1. Placemaking gains ground around the globe

Places as diverse in climate and culture as Norway and Dubai, Chicago and Singapore, Scotland and Korea, Bulgaria and Australia are all developing broad placemaking agendas. By collaborating with PPS, they are defining and planning their cities with the future in mind.

In the Czech Republic, placemaking programs are still going strong 12 years after the fall of communism through the revitalization of public spaces and public life. Under the leadership of PPS partners' The Environmental Partnership for Sustainable Development (EPSD), our Eastern European program has been expanded to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.

In Western Europe, Scotland is currently in its fourth year of applying placemaking principles to improve public spaces throughout the country, and over the past two years, PPS has been conducting placemaking training in various Dutch cities in collaboration with CROW, a not-for-profit organization that unites government and business in pursuit of common interests through the design, construction and management of transportation infrastructure.


An impromptu drawing class in Osaka, Japan

Citizens in Osaka, Japan have been exploring and defining a placemaking strategy for several years, which was finally unveiled with a PPS keynote speech given to over 300 business, governmental and academic leaders. This event was preceded by a training session around key sites in the central business district, and marked the beginning of a larger regional agenda around the idea of placemaking.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi--laboratories for a wide spectrum of new ideas in urban development--have also contacted PPS for guidance in incorporating the principles of placemaking into their ambitious planning efforts. This has included discussion on how placemaking could form the foundation of a whole new city. In 2008 PPS presented a lead-off speech to top officials at a major development company there and are currently exploring placemaking as a core component for a new research and urban innovation center.


Chicago's Guide to Neighbrohood Placeamking

Meanwhile, Chicago is pursuing the boldest placemaking agenda in the United States through a PPS collaboration with the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Council. A new publication, "A Guide to Neighborhood Placemaking in Chicago" and its accompanying website were created to help people learn more about how to make places and share their ideas, successes and failures. In addition, PPS and the MPC led training sessions for both government and grassroots leaders last fall.


PPS President Fred Kent leads participants at one of two Chicago workshops

Finally, PPS's handy guide to placemaking, "How to Turn A Place Around," has now been translated into 5 languages-Japanese, Korean, Hungarian, Czech, and Dutch, with a Polish edition in the pipeline as well.


2. Collaboration is the key to making change

In partnership with AARP's Livable Communities Initiative, PPS has produced new training materials to assist AARP staff and a growing legion of volunteers in making changes to transportation decision-making throughout the U.S.

The project has produced three easy-to-use booklets: "A Citizen's Guide to Better Streets: How to Engage Your Transportation Agency," "Streets as Places," and "Great Corridors, Great Communities." Also part of the project is a series of three webinars: "Understanding the Transportation Planning and Project Delivery Process," "Dealing with Government Bureaucracies," and "The Role Community Planning Plays in Transportation and Vice Versa."


The cover of the first of the PPS-AARP booklets, A Citizens Guide to Better Streets

3. Greenplace: How community revitalization fights climate change

Ever since organizing New York's first Earth Day celebration in 1970, PPS President Fred Kent has believed that environmental restoration is closely tied to community wellbeing. Mr. Kent elaborated on this connection last year at the Green City of the Future conference in Bergen, Norway, where he spoke about how placemaking can play a key role in the planning of a green city.

The Green Buildings Conference, organized by the City of New York and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also stressed this natural connection by inviting PPS to give a keynote speech on placemaking. In addition, PPS was on hand for "The Global Discussion on Global Sustainability: Where Do Science Centers Fit In," at the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) international conference in Philadelphia, as well as gave a keynote presentation at the Walk 21 conference in Barcelona, which championed the development of healthy, sustainable and efficient communities where people are eager to walk.

 

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