The St. Kilda Adventure Playground just outside of Melbourne, Australia / Photo: Fernando de Sousa via Flickr

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, I don’t think I ever once used a “play structure.” I can still vividly remember the playground at my elementary school, with its castles, pirate ships, Amazonian treehouse cities, secret lairs, and rivers of lava. My friends and I never thought of the wooden pavilion, the monkey-bars, or the giant tire off in the corner of the lot as what they actually were. The term “play structure” did not apply–there was nothing structural about the way that we used that place.

Today, of course, that same corner of the school yard is occupied by a brightly-colored construction that is very safely bolted to a rubber pad. Gone are the wood chips (which served as gold doubloons, secret keys, magic gems…), the giant tire, and anything remotely resembling a treehouse. There is a slide, and big plastic blocks with Xs and Os on opposing sides, where children can enjoy hours and hours of unstructured tic-tac-toe. If such a thing exists.

This is an all-too-common story, and one that you probably know well. Over the past few years, we have siloed different types of play within playgrounds, just as we have siloed different types of uses in cities. Pieces of play equipment that might be transformed into fantastical alternate worlds when jumbled together are isolated (a slide here, a tire swing there), underlining that each piece is meant to be used in one specific way. But research and support have been mounting for years to back up what many of us feel on a gut level: these sanitized playscapes are junk.

There has been a recent burst of interest in adventure playgrounds, which “depend on ‘loose parts,’ such as water, sand, balls, and other manipulable materials.” Thoughtful articles from The Guardian‘s Justin McGuirk, Kill Screen‘s Yannick LeJacq, and Cabinet magazine’s James Trainor have each explored the history of this movement within the past couple of months, revisiting everything from Aldo van Eyck’s work in Amsterdam following WWII, to the unique cast of characters (Richard Dattner, M. Paul Friedberg, Lady Allen of Hurtwood, et al) behind the surge of interest in London and New York in the 1960s. To see so much solid new writing on this subject should be encouraging to anyone who hopes to see kids playing amidst wood chips again. Unstructured play is having a moment, and moments are meant to be seized.

Cities are where us “grown-ups” play at leading meaningful and enjoyable lives, so it may be helpful (if anecdotal) to think of playgrounds as the staging areas for the cities of tomorrow. If we want to live in siloed cities, with offices here, houses there, and all quarters safely demarcated by wide arterial roads, we should probably go right on ahead building playgrounds where the slides and plastic tic-tac-toes cower away from each other. But if we want bustling, creative cities full of the surprise and serendipity that makes urban life so enjoyable, we might want to start thinking about playgrounds as microcosmic multi-use destinations.

I think of my favorite public space now, Washington Square Park, and it reminds me, in a way of that schoolyard playground. There are so many different things happening at any given moment: people are playing music, and games, they’re kissing, chatting, taking photos, sunning, jogging, and watching the world pass by. The magic of that park is in its open-endedness, and its mix of these activities. That’s what a great place looks like.

Shouldn’t our playgrounds be great places, too?

Cynthia leads a workshop in Kibera. Photo: Ulrik Nielsen, Gehl Architects

Over the course of a week, I led a series of placemaking trainings with 40 staff people from seven city council departments, the Kilimanjaro Initiative, UN-Habitat, and several local organizations working on the ground in the Kenyan capital, as part of an ongoing partnership. When talking about expanding public space within the city, I kept bumping up against this assumption from the Nairobi staff  that this meant they had to buy big chunks of land and even clear people out of existing neighborhoods to make room for new parks. The idea that schoolyards and sidewalks, streets, plazas, and fire stations could be meaningful places within the city’s public realm was new to them. There’s a division, for many in Nairobi, between “Public Spaces” and spaces that merely happen to be public.

Reasons for this division aren’t hard to figure out. We worked at two specific sites during the trip, in very different neighborhoods. The first was an athletic field in the Silanga section of Kibera, purportedly the largest informal settlement in Africa. Our project was to re-think the field as a multi-use community destination, but just walking through the surrounding  neighborhood was so eye-opening. Kibera’s buildings are built mostly out of sheets of corrugated metal, and its streets are packed dirt. The main (and only) thoroughfare here, Kibera Road, is a pretty amazing place. It has an intense mix of activity, all right out there on the street: a huge variety of vendors, people getting their hair braided, people cooking, socializing, reading the paper, kids doing their homework. But the infrastructure is terrible. It’s a clear-cut example of how Nairobi has so much public space that people don’t even recognize as public space.

Shops along Kibera Road. Photo: Ulrik Nielsen, Gehl Architects

Back in the center of the city, our second site was a very formal English garden donated to the city by the Jeevanjee family. I visited the site with several members of the family and the city council who had recently been to New York. They’d seen successful public spaces all over the city, and when we visited the garden, I said ‘Think of this as the Bryant Park of Nairobi!’ The space had been kept very pristine, and they didn’t have an idea of how it could evolve. Once we started talking about it with Bryant Park as a reference point, they got really excited. The idea that this could still be a lovely green place that was also full of activity was something that sunk in very quickly.

"Think of this as the Bryant Park of Nairobi!" Photo: Ulrik Nielsen, Gehl Architects

Promoting the idea that existing spaces could become really wonderful pieces of public life was so important on this trip. The idea that you can do many small things instead of a few big things–that placemaking doesn’t have to be capital-intensive–is critical in a city like Nairobi, where so much economic activity is still informal. Public spaces there have to provide a way for people to earn a living. Vendors, hawkers, performers: these are people whose livelihoods depend on active public spaces. Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper interventions that change things right now are what’s going to raise the quality of life in Nairobi; not big new parks on the edge of town that take years to build.

Children play at the Silanga athletic field next to a sign advertising coming infrastructural improvement. Photo: Ulrik Nielsen, Gehl Architects

At one point, I showed a slideshow of possible examples for how the athletic field in Silanga could be made into a more vibrant hub for the community, and the group had already come up with a lot of the same ideas on their own. It’s one thing to suggest to people what they could do; it’s an entirely different thing to show them, ‘This is what they did in a slum in Rio; this what they did in a slum in Colombia, where the neighborhood used to be completely run by gangs,’ and to have them see that what they’ve envisioned is totally possible. When a few dedicated people take ownership of a place and band together to push through existing misconceptions about what public space “should” look like and how it can function for the people that want to use it–that’s where placemaking starts.

Work on the two pilot sites will continue, spearheaded by the Nairobi City Council and supported by UN-Habitat (whose international headquarters are located in the nearby Girgiri neighborhood) with PPS providing technical support.  Two down, 58 more to go!

Discussing the future of the BMW Guggenheim Lab space, in that space on October 12. Photo: Ken Farmer

The whole time the lab was open, people in the neighborhood and around the city were dreaming and planning about what would happen to the space after the lab’s scheduled departure on Oct.16 (it’s headed next for Berlin, then Mumbai and six other cities around the world). On Oct. 12, PPS partnered with First Street Green, a local neighborhood group, to host an event at the lab that looked to the future of what was once a rat-infested vacant lot.

First Street Green was in the mix throughout the lab’s tenure in the space, and led a full day of programming in September that included a “visioning wall” where community members could share their ideas.

Now the visioning wall will be back on display at the first event scheduled for the space since the lab left town. First Street Green is hosting an event billed as a “Holiday Wrap Up” at what is now called the First Park Art Park on Saturday, Dec. 10, from 2-5 p.m. They’ll be presenting some of the data they collected at the lab and encouraging attendees to create a “wishing wall” by attaching strips of fabric with wishes on them to a chain-link fence at the site.

This is just a precursor to full-fledged events that will be happening next spring, but if you’re interested in building the future of this innovative urban space, you should definitely make time to be there.

Colin Huggins and his piano in October. Photo: Sarah Goodyear

Today that same piano player is featured in a New York Times story about how the parks department is cracking down on performers in Washington Square, in the name of providing some peace and quiet for parkgoers:

[T]he city’s parks department has slapped summonses on … performers who put out hats or buckets, for vending in an unauthorized location — specifically, within 50 feet of a monument.

The department’s rule, one of many put in place a year ago, was intended to control commerce in the busiest parks. Under the city’s definition, vending covers not only those peddling photographs and ankle bracelets, but also performers who solicit donations.

Huggins has gotten nine summonses. His fines add up to $2,250.

The musicians are considering a lawsuit over the matter. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Photo: Sarah Goodyear

Police were keeping people out of the park after clearing it of occupiers, despite a temporary restraining order requiring that the park be reopened to protesters.

One police officer told me the park had sustained structural damage, but aside from one missing railing on the park’s eastern steps, I couldn’t see any.

The police action here, as well as the actions breaking up other Occupy encampments, will no doubt keep the spotlight on the use of public spaces for political expression. Last week, PPS’s Fred Kent talked about the issue of privately owned public spaces like Zuccotti Park on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show. You can listen to that discussion here.

Photo: Sarah Goodyear

PPS’s Fred Kent joined Brian Lehrer and New York World reporter Yolanne Almanzar for the segment, which you can listen to in its entirety below.

The scene at Zuccotti Park back in October. Photo: Sarah Goodyear

Here’s some of what Fred had to say about the Occupy Wall Street presence in Zuccotti: “We need those places to express ourselves without any hesitation…. We’re moving through an era right now of massive change in a wonderful way. And the feelings that they have are manifested all over the world. It’s a great time. What do we get out of it in the end is what we’re trying to figure out.”

Fred suggested that if the park’s occupation is creating a need for more public space in the area, perhaps nearby streets should be closed to create that.

The founding inspiration behind PPS is the work of William “Holly” Whyte, whose 1980 book The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces revolutionized the way people saw the parks and plazas around them. Here’s what Whyte wrote about the public’s right to use those spaces — words that have often been quoted since the Zuccotti occupation began:

The public’s right in urban plazas would seem clear. Not only are plazas used as public spaces, in most cases the owner has been specifically, and richly rewarded for providing them. He has not been given the right to allow only those public activities he happens to approve of. He may assume he has, and some owners have been operating on this basis with impunity. But that is because nobody has challenged them. A stiff, clarifying test is in order.

One disturbing finding that has emerged as the result of the reporting done by WNYC and the New York World: it is very difficult to get information about exactly what benefits developers have gotten in return for the public spaces — some of which are not very accessible or pleasant to use. It is as true now as it was more than 30 years ago, when Whyte wrote those words, that “a stiff, clarifying test is in order.”

You can read an in-depth account of what the New York World found in the course of their reporting here. They’re going to keep digging, and we’ll keep you in the loop.

The surprise winner: The Circle in Normal, Ill. Photo: HOERR SCHAUDT landscape architects

Chances are you didn’t flash on The Circle in Uptown Normal, Ill., which came out on top in the crowd-sourced poll the folks at Planetizen conducted with our help. As Tim Halbur wrote at Planetizen, “Passion was the rule of the day for our Top 100 Public Spaces survey project,” and the people of Normal turned out to be surprisingly passionate. (For the record, Central Park placed at #32, Rittenhouse Square at #17, and Stanley Park at #59.)

Let’s take a closer look at the not-so-obvious #1, which obviously inspires quite a lot of local passion. Normal’s Circle isn’t just any old roundabout. It’s a multifunctional shared space that provides entertainment and activities for the community and visitors alike all year long. The Circle also has sustainability cred: It recycles stormwater, recirculating it into the public drinking fountains and irrigation system. It’s a pleasant place to sit and relax, and it’s home to  a farmers market as well.

Here are the rest of the Top 10:

2. Temple Plaza, New Haven, Conn.
3. Campus Martius Park, Detroit, Mich.
4. Cal Anderson Park, Seattle, Wash.
5. CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour, Mankato, Minn.
6. Bryant Park, New York, N.Y.
7. Pittsburgh Market Square, Pittsburgh, Pa.
8. Arts District at Bay Street, Bellingham, Wash.
9. Balboa Park, San Diego, Ca.
10. Church Street Marketplace District, Burlington, Vt.

Many of the spaces in the top 10 are projects that have been redeveloped in recent years in order to create a balance of form and functionality that serves the community, giving residents a sense of pride in and excitement for their neighborhoods. They are also places that serve as destinations, attracting visitors from outside the community. They will likely continue to thrive and evolve over time.

Some of the places on the list have been integral parts of the community for over 100 years, but it was only after they were redeveloped with an eye toward Placemaking that they found new life — Pittsburgh’s Market Square (#7) is one such example. After many redevelopment attempts over the years, the latest refurbishment of Market Square has finally landed on a successful combination — embracing historical elements of the original square, while at the same time redesigning aspects that were less successful. It is now a safe place for children to play, an appealing spot for workers from surrounding buildings to take a break, a venue for community-wide events, and much more.

The Planetizen survey points to the success of revitalization projects that are bringing neighborhoods all over the world back to life. Perhaps it’s a sign of yet more positive things to come.

For the full list and more in-depth information, head over to Planetizen.

But Zuccotti Park is just one of dozens of POPS around the city.  Just how public are these places? How accessible and welcoming? How pleasant and well-maintained?

Now The New York World, an online publication just launched by the Columbia School of Journalism, is partnering with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show to do a crowd-sourced map that will look into exactly those questions. Each of the city’s POPS is marked on the map and given a number; citizens are encouraged to visit the places and report back on what they see, noting also what time of day and day of the week they went.

To judge by some early reports, not all of these “public” places are quite as public as they are supposed to be. Here’s what a user named Charles had to say about the Broadway Atrium in Lower Manhattan:

I’ve tried several times to walk through this lobby (to avoid having to detour around it) and have been stopped and instructed to provide ID, which I regard as an inappropriate infringement. I’ve also asked if, in future, I would be permitted to walk through with a bicycle, and have been told No…Do I not have the right to walk through (with or without a bicycle), unimpeded?

And here’s what a user named Julia reported about East Winds, a space on East 80th Street:

Does not appear to be a public space at all. Seems to be simply ingress and egress to the building. I walk by this corner daily (numerous times) for over a decade and had never known it was public at all…There is no seating and no reason to believe it is public.

Other spaces got better marks. Dianne wrote this about the plaza outside the Claridge House apartments on the Upper East Side:

This is a really nice little space that is used and enjoyed by a diverse group of locals — nannies with baby carriages, young people gathering after school, people eating lunch, dogs and their humans. It is kept clean and the Claridge doormen keep an eye on things.

The project runs through November 9. If you’re in New York, get out there, investigate and contribute. It’s easy.

And it’s important, too. If we’ve learned anything from the last few weeks in Zuccotti Park, it’s the power of a truly public POPS.

Available Dates and Locations:

October 20, 2011 Syracuse, NY
October 21, 2011 Batavia, NY
October 26, 2011 Saranac Lake, NY
November 7, 2011 Farmingdale, NY
November 9, 2011 Albany, NY
November 15, 2011 Brooklyn, NY

How can you create healthy places in your community? Photo: Wally Gobetz via Flickr.

The Healthy Places Training Program presents a holistic approach to improving population by planning active transportation systems that connect to key destinations, including healthy food hubs that eliminate food deserts and support local business. The training program will work with local, regional, and state public health officials, along with other key stakeholders, to understand and implement policies and programs that encourage physical activity and healthy eating — while also revitalizing the streets, parks, and gathering spaces within their communities.

The trainings will be one day each, and will include presentations and interactive exercises, including a facilitated on-site analysis activity. Each training will educate practitioners and stakeholders on best practices in fostering active transportation and healthy food programs through markets — using policy, design, and community engagement actions. Training instructors will review methods and tools that health officials and communities can use to break through bureaucratic silos, take personal action, and engage likely and unlikely partners. We’ll be talking about how these strategies can enable people to transform their community into a place that promotes physical activity and healthy eating, while simultaneously improving public space and community development.

PPS instructors will use their experience in working with a wide range of agencies, organizations, and interest groups, along with case studies and recent research, to demonstrate the need, opportunities, and methods by which community health can be improved.

A new “Healthy Places Audit” will be developed for use during the trainings. The audit will allow participants to understand first-hand the barriers and possibilities of changing the built environment to improve public health.

The trainings will be delivered by Aurash Khawarzad and Kelly Verel of PPS. Come with your community partners (planners, county officials, business owners, etc.) to this FREE event.

We wish to thank our partners for their collaboration on delivering these regional trainings.

Batavia Town Center Brownsville Partnership Recreation Center
CNY Community Foundation
Elsmere Fire Department
Harrietstown Town Center at Saranac Lake
Sustainability Institute at Molloy College
Vision Long Island

Photo: Wally Gobetz via Flickr.

A huge interactive map was part of the exhibit in Sofia's central square. Photo: Architects for Sofia.

As civil society has become more vibrant and the new social institutions have become more robust, people have begun to see the potential of their public spaces in a completely new way. There is a growing eagerness to make those places better. It’s a revelation for people to realize that they can take ownership of these places and make the change happen themselves.

I recently returned to my hometown, the capital city of Sofia, at the invitation of Architects for Sofia, an association of younger architects. They invited me to lead a series of discussions and workshops introducing local leaders, architects, designers, and planners to the theory and practice of Placemaking, and to begin developing a strategy for improving public spaces in the capital and for strengthening the network of public spaces in Sofia. (PPS activities in Sofia were supported by the Municipality of Sofia, the Sofia Development Association, the Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria, and industry partners.) The annual Johns Hopkins Conference of International Urban Fellows Association was also taking place in Sofia at the time, with a focus on the management of public spaces. It was a great chance to get a glimpse of where the city could be headed.

The public realm: It belongs to us
For many years in the post-communist era, efforts to change cities were focused on “big” infrastructure, with public spaces and parks seen as a “fluffy” amenity that didn’t require immediate attention. But as Bulgaria has stabilized, that, too, has changed. Now ordinary people and professionals alike are seeing the potential and importance of public spaces, and asking how they can take an active part in making their cities more livable.

People came up with plenty of ideas for improving Sofia's public spaces. Photo: Architects for Sofia

The architectural legacy of communism includes huge apartment blocks with surrounding green space whose ownership isn’t always clear. It is in these places that the first citizen-led and volunteer initiatives in Sofia sprang up. Some of the efforts are small-scale — like parents who got together to plant gardens or repaint playground equipment (made out of Soviet tank steel, these Bulgarian playgrounds are one piece of public infrastructure that won’t break!). Larger groups have organized around issues such as improving conditions for bicycling.

Looking outward
Bulgaria has always been a geographically provincial place, at the outer edge of one empire or another. And so change has come more slowly here than it has in the Soviet bloc countries of Central Europe, such as the Czech Republic, Poland, or Hungary.

But since Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, the country has been looking outward more and improvement appears attainable. People can travel easily around Europe now. They see residents of cities around the world — not just Paris, but also former communist capitals such as Budapest and Prague — who feel pride in their places. They even see smaller towns around the country sprucing up their main streets and central parks to the delight of their citizens. And they ask themselves, why not in Sofia? A few years back the answers were: “It’s always harder in the big cities; people don’t care as much; they don’t feel ownership; the bureaucratic barriers are too great; and so on…”

Today things seem different. A younger generation, with almost no memory of “the old way” of doing things, is coming of age. Expatriates are returning from abroad, seeing their homeland as a place of opportunity for the first time. Even city councils and municipal governments seem to be poised for experiments and ready to do things differently in the public realm. Bulgaria’s citizens are coming to demand more of their government and a much higher quality of life in their cities. And they are ready to be a part of making it happen.

Young architects, planners, and designers in Bulgaria are open to new ways of doing things. Photo: Architects for Sofia.

Professionals are also shifting their focus. After years of breakneck residential and commercial development fueled by the rapid privatization of the economy, there’s a renewed interest among architects and designers in the public realm, in part because that’s where the money is now. Urban planning as an independent academic discipline is young in Bulgaria — it’s only been around for 5 or 10 years as a field of study distinct from design and architecture. No longer the poor stepchild of architecture and social policy, the discipline has broken away from its dogmatic socialist past and is growing. Today, there’s a new crop of professionals who are young, energized, and ready to contribute their skills to improving their cities.

Using Placemaking to improve Sofia’s public spaces
It’s that new generation of architects, designers, planners, landscape architects, artists and NGOs that fuels some of Bulgaria’s most promising experiments in Placemaking. Architects for Sofia, my partners on this trip, is a nonprofit created in May 2010 that advocates for great public spaces around the city. Their website, Sofia 2020, is dedicated to generating ideas from the public and from other architects about improving Sofia’s public built environment.

An important component of building a Placemaking strategy for Sofia was to conduct a demonstration Placemaking workshop in a prominent public space in order to show the potential of this methodology for eliciting ideas, building consensus and identifying “lighter, quicker, cheaper” improvements that could be implemented right away. On the second day of my visit, local planners, architects, landscape architects, sociologists, psychologists, artists, anthropologists, and journalists came together to brainstorm ideas and build a vision in a demonstration Placemaking workshop focused on one of the most central public spaces in Sofia – the plazas and park spaces surrounding the National Palace of Culture.

The ideas started popping up right away — repurposing a derelict monument from the communist era into a place for rock-climbing and graffiti art; transforming a parking lot into an event area, complete with a carousel and games for kids; clearing up overgrown green areas and turning them into gardens, dog runs, and tot lots; refurbishing water fountains; replacing amenities; creating areas where youth and seniors mix and learn from each other; and many more.

Following the workshop, Architects for Sofia staged an outdoor exhibit in one of the discussed spaces and invited citizens to re-imagine all the places around the Palace of Culture. They created a huge and beautiful rendering of the ideas generated in the Placemaking workshop and then invited people to leave their comments and suggestions directly on the plan. (The place where the map was hanging was actually on the map itself.) The Bulgarian National News Agency covered the exhibit, a sign of changing attitudes toward public participation in the planning process.

The next generation of Bulgarians is ready for change. Photo: Architects for Sofia

The exhibit is just a first step in demonstrating the benefits and potential for Placemaking in Sofia. I am hoping to return soon to help with developing an implementation plan for some of the ideas that came out of this very public process, and to continue a discussion about the best practices and most appropriate models for managing important public spaces in Sofia. Among the ideas we hope to pursue with city council members and municipal administrators is the concept of establishing a conservancy or nonprofit association to manage, program, maintain and develop the public spaces of the Palace of Culture.

As we gear up for this continued effort,  one thing has becomes clear: The people of Sofia are ready to make a better city for themselves — not an imitation of other European capitals, but an authentically Bulgarian great place.

Barcelona, Spain

What constitutes a public space? Where do public and private jurisdictions end? Should the private sector be involved in managing public spaces?

Cynthia Nikitin

These questions were hotly contested at the recent public space conference “What’s the Place for Public Space in our Cites?” hosted by French think-tank The City Factory/La Fabrique de la Cité.  This convening marked the first academic and professional dialogue amongst French cities, professionals, and researchers as to what constitutes a public space. I kicked things off with an opening address on “What are good public spaces?”

It seemed like the majority of the French contingency was completely convinced that it is the job of municipal government  to build, provide, and manage public spaces whereas we in the US and Hamburg Germany have found public-private partnerships to be very successful and viable in the long term.

Check out this video by The City Factory/La Fabrique de la Cité. It’s a great exploration of the French perspective on public spaces.

[vimeo video_id="23487065" width="400" height="300" title="Yes" byline="Yes" portrait="Yes" autoplay="No" loop="No" color="ff0179"]

We also talked about how to measure the value of public spaces and what elements are most important to people (in London, Hamburg, Paris and Barcelona); what is public vs. private space; whether would BID’s would work in France; how transportation impacts cities; and highlighted the importance both of managing public spaces and engaging communities in defining, visioning, and designing them.

No matter the weather, people flock to Barcelona's Las Ramblas

Las Ramblas at night (Barcelona, Spain)

Next Steps

Next year’s conference will explore the issues related to the differing functions of public spaces in the global north vs. the global south and further discuss the various models of privately owned public space, privately managed publicly owned space, and public/private partnerships for maintaining, programming and building public space.  Stay tuned!

—

Meg MacIver contributed to this post.

Kids paint on 78th Street in Jackson Heights as part of Playstreet, Summer 2009

As part of the campaign to increase public park space in the neighborhood, the Jackson Heights Green Alliance petitioned the city to close off the street adjacent to Travers Park to create a summer Playstreet. Running for the last three summers, the Playstreet has become a common ground where children and adults from the neighborhood’s diverse community gather to play, socialize, and relax.

The Playstreet has grown into a true town square and a neighborhood institution where the diverse members of the the community can come together in a welcoming environment. PPS’ Elena Madison lives in Jackson Heights and along with fellow members of the Jackson Heights Green Alliance has been active in every stage of the Playstreet’s creation and implementation.

The community recently got word that the Garden School, a private school located immediately adjacent to the Playstreet and opposite Travers Park, was looking to sell its school yard. The school board approached local City Council member Daniel Dromm with a proposal for the city to acquire the lot and create a public park, an extension of overcrowded Travers Park and the Playstreet.

However, NYC’s ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) requirements make it difficult for the city to offer funds to the school quickly, because of the 6-18 month review period. The school, in need of funding, has decided to entertain an offer from a private developer.

The Community is the Expert

Fearful of losing precious green space to development pressures, community members have come together and organized a fund to support the school’s interim operations through individual loans. Although the idea of supporting a private school does not sit well with everyone, community members see this as the only strategy to get the park space the neighborhood needs.

As part of the Playstreet, people took the place of cars during this summertime concert in Jackson Heights

Two weeks after starting the campaign, 226 people have pledged $257,482 to ensure the park’s creation. The loans will be repaid once the deal between the school and the City’s Department of Parks and Recreation is complete. Even in an uncertain economic climate, the city recognizes the importance of adding park space to the neighborhood and has recently made a $7M offer for the 29,000 sq feet school field.

Ironically enough, the ULURP review process was designed to prevent undesirable development in neighborhoods. In this situation, the outcome is quite the opposite. The process is actually threatening to undermine the deal between the school and the city, missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve the quality of life and physical health of the community. In a neighborhood where green space is scarce, this park also presents an opportunity to bring together people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to gather.

Why support the park?

Creating a park next to the school would benefit the students since they could use the park during school hours. But, if the deal with the private developer goes through, the space will be converted into a 4-6 story residential building, increasing density and removing the neighborhood’s hope of expanding open space. This would help the school get through its current hardship but threatens to cost the community dearly in the long run.

As the community’s fund-raising campaign continues and the city reaffirms its dedication to purchase the field for park land, the school maintains its wariness of the offer. We’re hopeful that the efforts of the Jackson Heights community won’t be in vain and the school will work alongside its neighbors and consider its role in shaping the community’s future.

This campaign in Jackson Heights exemplifies what citizens can do to take action toward creating the communities they want, in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

Does this sound like a challenge your community has faced? We want to hear from you!

The 2010 recipient of the award was Campus Martius Park in Detroit. Images Courtesy of Bob Gregory.

The prize is intended to celebrate and promote vibrant, well-used urban open spaces. The 2010 recipient of the award was Campus Martius Park in Detroit, a 2.5-acre thriving green space created from a desolate downtown parcel. Known as “Detroit’s Official Gathering Place,” Campus Martius Park is a lively central square that has become the heart of the city’s downtown redevelopment initiative. Learn more about the elements of Campus Martius’ success in PPS’ case study.

Because of our familiarity with urban spaces throughout the country, we were asked to encourage people who we know care about public spaces to apply for this award. In addition to the cash prize, the winning project will receive a commemorative statuette and be recognized in an awards ceremony held in conjunction with ULIs Spring Council Forum, as well as showcased in ULIs publications and conferences.

Here are the special qualities the award seeks to recognize:

• Be located in an urbanized area in North America
• Cover at least 10,000 square feet
• Have been open to the public at least one year and no more than 10 years
• Be outdoors and inviting to the public, regardless of ownership
• Be a central, dynamic civic place, providing abundant and varied seating, sun and shade, trees and plantings with attractions and features that offer many different ways for visitors to enjoy the space
• Be used intensively on a daily basis, and act as a magnet for a broad spectrum of users
• Be a lively, central gathering space, serving as a public destination throughout the year
• Have catalyzed private investment and urban regeneration in the surrounding community
• Represent a sound investment of public funds, if public funds are involved
• Be worthy of emulation

We are thrilled that this prize has recognized the above criteria as qualities of public spaces that should be rewarded. It presents a special chance for teams of designers, local governments and community groups to showcase their work and contribute to raising the profile of great public open spaces across the country.

You can learn more about the prize and download the application here.

PPS’ recent work in Plein 40-45, a square in one of Amsterdam’s most diverse districts, has shown that a Placemaking process that incorporates the needs and desires of a diverse community can go a long way to catalyze quick improvements and promote true livability.

The workshops PPS facilitated this fall brought together diverse cultural groups to envision a bright future for this space as an inclusive town square.

In September 2010, PPS facilitated a workshop with local stakeholders around Plein 40-45, the central square of the garden city Geuzenveld-Slotermeer on the western edge of Amsterdam.  The workshop brought together a diverse group of neighbors and led to a number of short and long term strategies for improvement; many of which have already been implemented. Before the workshop, many local government representatives and stakeholders had not met and had perhaps not realized the incredibly rich and diverse resource that the community represented.

During the past several years, Geuzenveld-Slotermeer has become a place where Turkish and Moroccan immigrants have moved and opened businesses along with existing Dutch residents and retailers. A testament to this evolving population mix is the story of the recent opening of a grocery store named Tanger on the second floor of a building on the edge of Plein 40-45. The day the store opened 1000 people lined up in the Square to wait to enter, even though the store had done very little to advertise. Why? The store carried products that appealed to and reflected the changing population of the community and were sold in a friendly, market-type environment.

A vision of the future of Plein 40-45. Located on a canal, Plein 40-45 is reachable by boat from the center of Amsterdam.

Today, the Square is somewhat underused but does feature a market where vendors sell a variety of products ranging from fruits and vegetables to clothing, rugs and other dry goods.  The recent workshop unlocked a vision of the Sqare’s potential as a town square. Rather than trying to come up with changes for the Square as a whole, the space was broken down into 5 sub-areas.  During the workshop, small groups of about 5 people evaluated one small part of the Square, talked to people who were using it, and came up with ideas for short and long-term improvements.

After PPS' workshop, Plein 40-45 became one stop on Amsterdam's Annual 1001 Markets Tour

The community has already tried out many ideas that emerged from PPS’ workshop.  The day after the workshop, one of the participants suggested changing the name of Plein 40–45 to “Freedom Square” (the square was named Plein 40-45 in 1955 to recognize the German occupation from 1940-1945). Just one month later, Plein 40-45 became one stop on Amsterdam’s Annual 1001 Markets Tour. Government employees developed sketches to visualize new activities that could occur on the Square and additional meetings were held with stakeholders.

What is the message here? When a diverse group of stakeholders come together to evaluate a small part of that place, they can build a shared vision that can produce meaningful changes very, very quickly.  Margaret Mead’s words still ring true: “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Mayor Annise Parker joins local officials and stakeholders in breaking plates to commemorate the opening of Houston's new Market Square

With its exciting opening this fall, Houston’s Market Square promises to live up to the community’s early vision of the area as a magnet destination that would increase tourism and make downtown Houston more livable and vibrant. At lunchtime -and throughout the day- Houston Market Square, in the center of Downtown Houston’s Historic District, now bustles with activity as visitors come to enjoy a new Greek café, performances, shaded seating, a water feature, and bike racks. A large dog run also attracts residents who have quickly adopted the park as their main community space.

Houston’s Market Square is but one of PPS Parks and Downtown projects which have recently opened to great fanfare: Pittsburgh’s Market Square also recently re-opened, drawing crowds back to the city’s core. PPS’ involvement in Houston’s Discovery Green and Detroit’s Campus Martius have spurred Downtown Development in both cities.

It’s almost impossible to think that just a few years ago this same square at the center of Houston’s Historic District was once described as “lifeless” and “creepy” and was featured in PPS’ Hall of Shame.

Houston's Market Square before Placemaking interventions (a vintage from the PPS archives)

In 2007, Project for Public Spaces was called on to guide the future development of Houston’s Market Square Park. PPS began a community-driven process to gather information on the neighborhood and on the existing conditions of Market Square itself. PPS conducted a visioning process that resulted in a concept plan that was to make Market Square Park a place that would anchor the district and spur further revitalization.

Crowds flocked to Market Square on opening day

As part of the final report, PPS also outlined dynamic programming for the park, including rotating events such as farmers markets and holiday markets, movies, exercise classes, a library kiosk, as well as play areas for children. Creating a vibrant livable downtown for Houston has been an ongoing effort for the city, with PPS as a partner on several parks and square including Discovery Green and Emancipation Park.

Read the whole article here.

According to this article in Houston Downtown Magazine, Houston’s new Market Square is part of a “key tactic” of “giving modern purpose to historic spaces … for the entire Historic District’s renaissance over the past 20-plus years.” Two  issues central to the project were how to acknowledge the historic importance of the site as Houston’s first public space (and the site of several City Halls until 1960), and how to accommodate a number of site-specific artworks that were created as part of the previous design. PPS worked with a number of those artists to incorporate their works (and in  some cases update the works) into the new square and the designer (Lauren Griffith Associates) took the footprint of the City Hall for the site of the main lawn.

“With the renovation of Market Square Park,” said local restaurant owner Jamie Mize, “we will further the goal of helping create a true urban neighborhood in the north end of downtown and encourage property owners in the area to develop their properties.”

If you have been to Market Square since its re-opening:

Park features like this fountain at Discovery Green keep visitors of all ages coming back year-round to Houston's once quiet downtown core. Flickr photo by AlphaTangoBravo/Adam Baker

Often, downtowns hard-hit by disinvestment turn to sports arenas or performing arts venues for an economic boost. Yet as this article shows,  parks, not stadiums, are responsible for invigorating depressed cores. Alive with year-round programming and activities,  these thriving Public Multi-Use Destinations are treasured by the local community and generate millions of dollars of investment,  proving there can be an Upside of a Down Economy, as PPS President Fred Kent explains in this Urban Land Institute article.

The Washington Post is not the first major newspaper to highlight the potential for parks like Campus Martius to generate true prosperity over the long-haul: just last fall The Boston Globe wrote about how Discovery Green has drawn over a million visitors to downtown Houston while Boston’s new Rose Kennedy Greenway still seems “placeless” and deserted.

From our experience working in more than 2,500 communities around the world, PPS has known for years that the missing ingredient in many discussions about economic revitalization, job creation, and sustainability is the fact that secure jobs are tied to a place.

To learn more about models for sustainable success, join us in Norway at PPS’ upcoming Conference on Sustainability and Placemaking next month where PPS and “out of the box” Placemakers from around the world will share their secrets to creating great destinations.

This contest is the newest initiative of the citywide Placemaking Chicago campaign, born out of a partnership with PPS and Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council. In collaboration, PPS and MPC produced a brand new, locally-oriented Placemaking publication with associated online content.  PPS also led onsite training courses for community and government leaders in the region.

This summer, from June 2 through July 26, 2010, enter the “What Makes Your Place Great? Your Secret Corner of Chicagoland” contest by emailing a photo or video of your favorite undiscovered public space in the region to placemakingchicago@metroplanning.org. Together with a 250-word-or-less description, use your photo or video to describe why this place is so special to you and how it adds to your community. 

Four winners will receive a prize package that includes passes to the Brookfield Zoo, Chicago History Museum, Shedd Aquarium, or Chicago Architecture Foundation tours, the chance to have their space featured in an exclusive CAF tour in October, 2010, and bragging rights to the best undiscovered public place in the region!

Read the guidelines for entry and voting at www.placemakingchicago.com.

MPC and Placemaking Chicago are grateful for the generous contributions of our sponsors and donors:

The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation
Prince Charitable Trusts
Perkins+Will

Questions?  Please contact Karin Sommer, MPC Associate and Placemaking Chicago Project Manager, at 312-863-6044 or ksommer@metroplanning.org.

The place game is used on a street in Denver, Coloardo.

PPS works with thousands of people every year to help them improve their communities, and one of our most powerful tools is the place game. A short survey used to evaluate public spaces based on four criteria–access and linkages, uses and activities, comfort and image, and sociability–the place game generates valuable insights about how to transform public spaces into vibrant community destinations.

At our recent Streets as Places training course, participants used the street audit–a cousin of the place game focused on streets–to evaluate Petrosino Square, a small public plaza in downtown Manhattan. Wayne Senville, editor of the Planning Comissioners Journal, provides an excellent writeup of his experience “Circling the Square” that illustrates the myriad lessons that can be learned by simply observing a space, talking with people who use it and then sharing findings in a small group.

For more on Senville’s experiences at the Streets as Places training course, visit the Planning Commissioners Journal‘s website, a terrific source of resources and information for citizen planners.

The benches at Petrosino Square are heavily used during the day, but the space lacks a strong identity. Photo credit: Wayne Senville

The recently relocated Austin Farmers Market draws a large crowd to Republic Square

Republic Square in Austin, Texas has a long and storied history. The first city blocks were auctioned there under live oak trees in the summer of 1839; patriotic Mexican celebrations were staged during the First World War; cars were invited to park in the 1950s, only to be sent away twenty-seven years later when the space was reclaimed as a park.

In the last few years, citizens and officials working under public- private partnerships have taken bold strides to make the square a more dynamic gathering space and center for downtown life. Most recently, working with the Downtown Austin Alliance, Local Federal Court, the GSA, local property owners and residents, and the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, the Austin Parks Foundation has taken steps to restore the health of those now 300 year old Auction Oaks by removing berms that choked off root growth (270 truckloads of soil),  built a sensitively designed deck under one of those oaks with movable tables and chairs, planted 1600 native plants in the Auction Oak grove, planted 10 large trees, and restored irrigation and turf.

Relaxing on the new deck underneath the historic "Auction Oaks"

A vision map of Republic Square Park reflected ideas from the PPS-led workshop

But it all started with a GSA Good Neighbor Program sponsored Project for Public Spaces workshop in December 2006, which resulted in the top priorities that have been implemented in this first phase.  A total of $450,000 has raised by the Austin Parks Foundation, including $30,000 from the GSA for tree planting. Now, the Austin Farmers Market, Yoga in the park, outdoor movies and art events are utilizing the deck and square.

Special thanks to Charlie McCabe from the Austin Parks Foundation for his assistance with this post.