PPS and You
A Message from Fred Kent

After almost 30 years on the road helping to create great places, we continue to be amazed by how passionate Americans are about improving the places in their communities. We are making real progress in turning the tide of history away from deterioration and sprawl--and towards beauty, comfort, and powerful communities in control of the decisions that shape their futures.

Between our presentations and training programs, PPS reaches more than 10,000 people all over the world every year, and millions more find answers and inspiration on our website. We are now developing a new Great Cities Initiative that will leverage our services even further, providing a way for people to create broader change in their communities, towns, and cities.

The explosion of interest in placemaking that we have experienced over the last year is evidence that a major movement toward community control and local empowerment has been building.

We also know that empowered communities need more resources, and we need you to join us in this important and expanding movement--to help us develop the resources that communities are demanding. That is why we are asking you to consider making a contribution to our work--financial or otherwise (see list at right for ways you can help).

Thanks to your participation in our programs, issues fundamental to creating better places are being passionately debated every day in town halls, churches and living rooms. How do we tame traffic in our neighborhoods? How can our parks be the crown jewels of our city? How can we strengthen local entrepreneurs and build the local economy as an alternative to chain stores and shopping malls?

We believe the best way to address all these questions is to use a placemaking approach--an inclusive process that utilizes professional know-how and citizen experts to build a collective vision for a community, by a community. The placemaking tools that we have developed--the Place Evaluation Game and our book How to Turn a Place Around--can shift the role of the citizen/local advocate from reactive to proactive, tapping the community's strengths from the outset.

The explosion of interest in placemaking that we have experienced over the last year is evidence that a major movement toward community control and local empowerment has been building. Indications of this movement from both the public and private sectors abound:

Context Sensitive Solutions as a way of building streets and roads
Interest in building roads, streets and other transportation projects a new way has resulted in a major new partnership with the Federal Highway Administration to build a resource center for transportation professionals. This new "context sensitive solutions" website will demonstrate how communities and engineers can work together to build and inter-connect roads, transit facilities, bikeways and sidewalks that support both transportation and community goals.

Community-based approach to design
A recent editorial in Landscape Architecture cited PPS's Great Public Spaces website and suggests that design professionals are now realizing that the true "expertise" in building communities comes from the people themselves, and these communities need to be given the forum to express their needs and assets.

International focus on placemaking
Our international placemaking efforts in Armenia, the Czech Republic, Serbia, and Croatia emphasize that public spaces are manifestly egalitarian and an obvious place to begin building democratic practices and ideals.

Your participation in placemaking is very important to us and our work, but it is even more critical to the health and stability of every community from Oregon to Odessa, where people care about the health of their towns and citizens. Thank you so much, and happy holidays from all your friends here at Project for Public Spaces.

Best Wishes,

Fred Kent
President
Project for Public Spaces