• 
  PPS publishes How To Turn a Place Around, the first hands-on guide to Placemaking, which becomes the inspiration for a training course of the same name. See Greatest Hits.


• In a major victory for all communities plagued by wider streets and speeding cars, PPS conducts the first state-wide Context Sensitive Design training program. Hundreds of traffic engineers in New Jersey are introduced to the principles of Placemaking as a better method of street design. See Greatest Hits.


• 
  Elena Olonetsky, a disciplinarian with a heart of gold, takes the helm of PPS's finance department and guides us through the treacherous straits of the dot-com downturn.

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  PPS publishes Public Parks, Private Partners, a guide to the revolution in public-private partnerships for park management begun by the Central Park Conservancy.


• 
  Former Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa and Chicago Mayor Richard M Daley bring 500 participants to their feet at the seventh PPS-sponsored Urban Parks Conference, held in New York City.

In the News

Ha'aretz, January 8, 2001.

Invited by local environmentalists to evaluate urban areas of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Fred Kent and Kathy Madden caught the attention of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

• PPS launches its online newsletter, Making Places, to more widely promote the philosophy of Placemaking. Circulation increases from 3000 to 20,000 in its first three years.


• Culled from dozens of case studies on successful parks, plazas, square, streets, markets, and buildings, the Great Public Spaces website is launched, giving visitors the chance to debate the merits of particular public spaces and nominate their own favorites.


• 
  The Fifth Public Market Conference draws 300 people to New York. The conference marks the beginning of PPS's work for the Ford Foundation to study and promote public markets as vehicles for economic development and social integration.


• 
  David Burwell, reformed lawyer and former aide to Ralph Nader (not to mention the founder of the Surface Transportation Policy Project and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy), joins staff of PPS. He now directs the transportation program and strategic management.

In the News

Hartford Courant, January 17, 2002.

This editorial from transit advocate Tyler Smith gushed about the PPS-led community planning effort for revitalizing Hartford's historic Farmington Avenue.

• Poring through a mountain of more than a half-million photographs shot by PPS staff over 25 years, our web team compiles the PPS Image Collection, an online database of our best photos.


• PPS releases its first City Commentary, an overview of the state of public spaces in Barcelona that offers a scathing critique of the city's newest developments. Paris and London soon follow. New York City is slated for early 2005.


• 
  A significant portion of Littleton, New Hampshire (pop. 5845) meets with PPS staff in local diners and watering holes, using Placemaking and traffic calming to enhance the quality and popularity of downtown. Innovative experiments with traffic cones and on-street striping test ideas before reconstruction of Main Street begins in 2006.


• 
  The Croatian Prime Minister recognizes PPS's work in the city of Rijeka to help youth identify key public places in their community and implement improvements.


• 
  Shin-pei Tsay, a former strategy consultant and project manager for an Internet consulting company, joins PPS as marketing director. Shin-pei discovered PPS while working on her Masters of Science in Cities, Space and Society at the London School of Economics.

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  The Ninth Urban Parks Conference, held in London with partner GreenSpace, marks PPS's first conference held abroad.


• 
  Architect and Planner Meg Walker returns to PPS after a five-year stint as Planning Director for the village of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. As Director of Design, she is expanding PPS's services to include Design Management and Project Supervision.


• 
  Jay Walljasper, longtime editor of Utne Reader and current executive editor of the Dutch-based international news magazine Ode, joins the staff of PPS to enhance communications and publications.


• 
  PPS's work in Eastern Europe and the Balkans expands to Serbia, leading to the creation of the first organic farmers market in the main square of the city of Novi Sad.


• PPS completes first phase of ContextSensitiveSolutions.org, a website funded by the Federal Highway Administration that will enable people in all 50 states--professionals, public officials, and laypeople interested in improving their local streets--to adopt a context-sensitive approach to street design.

• 
  After 21 happy years near Sheridan Square in New York's West Village, the 23 staff members of PPS head east to more spacious digs in the Audubon Society building at 700 Broadway, a landmark in eco-friendly building renovation, on the other side of Washington Square Park.


• Planning is furiously underway for a series of meetings to launch a national (and international) Placemaking movement. The first is slated for Seattle, followed by ones in the Midwest and New York.