October 20th, 2011
Could This Edmonton Strip Mall Ever Be a Real Place?
Posted by: Sarah Goodyear
Cynthia Nikitin surveys the dismal state of a Canadian parking lot.
The video below, from Canada’s Edmonton Journal, catches PPS’s Cynthia Nikitin in action, doing a tough critique of an Edmonton strip mall. Don’t miss the part where she asks a somewhat bemused pizza shop owner if he would consider creating an outdoor seating area to replace the benches near his storefront — because, as she so correctly points out, “It’s just hard to eat pizza on your lap.”
More coverage of Cynthia’s Edmonton visit here.
October 6th, 2011
A New Manual for “Living Streets”
Posted by: Sarah Goodyear
So if you were going to start fixing the streets of the United States — making them more safe for human beings, more pleasant, less dominated by speed and fumes and metal — where would you begin to think about it?
American streets don't have to look like this. Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.
What about starting in the city that has come over time to symbolize the worst excesses of American car culture? What about starting in Los Angeles?
Well, today the Department of Health of the County of Los Angeles released a “Model Design Manual for Living Streets,” a resource for cities that want to make their streets into places where people can lead healthy, active lives:
This manual focuses on all users and all modes, seeking to achieve balanced street design that accommodates cars while ensuring that pedestrians, cyclists and transit users can travel safely and comfortably. This manual also incorporates features to make streets lively, beautiful, economically vibrant as well as environmentally sustainable.
We’re pleased to say that two members of the PPS team — Gary Toth, senior director of transportation initiatives, and project manager Pippa Brashear — contributed to the manual, along with a diverse group of people from around the country who care about making our streets more livable.
Problematic streets can be found everywhere in the country, and this manual is by no means just about Los Angeles. It’s is available at no cost to any municipality that wants to use it, and can be adapted to pretty much any situation:
Cities may use this manual in any way that helps them update their current practices, including adopting the entire manual, adopting certain chapters in full or part, modifying or customizing chapters to suit each city’s needs….
Since many municipalities lack the resources to undertake a major revision of their manuals, this model manual offers a template for local jurisdictions to tailor to meet their specific needs. Additionally, to lower the cost-burden to cities, the manual there are recommendations to maximize benefits and minimize costs associated with street design. Vital streets, innovative parking policies, and desirable neighborhoods resulting from living streets can increase revenues for the cities above current levels. Research finds that cities often experience increased economic development after adopting elements of living streets.
Sound good? Start downloading.
Photo: waltarrrr via Flickr.
September 16th, 2011
The Atlantic Interviews Fred Kent
Posted by: Project for Public Spaces
Fred Kent.
There’s a nice interview with PPS president Fred Kent on the Atlantic’s website today, in which he discusses the Placemaking approach, the importance of community input, and what’s wrong with starchitects. Here’s a sample:
Placemaking is profoundly different from the normal design process. We say, ‘When you focus on place, you do everything differently.’ We bring attention to the particular place and its dynamic within the existing community. Then we focus the community’s ideas to build on that dynamic. The result? A plan emerges that is theirs, and which they can improve as it evolves….
Someone said to us after a meeting in Buffalo, “You have to turn everything upside down to get it right-side up.” A few years ago that idea would have been too hard to accept, but today people know what they want and they know what it will take to transform their communities into livable, healthy, sustainable engines for economic change — defined and driven by their special talents. People may not be trained in design, but intuitively they know what they like and what they don’t; where they will spend time and where they won’t. And increasingly they know how to get what they want.
Check out the whole thing here.
August 17th, 2011
Sarah Goodyear
Director of Communications
Email: sgoodyear@pps.org
Twitter @buttermilk1
Sarah Goodyear has worked as an editor and writer for a wide variety of publications, ranging from Rolling Stone to Casco Bay Weekly, an independent newspaper in Portland, Maine. Her freelance journalism has been published in The Village Voice, Ms. magazine, Time Out New York, and Streetsblog, among many other venues. From 2010-2011, she was the inaugural cities editor at Grist.
A native of New York, Sarah joined PPS in 2011 as director of communications.
Sarah has a degree in film theory from the University of California at Berkeley. She is also the author of a novel, View from a Burning Bridge, published by Red Hen Press. She lives in Brooklyn with her family and owns way too many bicycles.
March 1st, 2011
Daniel Latorre
VP, Digital Placemaking
Email: danlatorre@pps.org
Twitter: @danlatorre
In 2010, PPS hired 15 year web veteran Daniel Latorre to build PPS’s capacity for Digital Placemaking as part of PPS’s goal of being the “Town Square of Placemaking.”
Daniel brings PPS rich online experience in human-centered digital media design, online marketing and communications, social media product strategy, and online technology planning, from years with leading firms such as CKS Group, Razorfish, Funny Garbage, McCann-Erikson, Scholastic, and others. In recent years his focus shifted toward using effective design methods and today’s powerful social technology tools for the civic realm in the movements around open commons, open government, and now, open urban planning. Currently Daniel’s focus for improving PPS’s virtual Town Square is on digital engagement for Placemaking— translating PPS’s place audits, survey methods, and place frameworks, into the digital realm, and evolving the organization’s media communications practice in our highly networked era.
Daniel recently created & launched similar civic crowdsourcing projects in his volunteer work with Transportation Alternatives, consulting work at Open Plans/Streetsblog, and his 2+ years at Scholastic creating a social Open Educational Resources (OER) product for K-12 teachers funded by a matching 3 year Hewlett Foundation grant that he conceived and managed.
For the latest from Daniel see his About.me page.
Looking to connect with your local online community to accelerate your place-based community projects? Contact Daniel with any questions or opportunities about Digital Placemaking.
Selected project updates:
A Focus on Place for Downtown Baltimore’s New Master Plan
November 10th, 2010
Andrew Lappin
Associate Executive Assistant
Andrew joined PPS as Associate Executive Assistant in November 2010. He graduated from Tufts University in 2009 with a degree in Political Science.
Previously, Andrew served as Assistant to the Director of Communications at the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC) in Manhattan, where he was first introduced to the fields of urban planning and community building. More recently, he worked as the Economic Development Program Associate at the Union Square Partnership in downtown Manhattan, facilitating the completion of its North End capital project and managing the organization’s online media and content.
Andrew is originally from New York and currently resides in Brooklyn.
Languages
Spanish
Education
Tufts University, Political Science, 2009.
June 23rd, 2010
Norman Mintz
Senior Director, Main Streets and Downtowns
nmintz@pps.org
nmintz@pps.org
One of the Main Street movement’s earliest pioneers, Norman Mintz has consulted on all matters of downtown revitalization providing technical assistance in areas of urban design, retail retention, organization and promotion. He works with communities and organizations of every size to strengthen their capacity to successfully execute and manage the many revitalization challenges they face.
Norman’s career in historic preservation and downtown revitalization began with his direction of the nationally acclaimed Market Street Restoration Program in Corning, NY (1974-81), where he initiated the role and became recognized as America’s first Main Street manager. He is the co-author of the widely acclaimed book, Cities Back From the Edge: New Life for Downtown, which chronicles stories from around the country that illustrate how dozens of Main Street business districts and urban commercial neighborhoods have revitalized their commercial centers using small scale, innovative approaches that encourage new local businesses.
He has worked closely for twenty years with the 34th Street Partnership and Bryant Park Corporation, two large Business Improvement Districts in midtown Manhattan. He lectures widely on the subject of downtown revitalization and has extensive teaching experience, having taught at Columbia University, Cornell University and Rensselear Polytechnic Institute. He currently instructs a course in Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization at Pratt Institute.
Norman formerly worked at PPS from 1982-1989, when he assisted many communities in implementing various revitalization initiatives. He has recently begun a new collaboration with PPS on our in-house training workshops, and will be helping us integrate placemaking with the National Trust for Historic Preservation Main Street program as part of our new partnership. He will also be contributing his practical experience and expertis to various PPS projects.
March 1st, 2010
Fred Kent
President
Fredkent@pps.org
Fredkent@pps.org
Fred Kent is a leading authority on revitalizing city spaces and one of the foremost thinkers in livability, smart growth and the future of the city. As founder and president of Project for Public Spaces, he is known throughout the world as a dynamic speaker and prolific ideas man.
Traveling over 150,000 miles each year, Fred offers technical assistance to communities and has given talks across the U.S. as well as internationally. Each year, he and the PPS staff train 10,000 people in Placemaking techniques.
Audiences Fred has addressed include the Smart Growth Network, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. General Services Administration, American Society of Landscape Architects, American Public Transit Association, U.S Forest Service, the World Bank, New Jersey DOT, New York DOT, Ford Foundation, Caltrans, Connecticut Main Street Center, and the Princes Foundation. He has trained over 1,000 transportation professionals from statewide DOTs, in addition to many thousands of community and neighborhood groups across the country.
Fred studied with Margaret Mead and worked with William H. Whyte on the Street Life Project, assisting in observations and film analysis of corporate plazas, urban streets, parks and other open spaces in New York City. The research resulted in the now classic ‘The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces’, published in 1980, which laid out conclusions based on decades of meticulous observation and documentation of human behavior in the urban environment.
In 1968, Fred founded the Academy for Black and Latin Education (ABLE), a street academy for high school dropouts. He was Program Director for the Mayor’s Council on the Environment in New York City under Mayor John Lindsay. In 1970, and again in 1990, Fred was the coordinator and chairman of New York City’s Earth Day.
He has taken over half a million photographs of public spaces and their users, which have appeared in exhibits, publications and articles.
Education
Columbia University, Bachelor of Arts in Economics
Columbia University, Graduate Program in Urban Geography
Selected Professional Presentations and Lectures
World Design Conference 2010, Panelist, Seoul, Korea, December 2010
Aspirations and Inspirations: Imagining the Buffalo Waterfront, Buffalo, NY, November 2010
Interdisciplinary Design Institute: Design Research Conference, Spokane, WA, October 2010
North Louisiana Travel Conference, Speaker, Shreveport-Bossier, LA, August 2010
Pedestrian Symposium, Speaker, LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, May 2010
Ochsner Hare & Hare 100th anniversary conference, Keynote address, Kansas City, KS, May 2010
Greater East End Forum Lunch,Keynote address, Houston, TX, January 2010
48th ICCA Congress & Exhibition, Keynote address, International Congress and Convention Association, Florence, Italy, November 2009
19th Annual Toronto Planning Gala Dinner, Keynote address, Toronto Planning Alumni, Toronto, Canada, November 2009
Michigan Municipal League Annual Convention, Keynote address, Michigan Municipal League, Kalamazoo, MI, September 2009
“Transforming the Metropolis” Delange Conference, Rice University, Houston, TX, March 2009
Destination Italy: Scenarios, Trends and Strategies to Enhance Italian Tourism, Keynote address, Fondazione Rosselli, Confturismo, Turin, Italy, January 2009
“Future Cities” Keynote address, City of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, November 2008
“National Congress on Public Space” CROW, the Netherlands, November 2008
Gold Coast City Council, Gold Coast, Australia, September 2008
Subtropical Cities Conference, Brisbane, Australia, September 2008
Place Leaders Association Workshop, Melbourne, Australia, September 2008
“Power of Ten” Committee for Perth, Perth, Australia, August 2008
“Placemaking and Tourism” Destination Marketing Association Internations (DMAI) Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, July 2008
“World Cities Summit” National Parks Board, Singapore, June 2008
Uncommon Ground lecture series, NY Parks and Recreation Department, New York, NY, June 2008
“The Quality of Density” Third Congress for Israeli Urbanism, Movement for Israeli Urbanism, Tel-Aviv, Israel, May 2008
“What If We Built Cities Around Place” Keynote address at Mary Donaldson lecture, Saskatchewan Library Association, Regina, SK, Canada, May 2008
The Benwwood Foundation, lecture series, Chattanooga, TN, April 2008
BC Library Association, Richmond, BC, Canada April 2008
“To Be or Not to Be a Great Waterfront” Windy River Institute, Bullhead City, AZ, February 2008
“Sarasota International Design Summit 2007” Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, FL, November 2007
“The Trail Ahead” Waterfront Conference and Trail Ride, Waterfront Regeneration Trust, Toronto, ON, September 2007
“Aspen Ideas Festival” Aspen, CO, July 2007
Mayor’s Roundtable, Oklahoma City, OK, May 2007
“Annual Conference” North Carolina American Society of Landscape Architects, Keynote address, Charlotte, NC, May 2007
Bergen Chamber of Commerce; Nordic Urban Design Conference (NUDA), Keynote address, Bergen, Norway, April 2007
“Catch the Neighborhood Spirit” Regional Neighborhood Network Conference, Keynote address, Bowling Green, KY, October 2006
“Public Spaces, Public Life” Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2006
“The Evolving Planner” 2006 Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association Annual Conference, Keynote address, Meredith, NH, September 2006
“Creating Valuable Cities,” keynote presentation, and closing panel session, Hong Kong, China, May 2006
“The Living City” Conference, Amersfoort, The Netherlands, May 2006
February 1st, 2010
Steve Davies
Senior Vice President
sdavies@pps.org
Steve Davies joined Project for Public Spaces in 1978 and has guided the development of the organization for
more than 30 years. Davies is an advocate for livable communities and his work has taken him around the world as a consultant, facilitator and speaker.
With over 500 major projects on his resume, Steve is widely admired for his expertise in downtown urban design, transportation planning, and design of mixed-use development projects and public markets. Steve has directed projects ranging from downtown master plans in major U.S. cities to design improvements for streetscapes, central squares and transit malls.
Steve has been instrumental in creating and shaping key programs at PPS over his tenure including PPS’ public market program, transportation program and PPS’ work in Eastern Europe. These programs have gone on to train thousands of professionals, support community markets and spur public space improvement projects in cities and towns across the Czech Republic.
An inspiring and accessible speaker, Steve has introduced tens of thousands of professionals to the PPS Placemaking process. Audiences have included transportation agencies, public market advocates, and hundreds of professional and community groups across the country. transportation program and PPS’ work in Eastern Europe. These programs have gone on to train thousands of professionals, support community markets and spur public space improvement projects in cities and towns across the Czech Republic.
Steve has co-authored and written many books and articles, including Public Markets and Community Revitalization, Managing Downtown Public Spaces and The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities.
Education
Williams College, Bachelor of Art in Art and Environmental Studies
University of California, Berkeley, Masters in Architecture
Awards & Honors
John K. Branner Traveling Fellowship in Architecture
Award Winner, National Endowment for the Arts Grant Recognition Program (West 46th Street Project)
Citation, Urban Design Newsletter Awards (Exxon Mini-Park Project)
Certificate of Merit, Municipal Art Society, New York City (Museum Mile Study)
Award Winner, National Endowment for the Arts Grant Recognition Program (Museum Mile Study)
Award Winner, International Downtown Executives Association Award, 1983 (Hartford Downtown Council/PPS Hartford Management program)
Award Winner, Presidential Design Jury, Federal Design Achievement Award, 1984, administered by the National Endowment for the Arts (H.U.D. project on downtown improvements in seven cities)
Publications
“The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities,” Transportation Research Board, 1996
“Public Markets and Community Revitalization,” Urban Land Institute and Project for Public Spaces, Inc., 1995
“The Effects of Environmental Design on the Amount and Type of Bicycling and Walking,” Federal Highway Administration, 1993
“Managing Downtown Public Spaces,” American Planning Association, 1984
“Designing Effective Pedestrian Improvements in Business Districts,” American Planning Association, 1983
“What do People Do Downtown? — How to Look at Mainstreet Activity,” National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1981
January 15th, 2010
Kathy Madden
Senior Vice President
kmadden@pps.org
kmadden@pps.org
Kathy Madden is an environmental designer who has been at PPS since its inception in 1975. During this time, Kathy has been involved in all aspects of the organization’s work. She has directed over 300 research and urban design projects along with training programs throughout the U.S and abroad. She also currently directs PPS’s Placemaking Training and Public Space Research and Publications programs.
Kathy has co-authored and written both books and articles, including the PPS best-selling publication How to Turn a Place Around, which has now been translated into Czech and Japanese. She has lectured extensively and conducts, in conjunction with other PPS staff, PPS’s semi-annual How to Turn a Place Around training program in New York. While at PPS she taught for six years at the Pratt School of Architecture Graduate Program in Urban Design.
In 1995, Kathy started the Urban Parks Institute with a $2.2 million grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund. The Institute brought together over 2,000 parks leaders from both the private and public sectors in eight national conferences and four regional workshops. The Institute produced a volume of research and publications related to urban parks, and created a major online resource center for urban parks best practices and research, Urban Parks Online, which attracts over one million page views annually.
Prior to working at PPS, Kathy worked at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and at the New York City Parks Department where she conducted an evaluation of park equipment and street furniture.
Education
University of Minnesota, Bachelor of Arts in Design, Marketing and Advertising
Parsons School of Design, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Environmental Design
Selected Professional Presentations and Lectures
“How to Turn a Place Around” GEL Conference, New York, NY, April 2009
“World Cities Summit” National Parks Board, Singapore, June 2008
“The Quality of Density” Third Congress for Israeli Urbanism, Movement for Israeli Urbanism, Tel Aviv, Israel, May 2008
Historic Nutley Preservation Committee, Nutley, NJ, March 2008
21st World Congress, International Federation of Parks and Recreation Administration, Dublin, Ireland, September 2007
Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen, CO, July 2007
Urban Design Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 2005
Mid South Planning and Zoning Institute, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, April 2005
Experts In Residence Program, Battle Creek, MI, April 2005
Greenspace Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, February 2005
Scottish Executive Committee, Edinburgh, Scotland, February 2005
Great Parks, Great Cities, London, UK, July, 2004
Iowa ASLA Annual Conference, Des Moines, IA, May, 2004
Guest Speakers Series, South Bend, IN, May 2004
Texas ASLA Annual Conference, Dallas, TX, April 2004
International Congress in Management of Urban Parks, Terrassa, Spain, April 2003
Publications and Articles
“Toward An Architecture Of Place,” Planetizen Interchange, February 2007
“One Day, Two Paris Parks,” Landscape Architecture, February 2006
“Five Ways to a Great Place,” Yes! Magazine, Summer 2005
“Five Parks that Need a Turnaround,” Projects for Public Spaces 2004
“Public Parks, Private Partners,” Project for Public Spaces 2001
“How to Turn a Place Around,” Project for Public Spaces 2001
“Creating Places that Work,” Planning Commissioners Journal, Summer 2001
“Streets vs. Malls: The Modern Dilemma of Urban Public Spaces,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1994.
“A Cry for Community,” Planning Commissioners Journal, Fall 1994
Streetscape: A Guide to the Design and Management of Pedestrian Amenities in Downtowns and Neighborhood Commercial Districts, Project for Public Spaces, Inc., 1987
User Analysis: An Approach to Park Planning and Management, American Society of Landscape Architects, 1983
Film in User Analysis, National Park Service, 1979
January 1st, 2010
Pippa Brashear
Pippa recently joined PPS as a project manager with the streets as places campaign. Pippa is a landscape designer and urban planner whose work strives to integrate design and planning in improving the public realm, specifically making spaces of transportation successful public places. Through her professional work and academic endeavours she has developed a focus on transportation, where design, planning, and public input can come together to create successful places for movement and activity in our communities. Pippa has been working in New York City for three years since receiving her masters in Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has worked with the firm Wallace Roberts and Todd and as a freelance consultant.
Experience
Freelance Designer and Planner. Clients included: Office of the Chief Urban Designer, Department of City Planning, NYC; Stephen Yablon Architects. (2010).
Landscape Designer and Planner with Wallace Roberts & Todd, New York. Projects included: Renovation of the Olmsted Center Landscape, Flushing, Queens; Portsmouth Master Transportation Plan, Portsmouth, VA; Trenton Capital State Park, Trenton, NJ; Liberty State Park Interior, Jersey City, NJ (2007 – 2010).
Research Assistant to Alan Berger, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard GSD, Cambridge, MA. ( 2005 – 2007).
Design Intern with New Yorkers for Parks (www.ny4p.org), New York (Summer 2004).
Education
Master in Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA. (2007).
Master in Urban Planning with distinction, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA. (2007)
B.A. cum laude in Environmental Science and Public Policy, Harvard College, Cambridge, MA. (2001).
August 1st, 2009
Ethan Kent
Vice President
ekent@pps.org
ekent@pps.org
Ethan Kent is an authority in the practice of Placemaking, working to support Placemaking projects and organizations around the world. During 12 years at PPS, Ethan has learned from and photographed public spaces in over 700 cities and 50 countries. Ethan has been integral to the development of Placemaking as a transformative approach to community development, planning and urban design.
Having worked on over 200 PPS projects, Ethan has led a broad spectrum of Placemaking efforts, providing comprehensive public engagement, planning and visioning for many important public spaces. Recent highlights have included Portland Oregon’s Pioneer Courthouse Square, Times Square in New York, Kennedy Plaza in Providence, RI, Garden Place in Hamilton, New Zealand, and Sub Centro Las Condes in Santiago, Chile.
Utilizing lessons learned through his project work, Ethan has created and conducted Placemaking training courses for professionals of various disciplines from city planning staff in Vancouver, BC, to community development corporations in Detroit; from public housing developers in Sweden to traffic engineers in New Jersey. He has also trained hundreds of professionals across Australia and New Zealand, through leading more than 25 training workshops.
In order to begin to institutionalize Placemaking in cities, Ethan has initiated and led local partnerships with agency and advocacy leaders to build capacity on all levels, implement demonstration projects and develop local campaigns for Placemaking. This strategy has been successfully employed in a wide range of cities including Chicago, IL, Indianapolis, IN, San Francisco, CA, Brunswick, ME, Bellingham, WA, Flint, MI, Melbourne, Australia and Mississauga, Canada.
This approach has had the most tangible effect in NYC where, Ethan leads PPS efforts. He co-founded the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign, as an effort to challenge auto-centric transportation policy and inspire a new public vision of streets as dynamic destinations. To launch the campaign, he directed an educational exhibit called Livable Streets: A New Vision for New York, that has appeared at the Municipal Arts Society, the Conde Nast building and the Brooklyn Public Library. Ethan then initiated and helped manage demonstration Placemaking processes with local stakeholders in some of NYC’s most important yet auto-dominated areas including Times Square, 9th Avenue in Hells Kitchen, the Meatpacking District, Myrtle Avenue, Columbus Avenue and Grand Army Plaza. The campaign and its demonstration projects have lead to the creation of bold shift in NYC transportation policy including a Public Plaza Program that is reclaiming street space for dynamic new public spaces throughout the city.
Education
Ethan studied sociology, environmental studies and economics as an undergraduate at Bowdoin College. He explored local development issues in the context of globalization during a year of travel around the world as a participant in the International Honors Program. Ethan did his graduate work at Antioch University Seattle’s Center for Creative Change in Environment and Community. He attributes much of his Placemaking education to the communities he has worked with, and to his father who founded PPS.
Writing and Photography
Ethan’s writing has appeared broadly, being featured in NewStart Magazine, Streetsblog, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Downtown Idea Exchange, Planetizen, and on Prime Time Radio on NPR. His photography from around the world makes up the bulk of the images in PPS publications and appears in a broad range of media.
Presentations
An inspiring and persuasive speaker, Ethan has brought PPS’ Placemaking message to many groups around the world. Ethan has recently given keynote presentations at conferences of:
- Smart Start, Adelaide, Australia
- “Inclusive Spaces for a Sustainable City”, Training Workshop, Ministry of Social DevelopmentPublic Space Recovery Program and UN Habitat, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
- COM:PLOT 2011:
Código:Ciudadano, Guadalajara, Mexico
- Ruas que constroem comunidades, Workshop Inserção do Transporte Sustentável no Morar Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Villes et territoires en mutation, L’Ordre des urbanistes du Québec, Montreal, Canada
- Pavement Politics: Times Square and the Changing Face of New York’s Streets, Urban Design Week, TImes Square Alliance, New York, NY
- NextGen Pre-conference, Congress for New Urbanism, Madison, WI
- America’s Cities: The Burden of the Past, or the Promise of the Future?, NYU Law F0rum, New York, NY
- Retrofiting and Planning Sustainable Suburbs, Toronto, Canada;
- Libraries as Catalysts for Placemaking, Melbourne, Australia;
- What if We Built Sydney’s Waterfront Around Places?, Sydney, Australia;
- Destination Downtown, New Iberia, LA;
- Rural Community Development, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Oneida County, NY;
- Placemaking and Preservation, Annual Meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, DC;
- Urban Land Institute and Kamehameha Schools, Honolulu, HI;
- Spirit and Place Festival, Indianapolis, IN;
- Mayoral Conversations, Hamilton, New Zealand;
- Arlington Street Infrastructure Forum: Envisioning the Future of Arlington’s Streets Y2100, Arlington, VA
- Investing In Our Existing Neighbourhoods, Prince Albert, SK, Canada;
- What if We Built Melbourne Around Places?, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia
- Public Spaces Seminar: Equity and Social Integration, Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and UNDP, Santiago, Chile;
- Sustainability Series, Bismarck, ND;
- International Cities, Town Centers and Communities Society, Auckland, NZ;
- Moving the Economy, Toronto, ON;
- International Forum on Public Spaces and Sustainability, Bogotá, Colombia
- The Sustainable Tourism Planning and Development Laboratory, Providence, RI;
- Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation, Brooklyn, NY;
- NY State Chambers Alliance, Albany, NY
- Strategic Thinking Forum – City Safety Commission, Melbourne, Australia
- Neighborhood Summit, “Great People, Great Places, Great City”, Garland, TX
- Foro Internacional de Parques, Bogotá, Colombia
He also has given presentations at conferences of the Urban Land Institute, Local Initiative Support Corp., Civic Tourism, Placematters, NeighborWorks, CAPACD, Bronx Parks Speak-up, Planners Network, Eco Metropolis, Car Free Cities, NYS Planning Federation and the World Social Forum and to many university audiences including Cornell, Yale, Columbia, Reed, NYU, Bowdoin, New School, Pratt, Hunter, University of Toronto, University of Washington and Harvard.
Board Affiliations
Board Member, Congress for New Urbanism New York Chapter
International Advisory Board Member, 8-80 Cities
Board Member (06-09), Make Music New York