Placemaking
Basics
William H. Whyte in His Own Words: “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”
When I first got started making NYC bike advocacy and car-free streets videos back in the late-1990s on cable TV, I didn't know who William "Holly" Whyte was or just how much influence his work and research had on New York City. A few years later I met Fred and Ethan Kent at Project for Public Spaces. I got a copy of Whyte's 1980 classic, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, which in its marvelously-written, straightforward style is the one book all burgeoning urbanists should start with.
July 25, 2014
Connecting Detroit Neighborhoods With Better Streets and Public Spaces
Can safer streets and livelier public spaces help knit Detroit back together?
July 16, 2014
A 12-Block Shared Space Neighborhood Rises Along the Potomac
Earlier this month, Streetsblog went on a streak about "shared space" -- the idea that some streets can work better when, instead of using curbs and traffic signals to separate users, pedestrians get priority using subtle but effective visual cues. We interviewed a key shared space messenger, Ben Hamilton-Baillie; we showed off built examples in Pittsburgh and Batavia, Illinois; and we discussed the potential of shared space to transform the narrow streets of New York City's Financial District.
July 14, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: How Does This Podcast Make You Feel?
This week, Jeff Wood and I get indignant about Miami-Dade County's misuse of transit funds for roads, and we speculate about why -- with the current success of pedestrian projects like Times Square -- old-style pedestrian malls are still going belly-up. And then we peek behind the curtain at an exciting new frontier for urban planning: connecting urban form with the feelings they inspire.
February 12, 2014
MIT Study: Benefits of Placemaking Go Deeper Than Better Places
For two Sundays every summer, a three-mile loop between downtown Fargo, North Dakota and nearby Moorhead, Minnesota is transformed. The open streets event StreetsAlive draws between 6,000 and 8,000 people -- on bikes, sneakers and rollerblades -- into the space that is normally occupied by cars.
November 1, 2013