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"Everywhere you look, there are kids canoodling. Think of all of the germs being spread around! It's just gross.” / Photo: PPS

Bloomberg Seeks to Limit the Length of Kissing in Public Spaces

By Project for Public Spaces on Apr 1, 2013 | 3 Comments

Citing data showing that kissing is up to dangerous levels in the city’s streets and public spaces, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has introduced a measure to attempt to limit the length of public displays of affection in the interest of public health. Bloomberg admitted that the rampant PDA may be an unintended consequence of [...]

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Capitol Park will become a hub for arts and creativity / Image: PPS

Detroit Leads the Way on Place-Centered Revitalization

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 29, 2013 | 13 Comments

You may have heard about downtown Detroit’s big comeback story. Campus Martius has become one of America’s great urban squares. Demand for housing has outstripped supply for months. Major tech firms like Twitter are opening up offices in refurbished historic buildings. The Motor City’s historic core is ascendant.

Yesterday, at an event hosted by [...]

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What You See is What You Get

By Mark Plotz on Mar 27, 2013 | 13 Comments

A few years back, I paid a visit to the headquarters of a state DOT, for the purpose of helping to plan its Safe Routes to School program. As DOTs went, this one had a reputation for being fairly amenable toward pedestrians, by which I mean that the department in question considered walking to be [...]

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Well-designed communities are places where people want to live and invest in the future.

What is Good Rural Design?

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 21, 2013 | Add Comment

This question and many others were the focus of the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design’s (CIRD) capacity building call series that kicked off this past January.  The calls are part of CIRD’s approach to providing communities access to the resources they need to convert their own good ideas into reality. The program offers annual competitive [...]

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caption / Photo: PPS

Stronger Citizens, Stronger Cities: Changing Governance Through a Focus on Place

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 17, 2013 | 11 Comments

This is the second of a three-part series on transformative Placemaking. To read part one, click here. To read part three, click here.

A great place is something that everybody can create. If vibrancy is people, as we argued two weeks ago, the only way to make a city vibrant again is [...]

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A great third place draws people from many backgrounds / Photo: PPS

To Make a Great Third Place, Get Out of the Way

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 14, 2013 | 1 Comment

The following article was written for the Fall 2012 issue of Shelterforce magazine.
Click here to view the original version on their website.

———————

You are never finished. That is one of PPS’s 11 principles for creating great community places. For anyone working to create a great “third [...]

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The Placemaking Leadership Council will meet for the first time next month in Detroit, Michigan / Photo: PPS

Informed and Engaged Communities Through Placemaking: Building off of Knight Foundation’s Soul of the Community

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 13, 2013 | Add Comment

Fifteen years ago, PPS created a new tool, the Place Diagram, that broke down the essential components of successful public spaces into for general categories: Access & Linkages, Comfort & Image, Sociability, and Uses & Activities. The diagram was a crystallization of knowledge gleaned from two decades working on public spaces, building on the pioneering research of Continue Reading

Meet Candice!

Citizen Placemaker: Nurse Candice Davenport on How Places Reflect Public Health

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 7, 2013 | 1 Comment

In our Citizen Placemaker series, we chat with amazing and inspiring people from outside the architecture, planning, and government worlds (the more traditional haunts of Placemakers) whose work exemplifies how creating great places goes far beyond the physical spaces that make up our cities.

Candice Davenport is a nurse who works on improving public [...]

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Click here to view a slideshow of the results of the kids' workshop!

Want to Create Family-Friendly Places? Get the Kids at the Table!

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 6, 2013 | 3 Comments

In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake changed the face of downtown Santa Cruz, damaging dozens of buildings and hobbling the local retail scene. The Cooper House, which had been a key public gathering space in this oceanfront city’s core, was ruined. When the site was re-developed, a larger building was placed along the street, and [...]

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creativity

All Placemaking is Creative: How a Shared Focus on Place Builds Vibrant Destinations

By Project for Public Spaces on Mar 4, 2013 | 14 Comments

This is the first of a three-part series on transformative Placemaking. To read part two, click here. To read part three, click here.

Placemaking is a process, accessible to anyone, that allows peoples’ creativity to emerge. When it is open and inclusive, this process can be extraordinarily effective in making people feel attached [...]

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Technology is for People: Outlining Four Freedoms for the 21st Century

By Brendan Crain on Feb 26, 2013 | 3 Comments

“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 [...]

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firedamage

Welcome Back, West Side Market!

By Project for Public Spaces on Feb 22, 2013 | 2 Comments

Depending on how much you love public markets (and we know that many of you love public markets a whole lot) you may have already heard that the West Side Market, the bustling heart of Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood for the past century, was shuttered for more than two weeks recently after a fire. [...]

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