Jane’s Walk Weekend is this May 4th and 5th!

The fact that Jane Jacobs’ name is so often attached to the idea of gentrification today seems a cruel irony. Jane’s writing was focused on how to create strong neighborhoods that fostered robust social networks; she was far from a “NIMBY”, and her interest in preservation was more about economics than aesthetics. Unfortunately, the complexity of her ideas is often vastly oversimplified or taken out of context today by people looking to generate a bit of controversy. Reports that ‘Jane was wrong’ are greatly exaggerated, often by people who wind up making many of the same arguments that Jane, herself, made.

So it is always wonderful to see people gathering in communities across the country for Jane’s Walk Weekend. Over the next two days (May 4th & 5th), thousands will meet their neighbors to explore, observe, and appreciate what makes their neighborhoods great. In honor of one of our very favorite Placemakers, we’ve rounded up several walks scheduled to take place this year that focus on the theme of resilience, a concern at the core of much of Jane’s work. She was a champion of complexity and flexibility in urban form because these qualities allow communities—and the people that inhabit them—to address challenges more nimbly and effectively. Or, in her own eloquent words:

“Vital cities have marvelous innate abilities for understanding, communicating, contriving, and inventing what is required to combat their difficulties … Lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves.”

And now, without further ado:

1.) Levee Disaster Bike Tour, New Orleans: The Crescent City’s comeback post-Katina, while far from frictionless, has been nothing short of miraculous. This bike tour will visit the sites of several levee breaches around the city, giving participants an opportunity to discuss what happened to their city, and how far they’ve come since.

2.) Not Your Typical Regent Park Walk, Toronto: This walk, in the city where Jane moved after her time in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, will “[shine] a light on the capacity of local residents and [reframe] Toronto’s negative ‘public housing’ narrative,” focusing on the importance of generating new economic opportunities from within local communities rather than attracting them from somewhere else.

3.) The Roots of Mack Avenue, Detroit: This tour will focus on an historic neighborhood commercial corridor in the Motor City, which recently played host to the Placemaking Leadership Council’s inaugural meeting. The tour will explore Mack Avenue’s economic decline, and look forward to the bright future outlined through the “Green Thoroughfare” revitalization plan.

4.) Hometown Security, The Bronx, NYC: Led by South Bronx-based advocate Majora Carter, this tour will examine the impact of the Spofford juvenile detention facility on the neighborhood. The tour will end with a performance by a group of people whose lives were affected by Spofford, and who have worked with the Theater of the Oppressed to tell their stories. Observations from the performances will inform how the 5-acre Spofford site will be re-developed in the future.

5.) Recycle Kingdom Walk, Calcutta: This year Jane’s Walk is making its way to several cities in India. This unique walk will meander through the East Calcutta Wetlands, providing an intimate look at the vital role that the site plays in the city’s ecological resilience. The wetlands “take in all the solid and liquid waste of the city and generates fish, rice and vegetables and sends it back.”

One last thing: if you’re in New York, the Municipal Art Society will be offering a host of free tours of neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Sandy last fall. You can check out the full list of related events by clicking right here.

How do you create a magnetic public destination like Luxembourg Gardens? Read on! / Photo: PPS

In a recent blog post, entrepreneur-turned-VC Mark Suster wrote about the necessary ingredients for a city trying o develop a successful start-up community. His advice seemed applicable to any community that’s trying to create a strong local sense of place, so we’ve retrofitted his recommendations to speak broadly to people who are working to transform their public spaces into magnetic destinations that are reflective of the diverse communities that surround them.

[✓] A Strong Pool of Zealous Nuts – If you’re reading this, chances are you’re either a zealous nut, or you have the potential to be one. You’re passionate about place, about your neighborhood, your streets, your favorite park. Zealous nuts are the local leaders who have a vision of how great their community can be, and who want to get all of their neighbors involved in making it happen. They also have the tenacity and patience to stick with that vision, even when fighting an uphill battle. They understand that half of the fun of Placemaking is getting to know their neighbors through discussion, debate, and collaboration. As we’ve seen time and again, great Placemaking projects can almost always be traced back to one or two driven, dedicated people who are “nuts” about their community.

[✓] Place Capital – Great places generate more value for the communities in which they are located than they actually cost to create. These places draw people into the daily life of their communities, encouraging local investment–both financial (through shopping at local stores and markets) and social. Individual actions toward the improvement of and participation in public spaces are like little investments in Place Capital. If people have opportunities to take part in shaping their public spaces, they will feel more connected to their community, and will be more likely to go the extra mile to keep those spaces attractive and welcoming. This has a magnetic effect, creating a distinctive local character and turning a location into a destination.

[✓] Killer Events – Suster’s explanation of the importance of events is spot-on for much more than just the tech community: events bring people together, and get them talking. This builds social capital, and does so in a way that is specifically connected to place. Great events often celebrate unique aspects of a local community, and throw them into high relief–the example of SXSW in Austin is perfect, as it highlights the creative and tech-focused community of people that already exists in Austin, and does so out in the streets. The informal and entertaining vibe puts people at ease, and strengthens the local sense of identity as people mix and mingle.

Austin’s Sixth Street bustles during the SXSW festival / Photo: John Rogers via Flickr

[✓] Access to Great Advocates – Chatter about Placemaking is on the rise, but not everyone who uses the term is talking about really engaging local communities to facilitate the creation of places that truly reflect the people that they serve. To create a great public destination, it’s helpful for a community to have access to advocacy organizations that really “get it,” and are proactive in working with locals to help them articulate their needs and claim their place. Look at the Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago, or (thinking regionally) the Michigan Municipal League. These groups are on a mission to make sure that Placemaking stays an inclusive process, rather than becoming an empty buzzword that is attached to projects that reflect top-down planning and design visions rather than local culture.

[✓] Motivated Champions – 90% of the success of a public space is in its management. For public spaces and districts with access to a large pool of resources, the involvement of a dedicated community development org or business improvement district can be extremely helpful in making sure that the buzz around a space stays strong. New York has dozens of BIDs that manage major squares and shopping districts. As downtowns around the country have surged in recent decades, groups like the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership and Downtown Houston have helped to guide growth, manage important hubs of public life, and spread the word about what’s going on in the heart of town.

Neighbors work together to brighten their Portland neighborhood through City Repair’s Intersection Repair project / Photo: City Repair via Flickr

But your champions don’t necessarily need a lot of money if they’ve got a lot of heart. Many spaces are managed by volunteer organizations made up of community members who help to keep a space clean, and “program” it with a steady mix of informal activity. Often times, smaller groups can build capacity over time and scale up; Portland’s well-regarded City Repair started out as a group of concerned neighbors who just wanted a safer street corner, and today they’ve revolutionized community planning across their city!

[✓] Local Press / Websites / Organizational Tools – Great public spaces are stages for public life. In addition to major events like parades, festivals, and other public gatherings, they’re perfect places for local media organizations to tap into public opinion on the key issues of the day. Public space managers, whether professional or volunteer, should work hard to build a strong relationship with local media outlets that cover what’s going on in the city or region. People attract people, so the more often folks see and hear reminders of how vibrant and exciting a given place is, the more likely they are to travel out of their way to check out the action. In the long term, building strong media partnerships also creates an active local culture that gets more people off the couch.

[✓] Alumni Outreach – Here’s an intriguing item on Suster’s list that isn’t necessarily obvious when you think generally about creating public destinations. If you live in a neighborhood with some history and are trying to turn a place around, it might be helpful to do a bit of research to learn whether there are some famous past residents who might have fond memories of that space when they were growing up in the neighborhood. Great places inspire the kind of visceral memories that spur people to action. Find out who your neighborhood’s “alumni” are, and you might find some powerful allies in your effort to restore a down-at-heel site to its former glory.

[✓] Wins – “At the end of the day,” writes Suster, “no amount of ‘planning’ can build a community that is seen as a success – it can just be a contributor.” This is the idea at the heart of the Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper approach to public space management. You can plan and plan, but doing is absolutely essential. If you don’t have the funds for a new playground, get local organizations to donate odds and ends and have kids from the neighborhood build their own temporary adventure playground. If there’s a blank wall that you’re not quite ready to cover with a permanent mural, host a chalk party to get up some temporary, community-sourced public art. Small wins today build momentum that can be critical to achieving bigger wins tomorrow.

[✓] Recycled Place Capital / Repeat Placemakers – When people participate in a Placemaking process and see firsthand how powerful an effect it has, both on their public spaces and on their own lives, they often get hooked! This has a spillover effect, meaning that one great public destination can wind up influencing an entire city, or even a whole region. The Power of Ten concept posits that you need at least ten things to do in a public space for it to be a lively, multi-use destination. To have a great neighborhood you, need at least ten of these public destinations. For a great city, you need at least ten great neighborhoods.

Making a great place requires lots of participation from lots of people. That creates lots of new Placemakers, and inspires a whole new group of zealous nuts. Placemaking can change the way that people think about their role within their community, and inspire them to be more intentional about investing in Place Capital not just in their own back yard, but all over town.

Photos like Jackson Square in New Orleans set the bar high / Photo: PPS

[✓] Flagship Public Spaces – Barcelona has Parc Guell, Vancouver has Granville Island, and New Orleans has Jackson Square. These iconic spaces set the bar high, and give neighborhoods in their respective cities something to shoot for. If your city has a flagship space (or, if you’re very lucky, a few of them), tap into the public enthusiasm for the sense of place that exists around that location, and remind people that any site can become a beloved destination if it is responsive to the community in which it is located.

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

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• Slowly healing New Orleans debates approval of legislation that would streamline the rebuilding process, taking the politics out of planning. [Forbes]

• Bethlehem, PA outlines plans for giving the town a face lift that runs across the board from housing, to preservation, transportation, downtown revitalization, and on and on. [Brown and White]

• Interesting take: [Bay Area Home Girl]

• San Francisco’s Planning Commission allows developers to build a property on The Embarcadero 40 feet higher than the zoning laws permit because of a LEED Platinum rating? [Planetizen]

• High school students in Great Barrington, MA start an organic garden and feed the whole school, bring together the community, learn landscaping and gardening, and generally create a positive public space for the town. [Slow Food]

• Montreal wins a spot on Time Magazine’s 50 best inventions of 2008 for its solar powered, construction-less bike sharing program. [Streets Blog]

• New York City Council approves plans to redevelop industrial section of queens near Shea Stadium. Plans include affordable housing for 4,000 middle class familes. [City Room]