PPS - CENTRAL EUROPE

CZECH PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SPACES

NEW INITIATIVE IN CROATIA

WATCH FOR A POTENTIAL NEW PROGRAM IN SERBIA & MONTENEGRO

CZECH PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SPACES

Place Performance Game in Prague central square.

Historic Czech towns are facing unprecedented problems and challenges in the next few years as they seek to promote sustainable economic development, renew lost traditions, and become true centers of community life, with active, pedestrian-oriented public spaces.

Public spaces in these towns have been greatly underused in comparison to their traditional prewar roles as centers of their communities. For the past 50 years they have remained virtually unchanged. Today, with privatization, towns need to upgrade, change and attract investment -- without losing their value as centers of community life or sacrificing their historic character. Project for Public Spaces has developed a program to help bring back traditional activities such as festivals, markets, and civic events. The program helps revitalize Czech public spaces by having communities take part in restructuring their futures, thereby relearning the democratic process and overcoming their well-founded suspicion of public sector "planning."

In the summer of 1993, PPS conducted a series of community workshops in five Czech towns under a travel grant from the Environmental Partnership, now a Czech foundation. Based on the positive response to this work, PPS developed a joint program with its Czech partners, of technical assistance, training, and public outreach for the renewal of the centers in Czech towns. Funded by grants from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the German Marshall Fund, a two year demonstration project was initiated beginning in 1994. Over the two years, projects were completed in seven towns – projects intended to produce visible, concrete results in a short period of time. In addition to technical assistance, therefore, a non-governmental organization in each town received a small grant, matched with local sources, to hire a project manager and to implement short-term, small scale improvements.

Based on the success of this effort, the program was incorporated into the Environmental Partnership. Today the "Partnership for Public Spaces" provides technical assistance to many communities, sponsors workshops, and translates important public space planning information in to Czech. Combined with other programs of the Partnership, this effort is increasing the visibility of citizen-based efforts in community development.

The PVP program has evolved a sophisticated training program that engages select teams of grantees for five years: two years of training in techniques to help plan a local project with their own community (including Placemaking, fundraising, and "planning weekends"); small grants to help teams implement the projects they developed during the training; and three additional years of service to Partnerships as satellite technical assistance providers in community visioning. In November, we heard presentations from a number of these trainees on their projects and were gratified to see that they had an excellent grasp of the objectives and processes of Placemaking and had applied them in their own communities. Projects presently underway include the conversion of an army barracks into an NGO incubator space (in Beroun), restoration of a stream running through a village center of 78 residents (Koren), and revitalization of the old church grounds in Mikulov which have stood derelict for a generation (this project has recently won approval by the town council).

The PVP program has recently initiated larger scale projects to improve prominent plazas in Prague: they have been contracted for a major study of the square at the Ceska Sporitelna Bank headquarters in Prague, as well as a residential square in Prague 13; they have also been approached to work also on the famous Wencelslav Square in the center of Prague. The first Czech, bound edition of How To Turn a Place Around will be printed in the spring of 2003. The Partnership Foundation will cover most of the cost, although PPS will make a contribution using our RBF grant.

Square next to the Ceska Sporitelna Bank headquarters in Prague	Prague 13

The CEPF has hired a new director of “OPS” its subsidiary organization modeled on PPS which will provide technical assistance to communities on a fee basis.

Czech Contact Information

The Partnership for Public Spaces is a program of the Environmental Partnership:

Contacts: Mirek Kundrata or Radka Dlabajova
Environmental Partnership/Nadace Partnerstvi
Panska 9, 602 00 Brno
Czech Republic

E-mail: pship@ecn.gn.apc.org

NEW INITIATIVE IN CROATIA

Last November, 2002, PPS was invited to make a presentation to 70 city officials and citizens in Rijeka, Croatia, and another 40 in the town of Pula about the Project for Public Spaces approach and experience in the Czech Republic. The response was truly positive. Out of that trip, PPS was recently funded by the Urban Institute to conduct a two-day training workshop for a program to improve public spaces for youth in Rijeka and to provide advice on the redevelopment of an historic torpedo factory with the city.

PPS completed a two day training program for mentors who have been working with 10 groups of youth who are each competing to have their project implemented by the city. The photo on the right shows one of the spaces that needs to be improved!

Starting in the fall of 2003, PPS will be working the city of Rijeka to initiate a community visioning process for bring new life to this historic factory, where the torpedo was invented 150 years ago.

As a result of this work, PPS has not only been successful in raising awareness about the importance of citizen participation in developing public spaces, but also has developed new partnerships and built the groundwork for establishing a program on public spaces in Rijeka and the surrounding region.

WATCH FOR A POTENTIAL NEW PROGRAM IN SERBIA & MONTENEGRO

PPS has received strong interest in developing a public spaces program to help with renewal of communities in Serbia. In Novi Sad, potential partners include Green Network of Vojvodina a new NGO that is working regionally to attract community friendly tourism and revitalization of small towns in an agricultural region heavily impacted by pollution and civil strife. The consensus was that the program would ideally fit into this regional effort and provide a needed focal point for improving NGO-local government cooperation.