Social Life Project

We’re participating in the International Downtown Association’s Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, March 23rd-28th. Let us know thoughts on who to meet with. Our Ethan Kent hopes to help better connect the international #Placemaking and #PlaceManagement conversations & communities, as well as to support #PlacemakingAfrica, Centre on African Public Spaces, #PlacemakingSouthAfrica among other local networks and organizations.

Let's celebrate #InternationalWomensDay by recognizing their fundamental role in #publicspaces and #placemaking. "Women are at the heart of thriving social places. Their presence indicates that a place is welcoming and comfortable, their activity and social interactions breathe life into it, and their know-how fills places with art, goods, and value. We must therefore create places that women want to be in by?listening to what they need, want, and enjoy." Social Life Project #PublicSpace Where #Women Thrive https://lnkd.in/ej3-mtu4 By Kathy Madden,?Madeley Rodriguez,?Tayana Panova, PhD,?Katherine A. Peinhardt,?Fred Kent

Only together, with open minds and open hearts, can we break the silence, change the status quo, and move into an era of peace and progress. The Sound of Silence - A Soundtrack for Peace and Placemaking Revisiting an inspiring classic in honor of Project for Public Spaces' 50th anniversary https://lnkd.in/eWeutjN9 By Fred Kent, Kathy Madden and Tayana Panova, PhD #PlacemakingForPeacemaking

Celebrating 50 years today since Fred Kent founded Project for Public Spaces! Below is the original prospectus that he shared with William H. Whyte, proposing to put his ideas into practice. What was initially a 3-year “project,” become a rolling set of projects overcoming ongoing obstacles to better public spaces. As it was originally mandated, PPS has always been more of a “catalyst” than an opporating organization. And the 30+ PlacemakingX #placemaking networks/organizations we’ve helped to start are similarly nimble, informal, and proactive. May this document continue to guide our collective work over the next 50 years!

Happy 50th Birthday to Project for Public Spaces! ?Although I didn’t join PPS until three years later, I wanted to share a few quotes from “Project for Public Spaces: A Prospectus (1975)."?Looking back, it amazes me how?Fred Kent, Bob Cook, Don Miles, and the other original visionaries had so much right from the get-go... except for the last quote from the document! (In the photo, you can see comments by Holly Whyte in the margins, including, "Raising expectations--what deliver?" Fifty years later, we can answer that question that we raised expectations AND delivered!) “The quality of urban life is unique…[and] largely defined by the city’s open spaces – its streets, sidewalks, parks, playgrounds, plazas, pedestrian malls and even its building lobbies.” “There is enormous potential for improvement in these public spaces through changes that are not necessarily time-consuming or expensive to implement and are often remarkably simple.?The Project for Public Spaces will work to bring about these changes.” “Cities must respond because well-functioning public spaces are indispensable to the life of cities as we know them.” “Even a cursory examination of the applicative laws reveals the multifarious, sometimes conflicting, sometimes overlapping responsibilities of city agencies for the use, maintenance, design, construction, and planning of city-owned or -controlled public open space, particularly streets and sidewalks….No one voice speaks for the interest of the pedestrian.” “It is all too obvious that transportation planning is done almost exclusively with the object of moving vehicles, often at the expense of pedestrians – through sidewalk narrowing, traffic light timing and so on.” “Our experience has indicated that the design and use of urban public spaces requires a perspective broader than that of the architect or designer.?We believe in an interdisciplinary approach." “Our planned mode of operation will have four major components: programming, evaluation and design, legal and governmental, and education, training and publications.” “From the evaluations, the programming experience, the legal and economic explorations, lawsuits, proposal and the designs and redesigns of public spaces will come a wealth of knowledge about how to further evaluate, interpret, promote, and design public spaces.?Documentation in the form of movies, slide shows, pamphlets, booklets, exhibits and lectures will publicize this Project.” “The Project for Public Spaces will have a lifetime of three years. We have imposed this time limit because…it is a realistic time period in which to accomplish our objectives and a relatively short term period will force us to act as a catalyst rather than as an operating organization, and that will give us needed flexibility.” While much has changed over 50 years, it's good to see that the fundamentals have held up! It turns out we could be a catalyst and an operating organization.

We are celebrating 50 years of Project for Public Spaces and the enduring legacy of Fred Kent, Steve Davies, and Kathy Madden. Every day, we are inspired by the roots of #Placemaking. In my short documentary, The Place Man, I explore the movement's early days. You can watch it as part of the celebration! #PPSturns50

Street Vendors and Public Markets Can Drive the Future of Thriving and Inclusive Cities by Ethan Kent of PlacemakingX #PublicSpaces Need a Full Spectrum of Informal to Formal Retail https://lnkd.in/ehM2Ft7S #StreetVendors #PublicMarkets #MarketCities #StreetsAsPlaces

?? Hundreds of #placemaking leaders from around the world will gather, share, and organize this June 8th-11th in Toronto, Canada. Registration opens today for the 2nd #GlobalPlacemakingSummit! There are limited tickets available at these rates, and early registrants will help to shape the program. The registration link: https://lnkd.in/e4Ju5cAj ??? The Global Placemaking Summit program is a four day participatory event taking place in venues across the city with local partners. After opening the Summit on June 8th, the co-creative portion of the program will include participatory round tables shaping global placemaking agendas on Monday the 9th. Reporting and high-level panels will be live streamed, and recorded, at the World Urban Pavilion?on Tuesday the 10th. The final day of the Summit, June 11th, will focus on learning from, and supporting, #PlacemakingCanada initiatives. The dynamic program and exciting venues will be unveiled over the coming weeks, offering transformative sessions, insightful discussions, and unparalleled networking opportunities. #PublicSpace #Urbanism #Cities

Big impact on my life. Along with Holly Whyte, Margaret Mead, Jane Jacobs, Jan Gehl, Donald Appleyard he was dealing with topics as important today as they were during his long life.

"If we can develop and design streets so that they are wonderful, fulfilling places to be -- community-building places, attractive for all people -- then we will have successfully designed about one-third of the city directly and will have had an immense impact on the rest." #AllanJacobs Allan Jacobs was key mentor of ours since we founded Project for Public Spaces in 1975. 25 years ago we created this profile of his work: https://lnkd.in/eRYxVugj