are thoughts from the two aforementioned SMW events that highlight technology’s role in strengthening local human networks in-place, in relation to each of Hidalgo’s 21st Century Four Freedoms.

On the freedom to connect: “Technology,” said Latorre, “is only 10% of the problem. 90% of it is about the organizing & research to find out who you’re trying to connect with.” Wherever you are in a city (or town), there are dozens of potential partners and collaborators within spitting distance. We need better digital tools for finding local people and organizations to connect with in order to get things done.

On the freedom to learn: “The creators of new ideas don’t have to be within your organization to be helpful,”  noted Betsy Scherzer, the project manager for the NYC BigApps competition, at We Built This City. But once an organization has decided that it’s ready and willing to learn from people outside its normal circles, the question (according to Scherzer) becomes, “How do you incentivize outsiders to contribute to what you want to solve? Then, how do you curate the response?” In other words: how can tech help us find the right teachers?

On the freedom from tyranny: “If citizens don’t start cooperating city-to-city, there will be no checks and balances for something like the IBM Smart City control center that was ‘gifted’ to Rio,” cautioned Meu Rio co-founder Alessandra Orofino during the It’s My City panel. “Whoever designs the interface holds a whole lot of influence.” If you plan for people and places, you get people and places; if you plan for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. More and more, tech is a vital planning tool, so make sure that the tools your city uses are focused on people and places.

On the freedom to innovate: Collaboration, and the cross-pollination of ideas by people with many different backgrounds, is what creates bursts of human creativity and innovation. “We now have tech so completely embedded into whatever we’re doing,” argued Hidalgo at It’s My City, “so when we talk about technology, we forget that when we build communities of practice, that’s also a technology that we’re applying to ourselves to strengthen our communities.” Tools that bust down silo walls and create more connectivity between the tangential networks that exist in a given place are key to innovation.

Technology can be hugely helpful in strengthening communities. It can also be a huge distraction. The key is to make sure that new tools serve people first. That’s a self-reinforcing process. The more people there are paying attention and making their voices heard in the discussion about how technology can strengthen offline networks, economies, and places, the more likely it will be that new tools will be designed to make the dialog even more inclusive. In order to change the way that cities are run, the #CivicTech movement should lean more toward civics, and less toward tech.

Every citizen has a seat at the table, and technology’s job right now is to help people understand how they can have an impact on their communities. In Latorre’s words: “The cities that are more open, that are early adopters, are the ones where the citizens are more in charge than the technocrats. The next time you find yourself in a conversation about technology, stop—and start talking about outcomes and goals. Get out of the tiny little box of technology.”

The conference begins with the premise that the world is at a crossroads. We have a choice: cities can continue to grow haphazardly, without regard to human social needs and environmental consequences, or we can embrace a sustainable and equitable process that builds community, enhances quality of life, and creates safe and prosperous neighborhoods. We are convinced that in the future, the cities that utilize the social capital-building potential of their public spaces to the fullest will be the ones with the most dynamic local economies. The Future of Places will survey the field, and map out a path to a more people-centered urban development model for the globalized future.

Habitat III, the third United Nations (UN) conference to be held on Human Settlements, will bring together actors from across the globe, including local governments, national governments, the private sector, international organizations, and many others. This gathering, the largest of its kind in the world, will build on the first Habitat conference in Vancouver in 1976 and the Habitat II conference in Istanbul in 1996. The conference will re-evaluate the Habitat agenda and look at the role of UN-Habitat and sustainable urban development in the upcoming decade. It is therefore vital that the dialogue that will influence the Habitat III outcomes—and thus the future global urban agenda—commences today.

As many of you already know, the timing of the launch of this conference series is particularly exciting as, just three weeks ago, we announced the formation of the Placemaking Leadership Council, which will meet for the first time this April in Detroit to begin developing a global agenda around Placemaking in cities. To ensure a diverse, multifaceted group of attendees for The Future of Places conference in June, each of the three organizing partners for that event will be bringing a delegation of leaders from their respective realm of expertise. As such, PPS will be selecting members from the Leadership Council to attend the Future of Places conference.

This allows us to form a truly international Council by providing those who cannot travel to Detroit in April with an equally exciting opportunity to gather with peers for the discussion of the transformative agendas that are at the heart of this evolving movement. While the Detroit meeting will lay the groundwork for the Council’s future work, the role that Council members will play at The Future of Places conference will be critical in expanding the understanding of that work on the global stage. Due to this unique perspective, we will be looking for delegates with experience working internationally, and particularly in the cities of the developing world—people with a passion for addressing human, social, and community needs in ways that transform long-struggling areas into sustainable neighborhoods defined around vital, welcoming, and affirming public spaces.

If you believe that you would be a good fit for the Placemaking Leadership Council, and you are interested in attending either or both of the meetings in Detroit and Stockholm, we encourage you to review the criteria for joining the Leadership Council. Once you are up to speed on the agendas and criteria, you can then click here to tell us why you feel you’d be good addition to the Placemaking Leadership Council between now and April 1st, 2013. (Please note that, if you have already filled out this form, you do not need to do so again.)

If you want to stay up to date with news about the Stockholm conference, you can follow @FutureofPlaces on Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Perhaps we will see you soon, in Stockholm!

A glove washed up on Natalia’s doorstep in Gowanus after Hurricane Sandy flooded the neighborhood / Photo: Natalia Radywyl

Yet, unlike many others, I have been able to return home. In other parts of New York City, such as The Rockaways, Staten Island, Coney Island and Red Hook, some homes are still without power and basic services, with emergency relief needs and the demand for medical and legal services escalating. The crisis has also been met by rapid community mobilization, from Occupy emerging as a leading support, to myriad fundraising activities across the city, and even internationally.

As our daily lives are becoming increasingly destabilized by financial recession, climate change and perhaps political marginalization, self-organizing communities are also becoming a steady presence, from co-ops and community gardens to large-scale political movements like Occupy and the Arab Spring. Our streets and public spaces have become sites that weather (literally, in the case of Sandy) these various challenges, but they are also the sites of protest, green markets, and social interaction. In this way, these spaces are revealing how we might re-imagine the way we live in our cities for a more just and equitable future.

This perspective formed the basis of a recent conference, Urban Uprising: Re-Imagining the City, jointly organized by The Center for Place, Culture and Politics, CUNY, The Right to the City Alliance, The New School Design and Urban Ecologies Program, and Growing Roots on November 30 – December 1, 2012. The first day featured perspectives from scholars and community organizers, speaking on the theme: ‘In History, In Process, In the Future’. Surveying the legacy of social movements in Detroit, the first panel was an apt reminder that our histories are conduits for learning about our present and future. As noted by Francis Fox Piven (Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, CUNY), “These movements are still with us, they are a part of our genetic heritage.”

Speaking from her own deep wisdom as a long-time civil rights activist, Marian Kramer, (Founder and President, National Welfare Rights Union), added that although “It’s good to always know history… [it’s important] to always understand what you’re up against right now because the strategies and tactics are different from the 1960s. And then you’re gonna get a damn good revolutionary.”

Marian Kramer (third from left): “It’s good to always know history…” / Photo: Natalia Radywyl

The next panel’s international perspective brought the universality of many urban issues to light, from the way that urban design can deepen existing inequities through spatial segregation in Lebanon and Egypt, to homelessness and migration flow progressively marginalizing displaced populations in Hungary and South Africa.

Hiba Bou Akar, (Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Urban Planning, School of Social Inquiry, Hampshire College), speaking about the ‘War Yet to Come’ in Lebanon / Photo: Natalia Radywyl

As discussion after the presentations turned towards the nuances of culture and context, it became apparent that, although a broad comparison allows us to see problems as global and relating to common human rights, to work equitably we must also think carefully about specific urban characteristics; as Eva-Tessza Udvarhelyi, (Co-founder, The City is for All; Doctoral candidate CUNY Graduate Center) pointedly asked, “How do we define the city, and integrate different kinds of urbanization?”

Tessza Udvarhelyi asks: “How do we define the city, and integrate different kinds of urbanization?” / Photo: Natalia Radywyl

The day closed with an open plenary, ‘How to Organize a Whole City,’ in which a range of community organizers spoke about the inspiration and hard work of movement mobilization.

Rob Robinson, Special Advisor, Human Right to Housing Program, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative; Co-founder, Take Back the Land Movement (click for link) / Photo: Natalia Radywyl

The poetic words of Kazembe Balagun, (Outreach Coordinator, Brecht Forum), perhaps best illustrate that a course of activism and community-organizing requires the sharing of common passions, if to mobilize to any success: “In order to achieve our country, we need to come together as lovers.”

Kazembe Balagun: “In order to achieve our country, we need to come together as lovers.” / Photo: Natalia Radywyl

The second day, entitled ‘Transforming Demands, Demanding Creativity,’ sought to move the conference’s focus from discussion to action, specifically aiming to create a transformative vision for organizing in New York City, and to commence movement-building by connecting issues to organizations. The day’s aims were simply-stated, but nonetheless ambitious:

“With participation from community organizations across the city, we aim to:

1. Explore a holistic vision for the city we wish to live in,
2. Assess community work currently being done
3. Begin a conversation on the role of transformative demands and alternative institutions in realizing our vision.”

Accomplished organizers and commentators kicked off the day in an open plenary about a grassroots re-imagination of the city. Peter Marcuse (Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning, Columbia University), offered a range of friendly provocations about ‘reorganizing, rather than redesigning’ the city, suggesting that a volunteer economy should replace market relations, and that we could re-imagine our cities as places to live, rather than places to work. Matthew Birkhold (Co-founder, Growing Roots) spoke about communities in Detroit having successfully re-imagined the use of vacant lots to combat police brutality. By activating the lots as public spaces for in-community conflict resolution, they became valued as important community assets, and have now also been transformed into markets, urban gardens and community hubs.

Clearly, re-imagining the city is about systemic change. Nancy Romer (General Co-ordinator, Brooklyn Food Coalition), described how America had become “starved and stuffed” by unjust agreements between the food industry and government. Asking “how do we create a democracy, keep control in the hands of the people, and out of the hands of corporations?” she emphasized that any movement, be it urban gardening, green markets, or co-ops, must consider itself a whole justice movement to have broader political, economic, environmental and cultural impact.

Matthew Birkhold: “Demands aren’t enough.” / Photo: Natalia Radywyl

The working groups that formed for the remainder of the day dedicated themselves to exploring discrete areas of system intervention: food, jobs and economics, transportation, public space, health care, education, criminal justice, just communities, housing, art, media and communications, environment, and democracy/governance. For this diverse but passionate body of change-makers, finding a common language was often a challenge, although a common vision far less so. Undoubtedly, the coming days, months and years will reveal how this discussion and the early seeds of community mobilization sown over the two days of the conference may grow into a thriving community of practice. And there is cause for optimism. As Marcuse noted, “The experience of Occupy Sandy shows what people will do, voluntarily, [and] what the best in people is [all about].”

I know that, for me, experiences of volunteering in the Rockaways absolutely revealed this fact. Practices of mutual aid feed the common cohesion and transformation that our neighborhoods desperately need, especially in the aftermath of crises. Following Sandy, there is already talk of not ‘if’ but ‘when’ the next climate disaster will hit New York. Social disparities reign, and are being reinforced by consistently volatile economic markets. While these problems are with us every day, so are their solutions, if to follow Birkhold’s galvanizing words: “Demands aren’t enough. We’ve got to begin rebuilding the world we want to replace the current one with.”

Andrew Howard

Andrew Howard is one of the founding members of Team Better Block, a group that works to implement Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper strategies for the temporary revitalization of streets and public spaces in the short-term, to inspire people to think differently about how those places could evolve. Team Better Block recently took recommendations straight from PPS’s report on how to improve the hotly-contested historic plaza at the Alamo in San Antonio, and found LQC ways to do almost everything on the list to get the ball rolling on building a more cohesive constituency permanent change.

Now, we’re working with Team Better Block on plans for the temporary transformation of the Plaza de Armas, a forlorn public space at San Antonio City Hall, and the adjacent arterial, Commerce Street. In anticipation of that event, which will take place this Saturday, December 8th, 2012, we spoke with Andrew about how his team approaches their work, and how LQC strategies are changing the planning profession in Texas and beyond.

Alamo Plaza bustles thanks to a temporary market during Team Better Block’s last San Antonio project / Photo: Better Block

What Better Block does, in terms of short-term implementation, is a pretty important part of any implementation strategy, isn’t it? These interventions may only be around for a few hours, but changing peoples’ mindsets is often a major hurdle that needs to be overcome, that you guys have kind of cracked the nut on.

The Midwest and the South have a very auto-centric culture, so that is often the first step. The test for us with a Better Block is: can we get more advocates? That’s what they wanted in San Antonio. They only had this small group of folks coming to the table and talking about the Alamo, but it’s a public space for the whole city. How do we broaden the discussion about it? That’s where we said, let’s take the PPS study and go implement it temporarily and get some data while we’re there.

The first time we got a glimpse of working with PPS, we were still kind of in the guerrilla phase of Better Block. We did the Living Plaza on Dallas City Hall. William Whyte had done a study of that space about 25 years ago, and it was sitting on the shelf. We pulled it off and we built what he’d recommended in a weekend. That was where we started to see there the power of getting out and demonstrating this stuff.

At the Plaza de Armas, they did a study on downtown transportation [note: PPS worked on the Downtown Transportation Study, which can be downloaded here], and they want to test changes to a major arterial, Commerce Street, and take it down to one lane and add pedestrian and transit amenities to it. That’s our main focus with the Better Block coming up this weekend. We’re also going to activate the space with a pop-up coffee shop, a holiday market with vendors, movable seating, a food truck. The whole idea is to try to get folks to a part of downtown San Antonio they don’t often go to, and also to get them to walk a bit further.

Based on PPS’s recommendations, Team Better Block built this “ghost gate” to give visitors a sense of height and extent of the original fortifications of the Alamo fort / Photo: Better Block

In getting in and doing these things so quickly, can you hear minds changing, so to speak? That’s the core of what a lot of this LQC stuff is about: getting people to change their minds, and see spaces differently than they had before, and to see the potential in them. Do you hear people talking about that as they’re walking around?

Definitely. It’s great to eavesdrop and hear people, both the tourists who think a Better Block space is like that all the time, and then the visitors who say “I am so glad that we live in a city that will do stuff like this.” There’s a lot of negative talk around the Alamo. It is like fast-paced learning for folks to get into a Better Block and experience it. It’s also great for engineers and planners who are locked up, working on a desk, maybe reading theory on this stuff, to get out and do it. They learn so much more quickly, and they start getting the eye. They know how to look at a place, and how to make it better afterwards. You don’t get that from theory and drawing pictures.

In San Antonio, we caught this group of young folks that had just formed a downtown leadership group. They had had some meetings, and were trying to figure out what they were going to do. They did the Better Block with us our first time in San Antonio, and it changed the whole focus of their group! They started becoming doers, and having fewer meetings.

There’s clearly an emphasis, in Team Better Block’s work, on social networks, and the idea that what you call “rapid city-revitalization” happens by connecting people. Can you talk more about how that plays into what you do?

As a planner, I always thought that, if I made the best plan, that would attract the right people to come from somewhere else and make that plan happen. What I’ve realized through Better Block is that every community already has everybody they need. They just need to activate the talented people who are already there, and shove them into one place at one time, and that place can become better really quickly.

Better Block is like a big matching service, too, because when we start working together and we’re doing that “barn-building,” folks are talking, and making friendships, and business relationships. It’s very unlike what happens at a public meeting or a charrette, where you have your dinner table manners on and you’re talking formally. Better Block is like speed dating for doers. You start building furniture out of shipping palettes and, at the end of the day, it’s like “Well hey, let’s go build a building!” There’s so much courage, and people just feel empowered, like they could do anything.

Since the network-building that you do creates so many new advocates and doers, do you consider the human capital that’s created one of the biggest legacies of these projects that you work on?

That’s a great way to put it. It’s definitely about the human capital. People focus so much on the monetary and the physical capital of a place; but with human capital, if you concentrate in a place, you can change that place. It used to be that we graded Better Blocks based on how many people came. “Oh, 5,000 people came, we won, we did it!” Now our main question is: how many advocates are still working for it a year later? Did anybody out of the Better Block become a leader?  That’s the win. We’ve definitely changed our idea about what the Better Block is supposed to do, and how to move from the temporariness to permanence.

Children play at an improvised LQC fountain at the Alamo Plaza Better Block event / Photo: Better Block

In addition to PPS, who are you working with for this Plaza de Armas project? Who’s part of the network that you’re working on developing right now?

This one is being done a lot with city council members. Every council member is having someone from their district operate a pop-up market stall. VIA is a part of this too, because they’ve got a bus stop on the plaza, so we’re going to jazz up their transit stop. I think a big part of bringing Better Block into a city is the acknowledgement of wanting to be progressive and wanting to be open to new ideas and new ways of the city operating. San Antonio’s City Hall is saying right now that they want to be one of the most progressive cities not just in Texas, but in the States. They’re open to trying new things, and they’re not going to be bound by the norms in Texas. They’re going to try out these crazy things that look like they’re from New York City.

That’s one of the best things about Team Better Block: that it’s not from a coastal city where you might expect to find a bunch of urban guerrillas; it’s from Dallas!

We’ve had to take a lot of these edgy ideas from the coasts and figure out how to recalibrate them for the south! How do we make it work in an auto-centric, hot, boot-scootin’ environment? But people are people. They like each other. They want to rub elbows.

Wanna go for a walk? / Photo: JaneJacobsWalk.org

The annual Jane’s Walk Weekend is just around the corner! On Saturday, May 5th, and Sunday, May 6th, hundreds of free walking tours will take place in cities around the world. We were going to try to round up the best walks for people interested in Placemaking but, perhaps unsurprisingly given that Jane was the doyenne of human-scaled urbanism, it’s pretty much impossible to find a tour that isn’t great in that regard. Instead, we sifted through all of the listings to find some of the most original and offbeat tours on the roster.

We highly encourage you to visit the two main websites with listings of walks around the world, JaneJacobsWalk.org and JanesWalk.net, to see what’s going on in your city or town, whether it involves unicycles and ugly houses, or a good old fashioned exploration of the history, people, and architecture of a unique place.

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City of Labyrinths Project (Toronto, Ontario)
Toronto, where Jane lived during the latter half of her life, will be the setting for more walks than any other city during the weekend; still, several stand out. This walk ont he 5th, organized by a group that aims “to place a semi-permanent labyrinth within walking distance of every Torontonian,” celebrates the city’s existing sidewalk mazes, and explores the history of labyrinth design.

Cityscape/Soundscape (Toronto, Ontario)
Most walking tours tend to rely more on what we see than what we hear, but Toronto will play host to a “soundwalk” on the 5th. This tour will “show how Toronto’s diverse downtown spaces can be distinguished by their own characteristic soundscapes.” Sounds cool enough already, but take a look at the photo–it seems this walk will even include blindfolds to heighten your hearing!

Food Foraging (Flesherton, Ontario)
For a thoroughly rural ramble (say that five times fast), head to Flesherton on the 6th to learn all about what can and can’t be eaten during a walk in the woods. Organizer David Turner “will also point out plants, roots, barks and leaves that can be used for tinctures, salves and teas.”

IRUBNY Celebrates Gramercy Park (New York, New York)
Artist Carol Caputo will lead participants in New York on a walk around Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood on the 5th, armed with paper and crayons to create rubbings of the architectural details that define this historic district.

Levee Disaster Bike Tour (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Led by an organization lobbying for safer levees to protect New Orleans (sad that we even need sustained advocacy for that), this bike tour on the 6th will visit the sites of two levee breaches that flooded the Crescent City shortly after Hurricane Katrina blew through town.

Not a Cakewalk (Toronto, Ontario)
There are a number of food-related tours scheduled during the weekend, but only one will focus specifically on the design of bakeries, and “illuminates the relationship between emotions and desire with architecture.” The walk will take place in Toronto’s West End neighborhood on the 5th.

Seersucker Ride (Sacramento, California)
If you’re the kind of person who regrets not being born during the Victorian Era, you’re in luck! On the 6th, the group Sacramento Tweed will lead an olde-fashioned bike tour of the historic city core “that encourages period dress and a more relaxed style of riding.”

Silent Midnight Walk (Regina, Saskatchewan)
If the Cityscape/Soundscape walk in Toronto sounded fun but a bit too easterly, you can experience another soundwalk in Regina on the evening of the 5th. During this one-hour traipse, “participants may choose to practice walking meditation or to simply allow their senses to take over.” Tranquil or spooky, depending on your perspective, it certainly sounds like an interesting experience!

Ugly Houses (Karlskrona, Sweden)
There’s not much information available about this walk on the website, but the title suggests that, if you happen to be in Karlskrona on the 6th, this walk has potential to be very entertaining!

Unicycling for Change (Bozeman, Montana)
While Jane’s Walk Weekend will feature several biking tours, we only found one that will be conducted via unicycle! If you’re a fan of transportation of the one-wheeled variety, head out to Montana on the 5th to help promote the cause! (Don’t worry, the route includes several breaks for weary legs).

All Photos: JaneJacobsWalk.org

Photo: Mark Plotz / National Center for Bicycling and Walking (NCBW)

Govern + Invest is a theme that will be explored at Pro Walk/Pro Bike® 2012: Pro Place. A question that will be examined is how bicycling and walking investments can add value to a community by creating economic activity, creating jobs, and improving quality of life.

Already we know that when it comes to jobs created per million dollars, bicycle facilities are one of the most efficient transportation investments. But once the paint dries and the asphalt cools, are there lasting economic effects? Can bicycle infrastructure build bicycle culture that will build a bicycle economy?

The answer seems to be yes — at least in the case of Long Beach, California. More than 20 new bicycle-related or bicycle-inspired businesses have opened at last count. I toured some of these business with Charlie Gandy and Melissa Balmer during a recent trip to Long Beach to meet these entrepreneurs, and prospect for locally-sourced goods and services for our conference. Twenty new businesses is a lot, especially in this economy, so you may be skeptical of these numbers (I was); but after meeting some impressive young people, I can assure you that it’s all real.

Photo: Mark Plotz / NCBW

Yellow 108
A year-old business that recently relocated to Long Beach after being inspired by the city’s funky bicycle culture, Yellow 108 is a headwear company that produces its hats and accessories from salvaged and recycled materials. I met with co-founder Lauren Lilly, who has grown her business to ten employees and is now branching into bicycle accessories. What Lauren has already accomplished is impressive enough; watch Charlie Gandy’s interview with her, and you’ll see she’s destined for more.

Photo: Mark Plotz / NCBW

Long Beach Pedaler Society
This pedicab upstart can be found plying the green sharrow lanes of Belmont Shores in search of fares. I spent part of a morning over coffee talking to Jesus Chavez and Joseph Bradley, co-founders of the Pedaler Society. These guys think big; they’re not afraid of risk; and they have clearly thrived thanks to the bike culture milieu in Long Beach. They are expanding into grocery delivery, and are even contemplating locally sourcing the manufacture of their vehicles as they expand their business. Building bikes in the United States? Sign me up. Look for the Pedalers when you make it to Long Beach.

Photo: Mark Plotz / NCBW

The Bicycle Stand
One of the newest businesses in Long Beach — and one of its friendliest — Evan Whitener’s shop specializes in refurbished vintage road bikes, and new city/commuter bikes. They were doing a very brisk bicycle restoration business when I stopped by. The Bicycle Stand is part bicycling museum, part fully functioning bike shop. If you worship lugged steel frames, you’ll like their Facebook page (linked above).

Photo: The Academy

The Academy
Have you ever tried to find affordable clothing that’s not made in a sweatshop? It’s nearly impossible; or at least I thought it was, until I walked into The Academy. They sell clothing designed to look good on the street and work well when you’re riding your bike. The Academy utilizes sustainable and reclaimed materials, and you can meet the person who sewed your clothes. If that’s not awesome enough, try the prices: shirts and kakis run about 43 bucks each. Stop by to meet Sam: he may lend you his bike for a roll around Long Beach.

And let’s not forget that Long Beach is also home to the original bicycle-related business: Bikestation!

There is hope and optimism in Long Beach; I hear it when talking to these brave, young entrepreneurs. Each cites Long Beach’s bicycling infrastructure investments, and its emergent bicycling culture as key to sparking, sustaining, and expanding their businesses.

Downtowns can be museums of economic development fads and crackpot schemes all designed to breathe economic life back into blighted areas. The pedestrian malls of the 70s; the aquariums of the 80s; the convention centers and stadiums of the 90s; the creative class coffee shops, wifi hot spots, and lifestyle centers of the 00s — these massive public/private expenditures may have provided an attraction, but they didn’t retain or attract the Laurens, the Jesuses, the Josephs, the Evans, and the Sams who will provide sustainable economic growth. There is a lesson in Long Beach. Let’s hope that walking, bicycling, and place become the new form of Economic Gardening.

See you in Long Beach!

Mark Plotz is the Conference Director for Pro Walk/Pro Bike® 2012: Pro Place. Registration for the conference is open now, and special rates apply until May 16, 11:59 pm Eastern. Large group discounts are available. Please contact Mark at (202) 223-3621 or mark@bikewalk.org for more info.

• How to Turn a Place Around
  This course serves as a comprehensive introduction to the practice of placemaking. We’ve learned through our work that placemaking is a sacred community process. People take the shaping of their blocks and neighborhoods very seriously, and have much to offer to planners, architects, designers, and local leaders who are ready to ask the right questions–and to listen. Through the discussion of key case studies like the Perth Cultural Centre’s Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper activation plan, as well as opportunities to get out into the streets of New York City to experiment with tools like the Place Game and Power of 10, attendees develop a deeper understanding of what really makes public spaces function. The course is conducted by PPS president, Fred Kent, along with Kathy Madden, and Phil Myrick, and other PPS staff. For more details about this course, click here.

• Placemaking: Making It Happen
  Making It Happen takes things a step further by teaching people who are ready to take action–especially people who are embarking on a new project–about best practices for developing an effective public space management and implementation strategy. Over the course of three days, we’ll travel around New York City to visit some of its best-managed spaces with the people who helped make them happen. This course will also give participants the opportunity to discuss and get feedback on their individual projects during facilitated, interactive workshop sessions. Kent, and Madden, and Norman Mintz from PPS will all present, and we’ll also be joined by Urban Space Management director Eldon Scott, Alan M. Hantman, FAIA,10th Architect of the US Capitol and former Vice President of Architecture, Construction, and Historic Preservation at Rockefeller Center, and Andy Manshel, the Executive Vice President of the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC). For the first time, we’ll be expanding the course to take place over three days instead of two, and will include site visits to some of New York City’s best managed public spaces along with a dinner at PPS the first night and a reception the second night and more time for participants to present and get input on their projects.  All of this will also allow for more of the networking and collaborative learning that past participants have found so beneficial to their work. 

  We’re thrilled to be welcoming Andy as a new addition to the Making It Happen training team. Before joining the GJDC, Andy served as the Associate Director and Counsel at the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation and General Counsel and Director of Public Amenities to the Grand Central and 34th Street Partnerships. He is currently the treasurer of PPS’s board of directors. He will be talking about the practical elements of public space management, successful strategies used in Bryant Park as well as the more challenging environment of Jamaica, and what is generally applicable to other places. To learn more about Andy, and for other details about this course, click here.

Please note that enrollment in all placemaking trainings is limited to 35 participants in order to promote a close-knit environment where participants can learn techniques for implementing and managing public space improvements that are practical, economical and meet the community’s needs. We’re looking forward to working with you to help you discover new ways to make your place great. Click here to register for one of our upcoming trainings now!

A sharrow points the way toward Long Beach's iconic Villa Riviera / Photo: waltarrrrr via Flickr

With so much attention focused on a certain conference in Long Beach last week, we want to make sure that complete streets advocates, placemakers, transportation wonks, and other walking and cycling enthusiasts don’t miss the news about another big event on the horizon in this sunny California city: early bird registration for the 17th Pro Walk / Pro Bike conference has just opened. The conference, which will focus on the theme “Pro Place” is scheduled for the week of September 10-13, 2012, and you can reserve your seat for a reduced rate up until Wednesday, May 16th.

Pro Walk / Pro Bike is a biennial event, founded in 1980 by the National Center for Bicycling & Walking, and serves as the premier venue for presenting work and meeting peers from the fields of transportation planning, engineering, health, advocacy, public policy, research, and more. The chair of this year’s host committee is Charlie Gandy, a cycling and pedestrian advocate with some serious cred. Currently the director of Livable Communities Inc. and a board member of the California Bicycle Coalition, Charlie previously served as the Director of Advocacy Programs for the Bicycle Federation of America, pioneered the concept of the Bicycle Friendly Business District as the Mobility Coordinator Long Beach’s Bike Long Beach program, and founded the Texas Bicycle Coalition (now Bike Texas).

To get a sense of Charlie’s approach to the subject at hand for September’s conference, one need look no further than his talk on Creating Charismatic Communities at last summer’s TEDxSoCal event. Charlie talks about encouraging the development of the personality of place, and explains how the city of Long Beach has spent the last few years “looking at basic urban design and health issues and coming up with some new and different ways to articulate them…and has been developing fans and followers.”

All of us here at PPS are excited for this opportunity to work with Charlie to bring together transportation reform advocates from around the country for a discussion of how placemaking can help create more equitable transportation networks in our cities. This conference is central to our effort to Build Communities Through Transportation, and we’re looking forward to meeting with other placemakers in September to talk about the latest and most cutting-edge case studies in building more walkable, bike-friendly, charismatic communities. We hope to see you there!

We’ll be bringing you more information in the next couple of months as the Pro Walk / Pro Bike host committee culls through the hundreds of event proposals received from across the country in response to an open call and begins to lay out the full schedule. In the meantime, you can stay up to date with the National Center for Bicycling & Walking (which officially became a program of PPS last June) by signing up for their bi-weekly Centerlines e-newsletter.

Bicyclist-friendly Long Beach's downtown boasts a crisp new Bike Station / Photo: waltarrrrr via Flickr

Do you have a proposal for a presentation? The call for submissions is open; click here to find out all the details. The deadline is February 1, 2012.

Long Beach has been building a great network of bike lanes, making it a natural choice for the next Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference. Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.

Pro Walk/Pro Bike is presented by the National Center for Bicycling and Walking (NCBW), a resident program of PPS.

This is a great opportunity to share the work you are doing to make communities safer and more attractive places for walking and bicycling. The conference will be attended by national leaders in the fields of transportation planning, engineering, health, advocacy, public policy, research, and more.

Your proposal should reflect one of this year’s conference themes. Here they are:

• Invest + Govern. Bicycling and walking investments are ready to compete in the new cost-conscious reality and political climate in which we live. We encourage presentations that: quantify the benefits and cost savings to the individual and community; present the business case for supporting bicycling and walking; detail financing models for making investments; and other topics.
• Advocate + Include. When our transportation system is balanced, everyone can prosper; when transportation decision-making is inclusive, it builds community. We encourage presentations about: environmental justice achieved; outsiders’ perspective on our work; programs that engage low income and underserved communities; and other topics.
• Design + Engineer. New approaches to planning, designing, and building infrastructure are luring new people into cycling, and improving safety for all road users. We encourage presentations that: continue the professional development of planners and engineers; discuss the latest transportation engineering publications/manuals; and present best practices for finding flexibility within existing design standards.
• Healthy + Safe. Our neighborhoods can enhance our health and quality-of-life by facilitating social connections and by making walking and biking trips easy and convenient. We encourage presentations from public health professionals and others who have developed successful and low cost models/programs for physical activity/built environment focused interventions. Also included in this category: innovative injury prevention programs, food access programs, programs that address childhood obesity, and programs that prioritize populations experiencing health disparities.
• Plan + Connect. Changing demographics, emerging technology, and better collaboration across disciplines, agencies, and travel modes is moving us closer to seamless travel in many major cities. We encourage transportation planning related presentations on the following subjects: successful intergovernmental partnerships; exemplary public involvement practices; innovative and cost-effective applications of technology to improve service; and model bike/ped planning.
• SRTS + Beyond. For work that focuses on improving the safety, desirability, and ease of movement for young people walking or biking to/from school. We encourage proposals on the following subjects: best practices for including youth in planning; exemplary Safe Routes to School programs (K-12); developing schools as neighborhood assets/destinations; and developing community-wide youth mobility plans.

NCBW and PPS are excited about putting together what is sure to be a productive and thought-provoking conference!

Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.

Richard Serra

An enormous blinking eye stared down from the underside of a long-unused water tower. People disembarking from the NY Waterway Ferry were greeted by a soothing but slightly suspicious voice purring, “Hey, you….” Buskers performed under a twinkling canopy of sound-responsive light bulbs suspended from the 50-foot ceiling of a turn-of-the-century factory. Dozens of other projections and installations brought beauty, surprise, and a sense of community to a long-dormant area of post-industrial decay.

Bring to Light: Nuit Blanche New York 2011 from Nuit Blanche New York on Vimeo.

Bring to Light is an annual free public art event, an immersive nighttime spectacle on New York City’s waterfront that presents site-specific installations of light, sound, performance, and projection art. Occurring simultaneously with Nuit Blanche events in cities around the world, Bring to Light (now in its second year) activates underutilized spaces, creates imaginative outlets for civic engagement, and reconfigures public space to showcase possibilities for change.

The festival, which is co-curated by PPS’s Ken Farmer, lives on beyond this ephemeral evening of illumination. Organizers advocate for increased public space accessibility on the Brooklyn waterfront, work to reinvigorate historic warehouse spaces for public programming, and seek to expand the audience for this contemporary art platform.

At the intersection of art and activism, events like Bring to Light challenge visitors to reimagine the potential of their public spaces. Just as pop-up parks can transform abandoned lots into convivial gathering spots, Bring to Light illuminates the potential of underutilized areas and neglected historic structures, inviting people to imagine them as reanimated places.

A core element of Bring to Light’s mission is improving public accessibility and activating underutilized portions of the waterfront. New York, like cities around the world, is in the midst of rediscovering its waterfront. Mayor Mike Bloomberg refers to the waterfront as the city’s sixth borough — a frontier for which Bring to Light envisions a more imaginative future.

A panel at the New Museum called “Illuminating the City: Site-Specific Art as Urban Activator,” explored this potential through the eyes of curators, architects and city officials. When asked about the city’s perspective on events like Bring to Light at that panel, Stephanie Thayer, NYC Parks Department supervisor for North Brookyln and Executive Director of the Open Space Alliance, had this to say:

“Our waterfront is private factories — abandoned and working — where the entire neighborhood is denied access,” said Thayer. “The city’s long-term vision is to create a public esplanade and piers, as promised with the 2005 rezoning. In the meantime, the community is cut off from that waterfront…. Bring to Light brought our neighborhood into these very private spaces, creating a sense of adventure and ‘lighting up’ spaces that are in the dark for our neighborhood.

“More than that, they pushed through a lot of very challenging barriers. For example, we have been fighting with developers since 2004 to create public access on the India/Java street waterfront. Bring to Light wanted to activate this space for the event, which I felt was impossible on their timeline. But they were committed to making this happen, and after negotiating what needed to be negotiated, they were out there with shovels and rakes themselves — physically making it happen….

“The neighborhood is surrounded on two sides by waterfront but has very little access. Bring to Light was able to blow that open for everybody.”

Neighborhood residents had no shortage of suggestions for ways to make this a better place.

PPS knew that engaging the neighborhood in Placemaking would take more than just a workshop. So, with the support of the Kresge Foundation and working with the Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corporation (CDC), we decided to do a fun harvest festival that would demonstrate the neighborhood’s potential. It would also be a way to get more Placemaking ideas from people who would be unlikely to show up a community meeting.

And it worked. On October 29, PPS was thrilled to be part of a very successful harvest festival outside the wonderful neighborhood produce market Peaches & Greens, which is celebrating its third anniversary. Although flanked by vacant lots, Peaches & Greens proved to be the right spot for the festival — and the event showed how this could evolve into an even better place for the neighborhood to come together.

(Check out this great CBS News report about Peaches & Greens’ truck delivery service, which brings produce to the doorsteps of Detroiters who otherwise would have no access to fresh food.)

The rain held off and it turned out to be a great day, filled with games, horse-drawn hay rides, marshmallow roasting, and lots of Placemaking suggestions offered in PPS’s “Placemaking in Detroit” tent.

This is a neighborhood with a lot of basic needs. Many residents are out of work. Many don’t own cars, and the public transit system is utterly inadequate. Safety and security are a major concern — the city can’t even keep up with repairing broken streetlights. A lot of houses are abandoned and occupied by squatters.

The term “food desert” has become well known, but this part of Detroit might also be called a “place desert.” As the city’s population has shrunk, neighborhoods like Central Detroit have lost not just people and homes, but places to come together. Still, a lot of assets remain, including some beautiful housing stock and strong community organizations such as CDC. Importantly, the city has designated this as one of the communities where resources are going to be focused in the future.

The tough conditions faced by local people made the response to the festival even more heartening. People were ready to jump right in and become part of something more meaningful. They provided a lot of practical ideas for activities could be taking place around Peaches & Greens on a more regular basis. One thing we heard from a lot of local residents was that they are eager to see more community-building events in the neighborhood. Lots of people stuck around after the festival was over to help clean up.

One of the day’s high points came when we announced the winner of a bicycle we were able to raffle off. The woman who won it told us that she wasn’t going to keep it herself — she was going to give it to her grandson, who just turned 18, so that he could look for a job.

This is just a pilot for what we hope will be many more events in the neighborhood, along with some “Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper” improvements that will make people’s lives better in the short term.

Big thanks to our partners at CDC and Kresge for making it possible.

What a difference a lane makes: Downtown Long Beach, before and after. Photo: jericho1ne via Flickr.

Pro Walk/Pro Bike is a biennial event convened by the National Center for Bicycling and Walking (NCBW), which is a resident program of PPS. And next year, it’s going to be held in a Southern California city that has been steadily improving its bike infrastructure — and is seeing that effort pay off in increasing number of cyclists.

Here’s what NCBW’s Mark Plotz, conference director, had to say about the selection of Long Beach: “For 2012, we will bring our conference to Long Beach because great things are already happening in the city, and because the city’s investments in walkable and bicycle friendly streets and neighborhoods will position Long Beach to be economically viable into the future, while continuing to provide a high quality of life for all residents. In other words: we see that Long Beach is headed where many cities need to go; lots of people are eager to learn from its example.”

The news about the Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference has gotten favorable coverage in the local press, including the Long Beach Post-Telegram, which interviewed Charlie Gandy, mobility advisor for the city of Long Beach and chair of Long Beach’s host committee for the conference:

[Gandy] said surveys show the city’s bike-only lanes in Belmont Shore and along Third Street and Broadway have more than doubled bike traffic since they were constructed several months ago.

“In Belmont Shore, we were averaging about 400 cyclists per day” along Second Street, “and that’s jumped to more than 1,000 daily now, and it’s growing,” Gandy said.

The city has also installed about 1,000 bike racks outside businesses and in public spaces, with another 1,000 scheduled to be installed at a rate of 50 per month.

“These efforts are encouraging people to leave their car at home and make those short trips to the coffee shop or to a favorite restaurant on their bike or by walking,” Gandy said. “And it’s also one way we can address the obesity and health epidemic facing our community along with the rest of the nation.”

To find out more about what’s in store at the 2012 conference, check out NCBW’s website here. We’ll be updating you with much more information in the future.

And check out the sweet video below from Vimeo user jericho1ne, showing the opening of a protected lane in the heart of the city. Makes you want to head out there and ride Long Beach yourself, no?

Long Beach Protected Lane Grand Opening from jericho1ne on Vimeo.

Photo: jericho1ne via Flickr.

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?

Click here to read more.

For more information, check out NUDA’s website at www.nuda.no.