Using our unique Placemaking approach, PPS offers technical assistance and a range of support services to communities building new parks or revitalizing existing ones.
Technical Assistance
- We begin by achieving a clear understanding of how people use existing or new public spaces through a variety of methods, including detailed user analysis, targeted interviews, stakeholder meetings and public workshops.
- We facilitate the creation of a common vision using a community-based workshop process to share views and generate ideas.
- We translate the ideas generated in public forums into an intricate program of uses and activities.
- We use the program to create a concept plan reflecting the character and amenities that will create the destinations and support the activities envisioned by the community.
Support Services:
- Education, training, and conferences for both communities and professionals. This includes PPS’s well-known Great Parks/Great Cities conferences, but also special training for state or local parks agencies, citizens groups, or any combination of organizations.
- Research into models and practices that advance the understanding of what works for parks and what doesn’t. In 2000, PPS released Public Parks, Private Partners, a book of case studies on how partnerships have worked to revitalize urban parks in the U.S. Previous publications include, from our partnership with the National Park Service, User Analysis: An Approach to Park Planning and Management and Film in User Analysis.
- Web-based resources. With help from the Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds, PPS developed the content in the “Parks” section of this website. The “Resources” menu on the right side of this page is your passport to a trove of information on design, management, funding, and many more topics to help you improve your local parks.
Contact
Phil Myrick is the Director of PPS’s Parks Program.