Place Dialogues 2018 by Pratt GCPE

place dialogues

MAKING SENSE OF PLACE Pratt Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s First Full Day Placemaking Symposium

PLACEMAKING CAPSTONES BY Amira Badran Charlie McCabe Chris Riley Karissa Lidstrand Michael Frederick Nur Atiqa Asri

Contents WHY WHY DO WE NEED DO WE NEED AA DIALOGUE DIALOGUEABOUT ABOUT“PLACE”? “PLACE”? MAKING MAKING SENSE SENSEOF OFPLACE PLACE

Pratt PrattInstitute’s Institute’sFirst FirstFull FullDay Placemaking Symposium Day Placemaking Symposium

LEARNING FROM LEARNING FROMLITTLE LITTLEDAMASCUS: DAMASCUS: AACOMMUNITY - LED COMMUNITY - LEDMODEL MODELOF OFPUBLIC PUBLICSPACE SPACE IN INGREATER GREATERCAIRO’S CAIRO’SDESERT DESERTCITIES CITIES Amira AmiraBadran Badran

ASSESSING ASSESSINGPARK PARKCONSERVANCY CONSERVANCYVOLUNTEER PROGRAMS: BEST PRACTICES VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS: BEST PRACTICES Charlie CharlieMcCabe McCabe

DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENTOF OFTRANSFORMATION: TRANSFORMATION: MOBILIZING MOBILIZINGCITIZEN CITIZENINVOLVEMENT INVOLVEMENT IN INSAFER SAFERSTREETS STREETS Chris ChrisRiley Riley

CREATING CREATINGSEATS SEATSAT ATTHE THETABLE: TABLE: AABUSINESS METHODS BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT’S METHODS FOR EVALUATING COMMUNITY NEEDS FOR EVALUATING COMMUNITY NEEDS Karissa KarissaLidstrand Lidstrand

CENTRAL CENTRAL BUSINESS BUSINESSDISTRICT DISTRICTREVITALIZATION: REVITALIZATION: PUBLIC PUBLICSPACE, SPACE,PLACEMAKING, PLACEMAKING, AND AND FUTURE FUTURE CHALLENGES CHALLENGES Michael MichaelFrederick Frederick

MAKING MAKINGSPACE SPACEFOR FORDEMOCRACY: DEMOCRACY: INVESTIGATING INVESTIGATINGTHE THESTATE STATEOF OFDEMOCRACY DEMOCRACYIN IN PUBLIC SPACES IN SINGAPORE PUBLIC SPACES IN SINGAPORE Nur NurAtiqa AtiqaAsri Asri

For this issue collaborated: John Bezemes David Burney Ryan Cagle Nikki Laureola Carlos Rodríguez Estévez

In the Fall semester of 2015, the Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE) began offering a Masters Degree in Urban Placemaking and Management (UPM). Placemaking as a field has a long history that dates back fifty years to the work of William H. Whyte, has been practiced by the organization he started, Project for Public Spaces and many others since. And although placemaking has been an elective for many years in Pratt’s City and Regional Planning program, this is the first academic program (anywhere) completely dedicated to the subject and organized to train professionals in this emerging field.

PL ACE DIALOGUES

UPM provides a distinct view of how responsive, peoplecentered planning, programming and management of Places can serve individual, community and civic needs. It shows that Places are not the left-over space between buildings or the unconsidered space within them, but the first, rather than the last consideration of an environment in service of society. When Professor Stuart Pertz and I developed the curriculum for the UPM program we found that much of the discourse around “place” could not be found in architecture and planning literature, but in the fields of humanistic geography and anthropology. We also noted that there was no widely-read outlet for new thinking and writing that specifically focused on place. Stuart felt that we should start our own publication to satisfy that need. Some three years later we are launching this first issue of PlaceDialogues. Stuart’s family created a foundation in his name that could help support the work he began. We are grateful that funds from that foundation have supported this publication. This issue is dedicated to Stuart. We hope that PlaceDialogues will serve as a journal that supports the UPM program, provides a portal for information on the subject and a vehicle for discussing ongoing work performed by the students, faculty and professionals in the field and other associated fields that deal with issues related to Place. The academic underpinnings of Placemaking stretches across fields of geography, anthropology, sociology, psychology and law - as well as the more obvious fields of planning, urban design, landscape architecture and architecture. It is our intention that PlaceDialogues serves to start conversations across disciplines, about Place.

David Burney

January 2018

This first volume of PlaceDialogues is an edited journal of essay by students, faculty and alumni of Pratt that address the question of Place. We hope it starts a conversation and sets the parameters for what we hope will be a series of publications.

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Prof. Stuart Pertz (1936-2015)

WHY DO WE NEED A DIALOGUE ABOUT “PL ACE”?

“Placemaking” is suddenly in vogue among planners and architects. The terms “Place”, “Placemaking” and “Creative Placemaking” have become commonplace, but elude a generally accepted definition. The idea of “place” as a subject of study is not new (Tuan 1974, Lefebre 1991), but it seems that discussion of place and public space came to the forefront of public debate after the widely publicized confrontations over public space beginning with Tompkins Square Park in New York in the 80s, Tiananmen square in 1989, Tahrir Square and Zucotti Park in 2011, and many more. Meanwhile, at a more quotidian level, communities are taking more direct action to populate, improve, and control their “own” public spaces through movements like Better Block, Guerilla block, Tactical Urbanism, as well as governmental initiatives such as New York City’s plaza program. While a neglected topic in architecture and planning, “Place” has been a topic of interest among geographers and anthropologists for a long time. That dialogue is ably summarized in Tim Cresswell’s book - Place - An Introduction (Cresswell, 2015). But how do we explain this renewed attention on “place” among architects

and urban planners? William Whyte’s study of the social life of urban spaces drew attention to place in the 1980s (Whyte 1980). Jan Gehl, the Danish urbanist turned our attention to the “Life Between Buildings” in the 1970s (Gehl, 1975, 2006). Jane Jacob’s famous battle with Robert Moses in the 19060s argued for the life of the street over traffic engineering in city planning (Jacobs 1965). But it has taken almost all of the subsequent decades for the tide to turn against the dominance of the traffic engineer, and for a new paradigm to emerge, of people-oriented planning and the idea of public space as the beginning rather than an afterthought of urban design. We now see city traffic departments speaking of “shared streets” and “complete streets” in which the life of the pedestrian is given equal, if not more importance than the flow of vehicular traffic in our streets.

to achieve that goal. The first such program in the country, we have had to look beyond traditional planning and urban design teaching to create a new curriculum that addresses the question of “Place”. We need a theory of Place on which to build that curriculum.

At least part of the answer is, I believe, in the pressing need for cities to support the social life of the increasing flow of people to our cities. Dissatisfied with the alienation of the suburbs and its car-dominated lifestyle, the increasing popularity of urban living has much to do with the amenities the city provides; and part of that amenity is the life of the street and the public space in the city. Convenient, accessible, walk-able, people want, as Jeff Speck argues “...communities with street life, the pedestrian culture than can only come from walkablility.” (Speck 2012).

Another issue we may need to resolve in order to develop a theory of placemaking is the question of “community”. Perhaps one of the most commonly used but least defined terms in planning, “community” precedes “placemaking” as the shibboleth of sociallyminded planners. “Community” implies more than simply the people located in a given area, or even an area which contains all or most of the elements of a complete social system such as political, economic, religious, educational scientific, artistic, ideological etc. “Community” also implies social interaction. How far is it desirable that urban neighborhoods be made into “communities”? How far is it practicable? Why is the idea of “community” so popular?

So the debate has turned to how we might best provide that walkability, and create the kind of streets and public spaces that support social life. The Pratt Urban Placemaking and Management program aims to educate a new cohort of planners and place-managers in the best ways

We can perhaps begin with the idea that Place is the physical location of social constructs - it is where social interaction happens, is supported and enabled. There is debate among theorists as to the primacy of place or social constructions - i.e. is “place” necessary for social organization to thrive or is the opposite true, that social organization comes first and that it creates “place” (Cresswell 2015, Dovey 2010). We can skip this chicken v. egg debate by agreeing that place and social organization are “mutually constitutive”- our concern is how to improve that mutual relationship.

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Part of the answer lies in a nostalgic reference to past physical models such as the rural village, the medieval market town or the center of workingclass towns in the past. Despite the reality of the social inequity of these precedents (Williams 1973), the romantic image persists. And in fact despite these inequalities a sense of collective “community of adversity” may well have prevailed (Olmi 1978). The reality is that the idea of a “social system community” in a pre-industrialization sense is now the exception, even in a rudimentary sense. The typical city presents a picture of geographical, political and economic specialization, where community groups frequently set up to participate in local decisions are generally impotent, processing trivia of playgrounds and parking while major decisions are taken outside (MAS 2004?). It may also seem increasingly that social interaction depends less and less on spatial location. The proliferation of social media and the internet has created “virtual” communities that exist across space and that boast enormous memberships (Facebook had 1.3 billion active users in 2014). It might also be argued that mass communication, our increased

mobility, and the globalization of commerce have all served to erode the importance of place in our lives. In fact, the homogenization of “place” that results means that all places become the same - that there is nothing that distinguishes them and they become detached from their local environment. The “Disney-fication” of place; the superhighways that “start everywhere and go nowhere” (Relph 1976). The result is the “non-place” urban realm (Auge 1995). But if society no longer “needs” place, why have we seen phenomenon such as Zucotti Park and the Occupy Movement? Why has every new plaza created by the NYC DoT been immediately filled with citizens? Perhaps the answer is that there is a persistent need for placebased social interaction, and that social interaction as well as political protest cannot be addressed solely by use of social media. As people feel increasingly powerless in the face of globalization and loss of local control, public space is one are that can be immediately appropriated and used to demonstrate, at least symbolically and temporarily, a way to resist and to return to control of their own destiny. Also, in reaction

to the homogenization of place there seems to be a need to model local “place” as a reflection of the culture of the people who use it, to provide physical manifestation of authenticity and collective memory and that this process reinforces the process of social interaction and gives a sense of greater autonomous local control. This modeling cannot be done in the “virtual” world; it requires the tangible, physical elements of architecture, landscape, street furniture, markets, public art and social programs. Whether or not this sense of local control is illusory, as we might conclude from the lack of real change brought about by the Occupy Movement, it is one of the few means we have to change the way we live; to define ourselves rather than be defined. It may be that we can replace the romantic illusion of the rural community with a new urban reality in which “place” supports and defines a local community by reflecting its culture and values and by supporting its social cohesiveness. While the danger of “rejection by partial incorporation” persists because of the limits of local communities to seize control and effect change, “placemaking” seems a good place to start.

The Pratt program seeks to define the process of “placemaking” by setting public space in historical context and by exposing students to the numerous processes by which “place” is defined, created and maintained. The purpose of PlaceDialogues is to provide a forum for discussion of the place paradigm, since currently none seems to exist. We hope that PlaceDialogues will provide exposure to the increasing amount of research and other work done by placemakers and help extend this new paradigm to a wider audience.

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MAKING SENSE OF PL ACE Pratt Institute’s First Full Day Placemaking Symposium Now Available Online

In the summer of 2017, Pratt Institute’s Urban Placemaking and Management program held its first-ever symposium on place theory and the practical work of urban placemaking. “Making Sense of Place: Place Theory and Placemaking in Practice” gathered some of the foremost thinkers and theorists on “place.” Each of the five distinct sessions is now online: “Social Science and Design” by Tim Cresswell “Place Equity” by Dr. Setha Low “Placemaking the Displaced” by Sean Anderson “Place as Multiplicity” by Kim Dovey We’re thrilled to continue to the conversation in this inaugural issue of Place Dialogues. Follow the link below to access the full-length videos.

The first session, “Social Science and Design,” was led by 11-time author, Tim Cresswell. In his presentation, Cresswell delved into the complex history of the illfated Maxwell Street Market, the nation’s largest public market for much of the 20th Century. Through this narrative, Cresswell touches on the memory of place, place segregation and much more. The dialogue is deep dive into place theory. And we should expect no less from this multi-time author. Cresswell is an expert in geographies of mobility and place; he holds a B.A. in geography from University College London in the United Kingdom; an M.S. in geography from the University of WisconsinMadison, a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a second Ph.D. in English – creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. Cresswell describes his field of research under his own term, “critical geosophy.”

Dr. Setha Low presented the second session, “Place Equity.” This insightful presentation grappled with the question, “Which spaces are truly public today and which are not?” A widely published author and Director of the Public Space Research Group at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, Dr. Low is one of the nation’s leading researchers on urban anthropology. Her presentation and the following Q&A moderated by a Senior Vice President at Project for Public Spaces, and adjunct professor at Pratt Institute, Meg Walker is not to be missed. The presentation and discussion excellently explored ways in which placemaking can support underserved communities and how a place-based approach provides a catalyst for holistic solutions to inequity.

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The third session, “Placemaking the Displaced” was presented by the Associate Curator for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Sean Anderson. In his presentation, Anderson asked how placemaking can support the integration of the millions of displaced people into their host communities. Mr. Anderson’s former student, and Urban Placemaking and Management graduate, Saba Jaberolansar, led the Q&A discussion. “Refugee camps,” Anderson states, “once considered temporary settlements, have become sites through which to examine how human rights intersect with the making of cities.”

Kim Dovey, professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne, led the fourth and final session, “Place as Multiplicity.” Dovey’s research is broadly focused on theories of place and practices of power. Book titles by Dovey include Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form, Fluid City: Transforming Melbourne’s Urban Waterfront, and his 2010 publication, Becoming Places, which, through a broad range of case studies, explores place identities in states of becoming. How, as Dovey writes, “closed becomes open, interior becomes landscape, character becomes caricature, illegal becomes legal, hotel becomes brothel, public becomes private – and vice versa in each case.” A spirited session of closing remarks and audience discussion were led by the Director of the Urban Placemaking and Management program at Pratt Institute, David Burney, Tim Cresswell, and Karen A. Franck. The talks grappled with complex issues, both theoretical and urgently practical. When considered as one, the day represents an enormous body of work. These talks demonstrate that placemaking is truly a multidimensional field of study and practice and we hope they will contribute to the progress of placemaking as a critical profession.

Watch the full talks online at talks.pratt.edu/category/ Architecture>GCPE

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INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

LEARNING FROM LIT TLE DAMASCUS: A COMMUNITY - LED MODEL OF PUBLIC SPACE IN GREATER CAIRO’S DESERT CITIES Amira Badran

Cities are rapidly urbanizing around the world. In fact, metropolises are home to 54% of the world’s population, and this number is expected to increase to 66% by 2050 (UN Habitat, 2016). As a result, cities are expanding to accommodate this growing need; however, without a mindful approach to people’s needs in planning these expansions, there will be an inevitable loss in economic, social, ecological, and cultural development within the effected populations. A factor that is almost always overlooked in the planning of developing countries is the role of the public realm. The myriad of benefits that come from developing a sufficient public realm within a city is vital for their livability and sense of belonging. This notion applies more strongly to developing countries, where public spaces are intertwined with the everyday discourse of neighborhoods’ streets and squares. Many factors affect how the public realm is perceived and used – not only the planning and design of buildings, but also the economic, social, and contextual stimuli that pertain to the livability of the public spaces. The research draws on an exploratory study undertaken in the public spaces within the city of Sixth of October as a case study. The first part of the research investigates the different planning patterns in the Greater Cairo Region (GCR) and analyzes the shift from the Nile Delta to Cairo’s deserts, ending with an analysis of Sixth of October’s city planning context. The second part of the research examines the public discourse in the GCR with emphasis on the street and informal practices therein.

The third part of the research focuses on the commercial center of Sixth of October City as an area of study where a community-led public space model can be analyzed; a mix of qualitative and quantitative data are used, based on the 3-tier Place Criteria Toolbox referenced in the table below. In-depth interviews were conducted with residents and visitors in the space, including members of the Syrian community and the experts in the fields of planning, design, and management

of public spaces. The fieldwork strategy uses a qualitative approach and relies on news and media outlets to track historical evidence and complement the analysis. Census and demographic statistics provided by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) and Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Development (MHUUD) are also used in the analysis.

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CONTEXT Egypt’s capital, Cairo, has always been known for its clash of cultures and varied rulings, and these tensions are unsurprisingly reflected in its streets and overall town plans. The political climate in the past couple of years since the 25th of January Revolution has certainly affected Egypt’s public realm and served as a turning point when Egyptians turned to the streets into a place of revolution. The public space and its perception has transformed dramatically since then, and to this day, six years later, it is still adapting in many ways to reflect the general social, political, and economic atmosphere. At the same time, planning for cities in Egypt is turning into a very technical process that is largely driven by quantity rather than quality. In a city like the Greater Cairo Region, with a population nearing 100 million and growing at an unprecedented rate, there seems to be a tendency for the current government to want to develop further out of the Nile valley and into the desert (CAPMAS, 2017). However, planned agglomerations outside of the Nile valley must be very well thoughtful to include not only the building of houses and highways, but also a thorough consideration of proposed means of living, including services, mobility, and public space – all of which are likely to be afterthoughts in the planning of new communities around Cairo.

Greater Cairo’s Desert City Development by Population

STUDY AREA AND OBJECTIVE .8 m iles) K m (19 32 C o wntown airo D to

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Time is a huge factor in studying the development of new cities. Sixth of October City, one of the first generation of towns developed in the desert 30 years ago, had witnessed a very slow rate of growth (2% annually) until a recent spike in annual growth rates to 12%, with an estimated current population of 1.5 to 2 million (MHUUD, 2017). With populations now moving into the new agglomerations, inhabitants of those space will start to shape and personalize it, building their communities and increasing the sense of belonging within their neighborhoods. An analysis of how time, context, and socio-economic factors affect the public realm in Cairo’s new towns is integral to identifying the criteria needed to plan new cities responsibly – a type of analysis that has not yet been studied within the context of Egypt. Thus, this research will present a new lens for shedding light on the conditions of public space in new urban communities with reference to the planning of Cairo’s center and its public realm. The study thoroughly analyzes a community-led placemaking model in Sixth of October’s core, the Al Hossary area, and develops a framework for place-led development in the new towns. The New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA), a government agency under MHUUD, which oversees the municipality’s (OCA) planning and maintenance of new towns, could benefit from an analysis that looks at the public space conditions in new towns post-settlement. This research provides a better framework for including context and community in the design and management of GCR new towns’ public spaces, which will lead to a more humancentered, accessible, and inclusive approach to development on a nationwide scale. The study will also be useful at a local level, teaching communities the importance of sustaining the spaces between their buildings, making them more accommodating and livable.

6th of October City Facts and Figures

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THE CASE STUDY – LITTLE DAMASCUS IN EGYPT Location Located on the central commercial spine of Sixth of October, known as Al Mehwar Al Markazi Street, Al Hossary square is a landmark situated in what is informally referred to as Sixth of October’s downtown. The district is one of few zoned for mixed land use, where retail and services occupy ground level and sometimes first and second levels, while offices and residential units occupy the rest. Beside the mosque, there also resides a religious and cultural complex, including a public library.

As shown in the diagram below, a commercial complex with street level retail services is located opposite Al Hossary square, with a pedestrian street entrance (Gad walkway) leading to the main Syrian passageway of Little Damascus, reflecting its vibrancy with Egyptian and Syrian vendors on either side. Al-Amerikiya complex is a market center with ground, first, and second floor retail. For the purpose of this study, I observed and analyzed the public space within this block as highlighted in the figure above with a focus on the Syrian

passageway between two of Al-Amerikiya’s buildings that has been transformed into a community space. On Saturday, March 25 and Tuesday, April 4 of 2017, observational analysis was recorded in Little Damascus during both day and evening hours, along with around 150 surveys collected on site in addition to those taken off site. Spatial mapping and quality assessments were also collected. The multiple methodologies emphasizes the 3 tiers of place (equity, livability, and governance) through the observations and questions highlighted in the criteria toolbox set up.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS The study and analysis of Little Damascus based on the 3-tier place criteria has led to the following conclusions: Little Damascus achieves equity on a socioeconomic level, including inclusiveness and access through high ownership, involvement, and the presence of the Syrian immigrant community. However, it has fallen short in investment in public infrastructure quality, especially where there is no private or semi-public property, and sidewalks are completely neglected by the city. Little Damascus increases livability through the manifestation of human needs and activities reflected in the physical characteristics of the place, where the place’s vibrancy is shaped by and large by its community. Little Damascus enhances a sense of ownership through community-led governance, however, shop owners and other stakeholders lead the management and maintenance without any city partnership model, which poses a threat to the space in its potential commodification, as well as city removal of these unofficial practices at any point in time. Little Damascus mostly serves as a reminiscent home for many Syrian immigrants and a local center of Cairo traditions for many Egyptians living in the new cities. In that sense, the space is no longer just a ‘space between the buildings’ but it has become a ‘place of meaning,’ serving its purpose of being shaped by and for its community. A regulatory framework is integral to ensure that the place is not threatened by eradication nor turned into a commodity by the city. Through a citywide public space strategy of communityled systems building on existing assets and livelihood, Little Damascus will be better managed and maintained, and it will have ensured continued access and service for its community members.

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PROPOSED MODEL FOR PLACEMAKING IN CAIRO There are multiple underlying benefits to community placemaking efforts; not only do they nurture community identity, but they also help make entire neighborhoods safer and more attractive. Placemaking is not a novel exercise in Greater Cairo. In fact, it has been taking place long before placemaking was defined and is an established factor in the culture of public streets and spaces. Embracing placemaking efforts in new towns and facilitating their creation could attract more residents to the desert cities and help them shape their themselves. Placemaking is not necessarily about making spaces, but about the process of enabling, embracing, and managing those places, making them more livable and able to better serve their communities. Accordingly, based on the 3-tier place analysis set up, the placemaking strategy illustrated below touches on the multiple dimensions through which placemaking can be incrementally applied to GCRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desert cities.

CONCLUSION The key success of Little Damascus is the manifestation of the community’s culture into its urban fabric. Communities add value to the space between buildings through the display of their own rhetoric and vibrancy. A large part of placemaking in Greater Cairo and other developing contexts is the factor of place-enabling – allowing communities to design and maintain their own places, stimulating the benefits associated with community leadership in urban spaces. The process of community-led placemaking demands a paradigm shift in the perceptions of informal practices by looking at those features as cultural assets and drivers of economic and social prosperity in an area. In that sense, the public space becomes not only a space of free access, but also a platform for community-building and displaying attractive assets, contrary to privatized spaces. If this notion is applied in GCR’s desert cities, a shift in value perception may occur, and the government may be selling the idea of a community and a richly embedded culture, helping to regulate and structure its governance to be communityled, increasing the presence of

local governments in the public realm. Little Damascus proves that neighborhoods in GCR’s desert cities could flourish and develop as engines for economic and social efficiency for their communities. While new towns were initially built with the intention of distancing people and neighborhoods, a microscale approach to connecting those neighborhoods and communities could turn the common spaces around internally, branching out to cover the whole city. The approach of place-led development will not only connect the spaces between buildings and lead to more socially-knit communities, but it will also build a governance strategy based on an ideology of community-based planning and local space development. A strategy that includes the three tiers of place-led development would have a direct impact on desert city communities. In addition, it will create tangible incentives for people to move in from around the Nile Delta. As a result, the government can reach its target of attracting residents to the desert on the basis of providing equitable, livable, and locally developed models of GCR’s connected city extensions.

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ASSESSING PARK CONSERVANCY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS: BEST PRACTICES Charlie McCabe

Since Central Park first opened in New York City, just before the Civil War, Americans living in urban environments have flocked to parks to escape the increasingly crowded conditions of their city and their neighborhood. They have come to parks to enjoy leisure time, entertainment, food and drink and, beginning in the latter half of the 19th Century and increasingly in the 20th century, exercise.1 Our friends and family congregate and spend hours enjoying everything from gardens to waterways, hiking and biking, and even indoor spaces for visual arts and performances. Americans’ history of developing and maintaining our public parks has also followed a specific path, much like we do on a bike ride, a run or a walk through a park. We have had periods of tremendous investment in public parks, often spurred by a charismatic individual, followed by heavy usage, along with a struggle to keep the park and its facilities in working order, followed by a period of decline. At times, we use a national crisis, such as the great depression in the 1930s, to spur fresh investment and renewal, followed by a subsequent decline that mirrors challenges to our cities and our regional and national economic well-being. 2 In the late 1970s, a different way of thinking emerged in the consciousness of many residents of our cities, born of necessity when many cities were facing financial insolvency. The residents organized into groups and began demanding increased investment in park spaces while also forming safety patrols, picking up litter, and painting out graffiti. The reasons were many and varied, including issues of safety, the need for respite from the even more crowded urban world, the desire to “make a difference” (following the first Earth Day in 1970), and knowing that without

citizen intervention—challenging and working with our government agencies—conditions would not improve in our once great parks. The best-known early efforts took place in New York City, with the rise of the Central Park Conservancy and the Prospect Park Alliance, organized around two of the Olmsted and Vaux masterpieces of 19th Century park design—Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. These two grassroots organizations were just the first of many to emerge. Beginning in the late 1970s, dozens of “friends of the park” groups quickly grew to hundreds, some becoming even more formalized organizations called park conservancies and most, if not all, operating as non-profit organizations. The progression and sequence of all volunteers to formalized non-profits varied widely from park to park and from city to city, depending on a host of factors, ranging from fundraising capacity to the relationship with city government. Many lessons were learned and while the park conservancy movement is still small relative to the size and budgets of city parks agencies – in terms of funding and capabilities, conservancies and park friends’ groups are increasing in both numbers and capabilities rapidly. The role and importance of volunteers working in parks alongside park agency staff was and is a key part of the role of park conservancies. This growth in volunteerism continued over the next several decades, growing and contracting along with good and bad economic times. Park conservancies and friends groups continued to form and grow and tackle more and more projects, helping depleted city parks departments manage parks growing more popular by the day. At the same time,

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the efficacy of these groups was significantly increased by the rise of volunteerism in parks. This surge in volunteerism was and still is part of an overall trend, with tremendous growth in volunteering in the United States in the last two decades. Per the Corporation for National and Community Service, about 62.6 million Americans – over 25 percent of the adult population - gave 7.8 billion hours of volunteer service worth $184 billion in 2015.3 By comparison, the nine parks conservancies interviewed and researched for this paper saw 19,119 volunteers contribute 68,719 hours’ worth $1.75 million in 2016. 4 While citizen volunteers are well understood as a strategic resource in general, understanding a specific set of roles that volunteers can fill in parks can be more challenging. Often volunteers will need to work with a myriad of people, including unionized government staff, non-profit park conservancy staff, private sector design and construction staff, and a wide variety of funders. Some volunteer programs have mastered these challenges, though. The National Park Service Volunteers-in-Parks program

saw, in 2013, over 257,000 volunteers contributing more than 6.7 million hours, equal to an additional 3,221 additional full-time staff.5 Further, a growing number of parks friends’ groups, as well as the larger park conservancies, are demonstrating how to integrate volunteers as a strategic resource. Many have successfully shown how volunteers can be an integral part of ongoing operations and maintenance activities as well as programming efforts. The critical role of volunteers – and more importantly how to organize, manage and nurture these programs – isn’t limited to parks organizations, but across non-profit organizations. Before looking specifically at a selection of parks nonprofits, I first researched the literature and studies of how the best non-profit volunteer programs work. The good news is that there has been a good amount of research and study for volunteer programs at non-profits.6 As a result, the five myths of volunteering have been posed and debunked, resulting in a growing (but not fully understood) set of practices.

The five myths are:

1. Volunteers are free. 2. You can’t invest in voluntary efforts. 3. Volunteers want only what you want. 4. Meeting volunteers halfway is a recipe for trouble.

5. Volunteer “work” is best defined as that which staff wants no part of.

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Each of these five myths have been thoroughly debunked, largely by researchers pointing to the importance of volunteers – beginning with boards of directors – at the heart of each non-profit. The research shows that there are a number of best practices, that require the commitment and support of the Executive Director, Board of Directors and all the staff of the organization. The key role is a dedicated volunteer manager on staff that works across the entire organization, they bring together staff and volunteers to work together on an ongoing and engaged basis. For the purposes of the study in researching best practices for volunteer programs run by nonprofit parks groups, a variety of organizations in terms of size,

budget, and years of experience were selected. The organizations were contacted beginning in late spring to pitch the request and to confirm that participation and accompanying data could be obtained. The cities of the targeted parks organizations are Austin, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; Brooklyn, New York; and Houston, Texas. Thus, the parks and park conservancies represent two cities in the Northeastern United States and two cities in the Southern (specifically Texas) portion of the United States. All four cities are in the top 25 largestcity category7 and in top 50 Metropolitan Service Areas (MSAs) in the United States.8 First, some perspective on the role of non-profit park organizations. The park

conservancies movement is growing rapidly, with just under half of the 41 most prominent conservancies in the U.S. coming into existence since the year 2000. The combined spending on operations and capital construction by these 41 conservancies totaled $158.9 million in 2012. However, this is small compared to the annual budgets for all city parks across the U.S. Compare the conservancies’ $158.9 million to the $6.2 billion spent by public parks-and-recreation agencies in the 100 biggest cities in 2012.9 As a result, the effect of volunteer programs run solely by parks friends’ groups and park conservancies appears to be small compared to the larger (and still largely undocumented) volunteer programs that many

parks agencies run in concert with friends’ groups on an annual basis. Park conservancies have an advantage, however, in that many have been organized by volunteers originally and have at their core a strong volunteer component. A strong education and volunteer component is often embedded in their mission and in fact was a part of all the organizations that were interviewed. For context, the volunteer program totals for our eight parks conservancies in 2012,10 which is the earliest year for collected data: a total of 12,250 volunteers contributed 49,755 hours of service worth $1.6 million.11

1. The non-profit CEO is strongly committed

Based on research of practices of non-profit organizations as whole as well as specific research and interviews with key staff, we built our volunteer best practices list for park conservancies the eight best practices of non-profit volunteer programs.12 The twelve best practices shared by most or all park conservancies and parks friends’ groups are:

5. Volunteer programs are not free. 6. Volunteer programs require

to the volunteer engagement program.

2. There must be a volunteer

manager position on staff.

3. Volunteer manager (portion of job

or full-time) reports at senior staff level and needs senior staff (and board of directors’) support.

4. Volunteering is a priority and is integrated with the rest of the organization.

clear expectations for staff working with volunteers.

7. Volunteers should be involved

“extensively and creatively at all levels of the organization.”

8. It’s in the details on how successful volunteer programs work.

9. Education is a key component. 10. Tracking and Metrics are critical. 11. Innovation in communication and engagement is essential.

12. Innovation in fundraising needs to be

integrated with the volunteer program.

Each of these best practices is covered in detail in the full thesis in Chapter 4 (pp 51-72) with many examples gleaned from interviews with key staff of each of the nine park conservancies, building on capsule histories of each of the conservancies in Chapter 3.

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Best Practices

Austin Parks Foundation

Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy

Emeral Necklace Conservancy

Fort Greene Park Conservancy

Herman Park Conservancy

Pease Park Conservancy

Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy

The Trail Foundation

Violet Crown Trail (Hill Country Conservancy)

CEO Support

YES

Staff Position

YES

YES (Combo)

YES

YES (Combo)

YES

YES (Combo)

Senior Staff

NO (but integrated)

YES

NO (but integrated)

YES

Priority

YES

Not Free

YES

YES (No dedicated budget yet)

YES

Staff Expectations

YES

At all levels of the organization

YES

MORE THAN NOT

YES

MORE THAN NOT

ItÂ´s in the details

YES

Education

YES

Metrics

YES (Givepulse)

YES (Volgistic)

YES (Manual)

YES (Combo, Givepulse)

YES (Volgistic)

YES (Manual)

Communication

YES (Givepulse)

YES (Combo)

YES (Email)

YES (Combo)

YES (Email)

Fundraising linked

YES

NOT YET

COMBO

NOT YET

YES

NOT YET

FIGURE 1: Best practices implemented by organization.

Year

Number of Volunteers

Hours Worked

Value

2012

12,250

44,668

$1,044,172

2013

16,836

49,767

$1,204,861

2014

15,426

53,688

$1,342,230

2015

16,098

59,461

$1,556,518

2016

18,727

67,541

$1,750,588

Totals

79,337

275,125

$6,898,371

FIGURE 2: Combined value of 9 volunteer programs.

Two charts best summarize the 12 best practices for park volunteers and the benefits for parks, the conservancies, the volunteers and the staff. The first, in Figure 1, compares the nine park conservancies in terms of all twelve best practices, based on interviews, research and data obtained. This is valid of as of this writing but will change, as each of these organizations continues to grow, change, adjust and modify their efforts. All nine organizations remain strongly committed to volunteering in parks. The second, Figure 2, shows the number of volunteers, hours worked and value (per Independent Sector) of all nine volunteer programs over the past five years. The totals are 79,337 volunteers contributing 275,125 hours’ worth $6.89 million, underscoring the important of metrics in volunteer programs. Future studies of park volunteers and volunteer programs will no doubt expand the knowledge gained in this research as park conservancies volunteer programs continue to grow and change. The park conservancy movement continues to grow and prosper in the United States and is a collaboration with the many parks agencies as thousands of volunteers that make our public parks better. These best practices are the key to success with volunteers in parks and park conservancies.

Sources 1 Garvin, Alexander. Public Parks: the key to livable communities. (New York: WW Norton and Company, 2011.) 35. 2

Garvin. Public Parks: 156.

3 Corporation for National and Community Service, http://www.nationalservice.gov/vcla 4 McCabe, Charlie, personal communication and research – September-November 2016 5 Dahl, Bernie and Molnar, Donald J. Anatomy of a park: essentials of recreation area planning and design. (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 2003) 166. 6 Rehnborg, Sarah Jane et al. Strategic Volunteer Engagement: A Guide for Nonprofit and Public Sector Leaders, 5. 7 100 Largest cities by population - https://ballotpedia.org/Largest_cities_ in_the_United_States_by_population 8 United States Census Bureau: Metropolitan Statistical Areas. https://wwwww.census.gov /programs-surveys/susb/technicaldocumentation/data-user-resources/ metropolitan-statistical-area.html 9 Harnik, Peter and Martin, Abby. Public Spaces / Private Money. 9. https://www.tpl. org/public-spacesprivate-money, 2015 10 The Fort Greene Park Conservancy and Violet Crown Trail (Hill Country Conservancy were not actively counting volunteers, instead working through the parks departments and other partners, so these figures represent only seven of the organizations. 11 Park Conservancy data collection, SeptemberNovember 2016, collected by the author. 12 Rehnborg, Sarah Jane et al. Strategic Volunteer Engagement, 15-19.

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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSFORMATION: MOBILIZING CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT IN SAFER STREETS Chris Riley

The streets of American cities have seen major changes in recent years, with new infrastructure drawing out growing numbers of pedestrians and bicyclists. However, cars remain markedly dominant, and safety campaigns have thus far fallen short of ending traffic deaths. Even in the cities that have made the most progress in infrastructure improvements, a serious gap has become apparent. The bicycle- and pedestrianfriendly places these cities aspire to be do not match their current, deadly reality. To help bridge that gap, activists in several cities have been taking infrastructure improvements into their own hands. There have been many instances of guerrilla movements toward increased street safety in the past, but these more recent efforts represent a new, distinct model that utilizes social media to support ongoing, anonymous campaigns aimed at transforming street conditions. This paper examines whether these recent efforts suggest a viable, scalable model for accelerating movement toward safer streets through citizen involvement. In exploring that question, the paper also considers the conditions that appear to support this model and the challenges that cities may face in responding to these guerilla efforts.

REVIEWING THE LITERATURE For at least the past century, America’s streets have been contested spaces, with different types of users competing for the ability to use these public spaces safely. Many writers have documented various aspects of this tension – from the historic dominance of cars to the more recent rise of bicyclists. Other writers have examined the concept as a form of selfhelp, viewing the undertaking of civic improvements at a small scale – with or without official approval – as a way of demonstrating or achieving advances in street management. Hou (2010)

collects examples of insurgent public space, in which individuals or communities defy conventional rules and stake their own claims on the public realm. Lydon and Garcia (2015) describe a related type of intervention known as tactical urbanism, which involves short-term, low-cost, and scalable projects done in an experimental, iterative manner as a method of furthering longer-term, larger-scale goals. Tactical urbanism is often undertaken by local governments or developers. In that respect, it differs from insurgent urbanism, also

known as “DIY urbanism,” which by definition is undertaken outside official channels. The recent activism examined in this paper overlaps the ideas of insurgent and tactical urbanism, shown in the diagram below; it involves actions by citizens undertaken on a short-term basis to demonstrate the possibility of larger-scale change. A number of other writers have further examined how advances in technology are changing the ways that citizens connect and organize, and how governments can adapt to this new civic

INSURGENT URBANISM, a/k/a DIY URBANISM

TACTICAL URBANISM Short-term, low-cost, ACTIONS Private individuals or scalable interventions done BY CITIZENS organizations asserting claims on public space EXCERCISING THEIR in an experimental, iterative manner in pursuit of RIGHT TO THE CITY

longer-term, large-scale goals

Permanent Improvements bypassing conventional Short-term uses processes to demonstrate the w/o larger-scale goals possibility of change

Projects by government or developers

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environment. In particular, the widespread embrace of social media is enabling groups of like-minded individuals to connect, assemble, and act – with virtually no organizational costs. Peerto-peer communications can now be used to address a wide variety of social problems. Some have argued that the emergence of this networking activity calls for a rethinking of our governmental bureaucracy in order to enable it to better integrate groundlevel, citizen-led efforts.

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSFORMATION A new demonstration of the potential for grassroots, networked activity turned up on Chrystie Street in Lower Manhattan one early October morning in 2015. For those traveling on bikes between Brooklyn and Manhattan, Chrystie Street provides a critical connection to and from the Manhattan Bridge, but in 2015, it had only a standard, painted bike lane, which was often blocked by cars, taxis, and trucks. That morning, things changed. The left edge of the bike lane was lined with orange cones, some of which

were topped by sunflowers. The cones kept motor vehicles out the bike lane, allowing bicyclists to finally enjoy a pleasant, unobstructed ride. That same morning, a message appeared on Twitter with a photo of the cones protecting the bike lane. The tweet, as shown in Figure 2, simply read, “Work in progress, Chrystie Street. #bikenyc #demandmore.” Several tweets followed with pictures and before-and-after views. The tweets were from a previously unknown source: “Transformation Dept., @NYC_ DOTr,” whose Twitter bio did not identify themselves as any individual or organization, but it did state an intriguing idea: Transforming New York’s streets can happen in an instant. All it takes are a few traffic cones...and flowers. (Not affiliated with NYC DOT or any city agency.) The cones placed on Chrystie Street immediately drew the attention of cyclists, bloggers, and mass media. Anonymous representatives of the “Transformation Dept.” explained the rationale, saying that the city was not moving fast enough to make Chrystie

Street safe for cyclists. The cycling community cheered the improvements; some with no prior connection to the Twitter account pitched in to keep the cones in place and replacing them after they had been removed. Two weeks later, a similar installation appeared in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. It was also touted on Twitter, and cyclists again cheered and supported the improvements. Shortly afterward, the Transformation Department put out its first call for donations. Using the crowdfunding website gofundme.com, they reached their initial fundraising goal of $1,000 in less than 24 hours. By the next week, their total was over $2,500. The organization went on to implement and maintain at least seven additional installations over the next year. Four of these were similar to the first two, with orange cones protecting problematic painted bike lanes. Two others involved new signage, and a third utilized reflectors and flower pots intended to impose a “slow zone.”

THE IDEA SPREADS A few weeks after the orange cones first started appearing in New York, a group calling itself PDX Transformation emerged in Portland, Oregon. The new group tweeted a picture of the Transformation Department’s installation in Prospect Heights and asked Portland bike riders where they would like to see a similar installation (Figure 3). PDX Transformation went on to place at least seven orange cone installations along painted bike lanes within that year. The group also placed signs in numerous locations around Portland that resembled speed limit signs, but read “Speed 20 is Plenty.” They also installed several crosswalks using duct tape that was later upgraded to white paint after the tape was removed by the city of Portland. PDX Transformation used the same model as the Transformation Department in New York, connecting with supporters through Twitter, generating funds through an online crowdfunding tool, and even relying on the same company to produce their guerilla signage. Another active “Department of Transformation” appeared in the summer of 2016 in San Francisco, emerging in response to the death of two cyclists on June 22, 2016. For its first installation, SF Transformation placed orange cones along a stretch of Golden Gate Avenue. In response, the city left the cones in place and even added two flexible posts. In the following months, SF Transformation went on to place orange cones along bike lanes in at least six other locations. In one of those locations, SF Transformation achieved a major victory after replacing its trademark orange cones with flexible posts, prompting the city to announce its intention to replace the temporary posts with permanent ones.

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EVALUATING THE RESULTS Like its counterparts in New York and Portland, SF Transformation relied on crowdfunding for financial support and used Twitter to cultivate a corps of volunteers to help with its efforts. The group also published its own blog and website offering an interactive map of installations, guidance for volunteers, and an opportunity to sign up for email updates. This model caught on in other cities, as well. Within a year after the flower-topped cones first appeared on Chrystie Street, the Transformation Department emerged in at least four other U.S. cities: Boston, Jersey City, San Antonio, and Seattle. A similar group turned up in Oakland, under the name “FTFYOakland” (referring to “fixed that for you”). All are anonymous organizations devoted to guerrilla urbanism, specifically, citizen-led actions aimed at improving streets. All publicize their efforts through social media, specifically Twitter. The most active groups, though, remained those in New York, Portland, and San Francisco. Notably, all three of these are known as bike-friendly cities, and all three have seen rapid increases in bike infrastructure and numbers of bicyclists in recent years. A large and growing community of bike riders, supported by strong infrastructure, appears to be a prerequisite for the emergence of significant group efforts aimed at guerrilla street improvements. The presence of a strong culture of activism is also important.

Even with a shared organizational model, the outcomes of the activism in New York, Portland, and San Francisco were quite different from one city to the next. The achievement of positive, lasting results depended in large part on the reactions of city officials. Installations in Portland tended to be shorterlived than those in the other cities. One reason was the choice of locations. PDX Transformation often placed cones along curves, where they were soon run over by cars. Another reason was the city’s response. From the beginning, Portland officials were relatively resistant to attempted improvements. The city promptly removed any DIY crosswalks and even sandblasted a DIY stop line for no apparent reason other than that it was not officially approved. The city did replace a guerrilla crosswalk with an official one at one location, where there had been a strong community reaction to a pedestrian death, but the city was otherwise unreceptive to the group’s guerrilla improvements. Officials in New York were generally more receptive. Several of the most prominent installations by the Transformation Department remained in place for weeks. Others did not last as long, but even then the city demonstrated some willingness to consider the spirit behind the efforts. On Chrystie Street, the city completed construction of a protected, two-way bike lane to address the longstanding problem of cars obstructing the existing painted lane. In addition, in two locations where the Transformation Department had installed DIY signage, the city soon replaced the signs with official ones intended to serve the same purposes.

Officials in San Francisco have also been fairly responsive to street improvement efforts. When SF Transformation placed orange cones along Golden Gate Avenue, officials left them in place, adding two safety posts. Other installations of cones remained in place for months. The city did remove some safety post installations, most often when the posts were placed on single white lines. However, posts installed on JFK Avenue in Golden Gate Park were allowed to remain in place. In addition, the city responded to pressure for improvements by installing posts in two other locations targeted by SF Transformation. The longer-term value of these efforts remains to be seen. Each organization appears to have succeeded at cultivating a base of support in the form of a network of citizens interested in their work, many of whom are evidently willing to contribute time, energy, funds, and knowledge to the cause of safer streets. Additional recent activity in these and other cities indicates that the trend of guerrilla street improvements may be gaining traction.

with new ways of working together. The private sector has previously stepped in to help with funding and management of other public spaces, particularly parks, but streets may be the next arena in which the public and private sectors can explore innovative ways to work cooperatively. With the help of social media and crowdfunding, New York’s Transformation Department, Portland’s PDX Transformation, and San Francisco’s SF Transformation have begun to demonstrate the potential strength of the private sector’s contribution to safer streets. With further advances in infrastructure, the number of participants and supporters seems likely to keep growing. If governments are willing to embrace efforts like these as opportunities rather than threats, large networks in the private sector able to offer time, energy, resources, and ground-level knowledge of street conditions could be tapped to help improve and maintain key facilities. The potential benefits for our streets – and our communities – are virtually limitless.

For both activists and city officials, these cases suggest that there may be significant value in experimenting

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CREATING SEATS AT THE TABLE: A BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT’S METHODS FOR EVALUATING COMMUNIT Y NEEDS Karissa Lidstrand

Today, there are 74 business improvement districts (BIDs) throughout New York City. The SoHo Broadway Initiative is the only one governed by a board whose members are drawn equally from local businesses and residents. This business improvement district provides a case study into how a BID can identify and address its community’s needs, as well as whether those needs are being identified in a way that supports the whole community and how BIDs can effectively measure what their communities want. Creating Seats at the Table: A Business Improvement District’s Methods for Evaluating Community Needs seeks to answer these questions by identifying who the SoHo Broadway community is, how their needs are being articulated, what services the SoHo Broadway Initiative provides, and what gaps may be present there. The goal of the paper is to provide an analysis of how the SoHo Broadway Initiative evaluates the needs of its business and residential communities and recommendations for how this process could create a more inclusive and effective structure for evaluating any community’s needs. There is particular value in figuring out if a BID is identifying these needs in a holistic way, as all community voices have power and deserve to be heard. Other business improvement districts can look to this analysis for ideas on how to better serve their own communities as these services become more focused around public space and quality of life concerns.

DISTRICT CONTEXT

te S La fay et

Ho ust on S

Similar to other neighborhoods in New York City, SoHo was once a manufacturing district, and while that zoning designation still applies there, a variety of uses occupy its buildings today. The upper floors of many buildings include offices, residential (both market rate and AIR), and commercial uses, while the majority of ground floor establishments have become retail with a handful of food services. The retail stores are not brick and mortar businesses, but rather national and international chain stores such as Bloomingdales, Banana Republic, Uniqlo, and Zara.

FINDINGS Through in-person interviews and analysis of SoHo Broadway Initiative programs and operations, the major findings are (1) the SoHo Broadway Initiative is not addressing some of the issues identified in the annual community survey, (2) key stakeholders are missing from the outreach process, (3) in-person interviews identified a lack of community space, open space, and business promotion as prominent neighborhood concerns, and (4) the Initiative currently does not have any metrics or methods of prioritization for its projects.

t. dw ay S Br oa

Within the District boundary, there are very few cultural or community organizations. Housing Works contains a bookstore & cafĂŠ in addition to a thrift store on Crosby Street within a building that fronts Broadway. The International Culinary Center occupies a few floors at the corner of Grand Street and Broadway, and until early 2017, ACE Programs for the Homeless also had an office space on the same street. There are no schools, churches, museums, or libraries that fall within the designated district boundary.

6 th A ve.

The SoHo Broadway Initiative boundary is six blocks along Broadway, stretching from Houston Street to Canal Street. Compared to the neighborhood of SoHo, this District has a higher percentage of children under the age of 19 and a higher percentage of elderly over the age of 65. The District also has a higher percentage of family households than in the overall neighborhood.

Ca na l

St .

SoHo Broadway Initiative Boundary SoHo Neighborhood Boundary

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SOHO BROADWAY INITIATIVE RECOMMENDATIONS Given the findings listed above, there are a number of short- to long-term solutions that the SoHo Broadway Initiative may consider in order to fill the gaps in identifying and evaluating their communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs. The recommendations below should be considered high-level, and more detailed descriptions are available in Creating Seats at the Table: A Business Improvement Districtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Methods for Evaluating Community Needs.

1: Address the Needs Identified in the SoHo Broadway Community Survey Work to address store closures by forming a committee to strategize ways to bring in entrepreneurs that will increase the retail diversity of the district. Thinking more long-term, the Initiative could hire an individual to conduct retail market analyses and decipher ways to make the District more diverse in addition to reducing retail vacancies. Focus on expanding lunch options in the area, given that current demand is surpassing supply. The Initiative could consider setting up a food discount program for those who live and work in the neighborhood, similar to DUMBO VIP or the Hudson Square Connection Card. This could also include discounts to the businesses along Broadway with additional incentive for businesses outside of the District buy into the program in order to be promoted through the same method. Conversations with Community Board 2 and property owners should occur in order to understand why there are not more food options on Broadway.

2: Adjust the SoHo Broadway Initiative’s Outreach Tactics Increase outreach to younger age groups and minority groups through events that are specific to the audience the Initiative is trying to reach. Consideration should be taken to change the structure of how data is collected so that the Initiative can identify which community constituencies they have reached out to.

3: Address the Needs Gathered from Stakeholder Interviews Brainstorm ideas for increasing neighborhood community space such as promoting existing community spaces more frequently (i.e. Mulberry Street Library and Housing Works Bookstore & Café), reach out to the office community about event spaces for rent or donation, and advocate to the City and property owners for more community spaces within the neighborhood.

Work to promote more Broadway businesses including those that do not have high visibility on the ground floor. Promotion of these businesses could be done through different social media platforms, like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Think of solutions for increasing neighborhood open space, such as hosting a block party or partnering with youth and health and fitness organizations to create “Let’s be Active” programs for SoHo Broadway. The Initiative could also work to advocate to city officials for more permanent open space in the neighborhood.

4: Adjust the SoHo Broadway Initiative’s Operations Make residential participation more active and effective by moving to rung 6 on Sherry Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation, which transitions power to those attending the meeting, making the process more transparent. The Initiative could invite residents to attend board meetings. This may help residents to feel like they are receiving the full information about what is being addressed in their neighborhood. Create a method for prioritizing community needs such as a prioritization matrix. This method would help determine the seriousness of the issues, their frequency, financial costs, and social ramifications for the community, as well as where projects fit within the organization’s mission, vision, and capacity, and what community happenings may piggybacked these effects. Create metrics for measuring project success by deciding what factors to evaluate and track for each project. This could lead to the creation of a base evaluation system for each type of program the Initiative has: sanitation, public safety, and advocacy. This would include a repository of questions that could be applied to specific projects.

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GENERAL BID RECOMMENDATIONS Through this case study, we can see that BIDs have already begun expanding their roles within their communities, but their level of engagement with their constituents has thus far been low. Some BIDs think of themselves as more than just an organization that serves the business interest, but rather, as one that serves all who live, work, and visit the District. The following are advantages that BIDs have when considering expanding their responsibilities, followed by considerations BIDs should take when trying to further address community needs. ••

BIDs have the advantage of receiving support from the Mayor

••

BIDs have the advantage of secure funding streams

••

Many BIDs have the advantage of small boundaries, given their restriction to commercial corridors

••

BIDs have the opportunity to create holistic engagement, given that many are located within mixed-use districts

BIDs can expand their responsibilities in a number of ways, but to make sure their actions are supportive of their communities some recommendations have been provided:

1: Conduct a New Needs Assessment When BIDs first form, they are required to conduct a needs assessment for their district. Over time, neighborhoods can change, so re-evaluating a community’s needs should be something to consider doing ten or so years.

2: Develop New Ways of Collecting Data Many BIDs administer annual community surveys to gauge feedback on their services and develop quantifiable data regarding top community concerns. According to the New York City Administrative Code, BIDs are also required to have at least one annual meeting. This is a time that BIDs could take advantage of by gathering multiple constituencies in the same room. The BID could dedicate time during these meetings to host a small workshop, creating an opportunity for the Initiative to have its audience discuss neighborhood issues and engage in a task that could help the BID quantify and better address its community’s concerns.

3: Diversify the Board Although the SoHo Broadway Initiative has an equal residential and commercial board, no other board has this arrangement. Other BIDs can

consider ways to diversify their boards in regard to use groups (residents, office tenants, retailers, community organizations) and different age or racial/ethnic groups. For example, demographic data shows there are many residents of age 20-34 along Broadway in SoHo, though this is a constituent group that is currently missing from the board’s roster.

4: Take Advantage of Existing Partnerships Often times, community boards are already addressing specific neighborhood issues, so instead of doubling down on this work, BIDs should look to partner with fellow community boards or other community groups on projects whenever possible. For example, if the community board has already done a traffic study on tour bus groups parking illegally and a BID wants to track those concerns as well, these two groups should look to share data and expertise rather than using community resources to repeat the same study.

5: Reconsider the District Boundary As seen through this case study, the SoHo Broadway Initiative is focused on serving the needs of those in their designated district boundary. This makes sense because they are they ones who pay

into the assessment that funds the BID. However, as BIDs begin to expand their services, people outside of the district boundary could be positively or negatively affected by some of the actions they take. Because of this, projects should be looked at more holistically, showing how external connections may be made for all, not just for some.

6: Reconsider the Governing Structure of BIDs The New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) is the governing body for all the City’s BIDs. As noted by this title, SBS provides a variety of programs intended to help small businesses grow and sustain themselves in New York City. As BIDs are transforming to be more than just about businesses, having SBS as their governing body may soon become outdated. The structure of BID governance should be reconsidered as new BID identities emerge. Perhaps City departments like the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the New York City Police Department, and the Department of City Planning could consider a joint oversight effort, with representatives of each sitting on a board that would in turn provide governance for the City’s BIDs.

NEXT STEPS These findings and recommendations have been presented to the staff at the SoHo Broadway Initiative, which has already begun to take steps towards addressing some of the outlined issues. As this is a case study about one unique BID of New York City’s 74, other BIDs should consider taking these recommendations as suggestions to be applied thoughtfully to their unique neighborhoods and districts.

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CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT REVITALIZATION: PUBLIC SPACE, PL ACEMAKING, AND FUTURE CHALLENGES Michael Frederick

This paper analyzes the commercial district surrounding the 34th Street retail corridor in Midtown, Manhattan. The corridor is active with myriad retail options, rehabilitated public spaces, and world renowned landmarks. Subjects including public space, economic activity, past and future revitalization projects, and urban management frame the perspective and guide the research to find what is and is not successful in the bustling district. Being a resident within the district and taking a very hands-on approach to observation – along with using third party economic data – provided a unique and in-depth perspective. This summary gives an overview of gathered information and proposed recommendations.

A QUICK HISTORY It is always important to know the history of a place when observing it. In this case, knowing the purpose of a downtown or commercial business district holds importance to the current function of the 34th Street district. At its core, a city is an economic engine, historically centered around a downtown or central business district. To quote Richard Wade in The Urban Frontier, “A city is many things: it is a cultural focus, a social resort, a political center, but before all – though not above all – it is a place where people earn a living.” This eloquently describes the functions a commercial district should perform, as the operation of these functions determines the level of success a city achieves. 34th Street’s recent history starts with retailers like Macy’s and Saks coming to the area in the early 1900s; around the same time, The Herald newspaper moved its headquarters to the intersection of 6th Avenue and 34th Street, and transportation hubs Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal were built in the area, creating a boon to office and commercial growth. These landmarks, sans The Herald headquarters, are still in the district today, showing the strength of the district’s retail and commercial operations.

A LITTLE ABOUT BIDs The main reason for choosing this area of study is its location within a Business Improvement District (BID), which is managed by the 34th Street Partnership. The NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) defines a BID as “…a public/private partnership in which property and business owners elect to make a collective contribution to the maintenance, development, and promotion of their commercial district.” A unique aspect of BIDs is their ability to charge assessments on properties within their boundaries, providing a steady and reliable stream of revenue. This allows for guaranteed funds with which to make agreed-upon improvements.

Assessments are collected by the NYC Department of Finance, which can impose similar penalties as those levied for not paying taxes, as well as distribute these assessments in semi-annual payments to the BID’s management entity. Assessments are based on building square footage or resale value. BIDs are nonprofit entities with boards of directors and membership classes from A through E. Class A members are property owners, Class B are commercial tenants, Class C are residential tenants, Class D are government representatives, and Class E are significant community stakeholders. Only Class A through C have voting privileges, with Class C having a single representative.

The 34th Street Partnership (34SP) is the managing entity of the BID and was founded in 1992. Their initial goal was to provide sanitation and security services for the district, which are usually the two most crucial functions for revitalizing a commercial district. 34SP also has an in-house design team, horticultural department, and tourism team. The Partnership’s current focus is enhancing the public realm – from public space redesign, sidewalk maintenance, and façade improvements to street furniture upkeep, trash collection, and providing seasonal plantings.

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SITE VISIT One of the best ways to get to know a district is to walk around. Living there provides a certain daily view, but multiple trips ‘off the beaten path’ help to build a fuller picture. A walk down the 34th Street illustrates great storefront design, few vacancies, and an uninterrupted retail presence. Establishments have adequate window displays, signage and lighting of appropriate size and location, and minimal sidewalk interference. Walkways are clean, lined with LED lighting, large potters, and hanging baskets, and provide wayfinding and information kiosks, but are still wide enough to handle the bustling pedestrian traffic of daytime office workers and tourists. Intersections, however, can become clogged as the preferred place of business for impromptu vendors and bag men. The volume of homeless in the area is high, but does not usually impede pedestrian access. Broadway runs through the center of the district and began a conversion to a shared street in 2009, with the Macy’s storefront and surrounding area now completely closed to vehicle traffic. The intersection of 6th Avenue, Broadway, and 34th Street, along with Greeley and Herald Squares, are the major public spaces of the district. The Squares provide some of the district’s only quality resting places, while Plaza 33 – a new public space next to Madison Square Garden – has recently added some much needed seating and tables.

SWOT ANALYSIS Performing a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis can offer a deeper look at an area and provide a tool with which to better analyze community needs. The analysis provided a lengthy list of strengths in conjunction with a potentially heavy list of threats. Strengths include amazing transportation accessibility (numerous subway lines and stations, Citi Bike stalls and bike lanes, PATH, LIRR, bus, and express bus stations), world renown landmarks (Empire State Building, Macy’s, Madison Square Garden), a great retail mix, wellmaintained horticulture, and additional street amenities such as bike racks and bus shelters. Some weaknesses include clogged and unsafe intersections, high volumes of visible homelessness, and the appearance of construction sheds and scaffolding. Opportunities include good building stock for offices and first-floor retail, as well as ample public space, though these may need some redesign to work cohesively with newly-converted Broadway stock. Threats, as mentioned, are few but have the potential to present challenges for the district and 34SP in the future, including

W O

Accessibility Retail Mix Wayfinding and street signage Cleanliness Herald and Greeley Square Tourist Info Subway Stations Parking Trees Amenities Horticulture Landmarks

Pedestrian safety at intersections Some building facades need to be cleaned Scaffolding and netting

Uninterrupted first floor retail Public space is great, but doesn’t meld well with the surrounding environment Hudson Yard development as new anchor

Hudson Yard development Madison Square Garden and Penn Station redevelopment Vacancies

the development of Hudson Yards, the Penn Station renovation, the rezoning of East Midtown, and high lease rates. A Vice President at 34SP says they see Hudson Yards as a development they can capitalize on, as opposed to being threatened by its shopping potential. However, Hudson Yards will likely still become a hot spot drawing tourists and locals away from 34th Street.

TRADE AREA AND ECONOMIC DATA Drawing a correct trade area is fundamental to defining a user base and figuring out what the district needs and assets are. The trade area for 34th Street is unique in that most of its visitors are tourists and daytime workers, as opposed to residents. The trade area is drawn as a 5/10/15 minute walking radius, thus encompassing a high percentage of Midtown office workers and tourists that utilize the transportation and landmarks in the district. A Leakage/Surplus analysis has been done to provide a clearer economic picture of the district. Some important data points are as follows: 3.47% projected residential growth from 2016 to 2021, with a majority coming from

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young (25-44 years old), wealthy ($100,000+), and Asian populations; 41,989 current businesses with 678,282 employees and 68,059 residents, a ratio of almost 10:1; leakage of $20.8 million in Grocery stores; surplus of $5.9 billion in Clothing and Clothing Accessory stores; and a surplus of $1.2 billion in Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses. The analysis is telling, highlighting several crucial factors for the district to be aware of moving forward. As noted, most population growth is projected to be coming from a specific demographic, accordingly with a specific set of needs and wants. One of these needs will be for grocery stores, specifically in the core of the district where there is a measured lack. The Clothing and Clothing Accessory store demand of $222,256,240 is exceeded by a supply of $6.1 billion, showing a tremendous amount of money is being spent in a district with relatively little demand. The district also operates uniquely in that it has a ballooning daytime population, thus data analysis should be done with care in terms of offering recommendations. Any recommendation based on this data would need to recognize who is spending the money and occupying the space, and should thus cater to them. A New Retailer Assessment was performed, recommending Target open a branch in the district due to its new corporate strategy of opening small format urban stores and its ability to address a need (such as “grocery stores”) and provide competition in the overly abundant Clothing and Personal Care markets. Target is currently set to open a new store on 34th Street by early 2018, just down the street from the recommended site location, in a vacant first-floor retail space in the Empire State Building.

STRATEGIC PLAN Concluding the paper is a strategic, or district action, plan. Outlining recommendations such as safety and pedestrian flows improvements at intersections, retail mix strengthening with full service restaurants, marketing strategy enhancement in anticipation of the Hudson Yards development, and 6th Avenue/Broadway/34th Street public space redesigns for better cohesion and spatial use. Some recommendations fall under a short-term plan while others, such as public space redesign, fall under a long-term. It is wise to play on the strengths of the district to meet these future challenges. 34SP needs to continue managing the district, pedestrian traffic needs to take priority in short term policy, and public space must be enhanced in order to keep the 34th Street commercial business district vibrant and economically sound for the predictable future.

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MAKING SPACE FOR DEMOCRACY: INVESTIGATING THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY IN PUBLIC SPACES IN SINGAPORE Nur Atiqa Asri

STATEMENT OF ISSUE In 2013, Singapore witnessed a calamitous night of riots in the public spaces of Little India, a pedestrianized alley close to downtown. The usual order and safety of this ethnic enclave’s public realm was shaken as hundreds of male South Asian migrant workers took to the streets, drunk and violent. The mob reaction to a fatal bus accident involving a Tamil worker resulted in chaos and the destruction of streets, sidewalks, bus stops, and five footways. Furthermore, the incident has since resulted in rising anti-foreigner sentiment amongst local residents – most pronounced in the city’s public spaces. Lowskill migrant workers entering on Work Permits can now be easily identified around Singapore as they become largely isolated from certain parts of the city on their days off. As a result, the issue of inequity, particularly for migrants, in Singapore’s public spaces has come to light, begging the question: ‘Are public spaces in Singapore really democratic?’ This in-depth observational study and analysis of the use of public spaces by migrant workers under Singapore’s unique autocratic governance structure brings an entirely new perspective to the area of study. It hopes to better inform future planning and design processes for public spaces in Singapore, creating a more democratic public realm for the ever-growing population of migrants in the city.

CONTEXT Singapore is a sovereign citystate pf 277.6 square miles, roughly the size of New York City. Located in Southeast Asia at the end of the Malayan Peninsula between Malaysia and Indonesia, the island was once a colony of the British Empire. In 1965, it gained its independence and inherited the British model of parliamentary government. City planning has since been a top-down function of the Ministry of National Development. Today, the Urban Redevelopment Authority and Housing Development Board, oversee most city planning. Singapore is well known for its transformation from a third to first world country in less than fifty years, as well as for having some of the highest rates of globalization in the world. Since its British rule, it has been widely acknowledged as a key trading port, attracting scores of immigrants from around the region, including Chinese, Indian, and Malay traders. Unsurprisingly, these three ethnic groups went on to make up most of the nation’s population, making Singapore a famously multicultural nation. For the most part, the different racial

groups in Singapore have lived harmoniously with one another, with the exception of a 1969 riot between the Malays and the Chinese, and finally again in 2013. The 2013 riots were a wake up call for all Singaporeans; they brought to the light the poor quality of life that many foreign workers were facing in both private and public spaces. As with many countries facing high rates of in-migration, Singapore offers various tiers of work passes and permits for foreign workers. The requirements of each tier necessitate the types of industries and levels of worker income. While there are plenty of rich expatriates working in Finance, Investment, and Real Estate (FIRE) and biomedical industries in Singapore, the lower skilled industries of construction, manufacturing, and domestic services enter Singapore on what is known as a ‘Work Permit.’ Work Permit holders have lower incomes and face strict offday requirements – only one unpaid rest day is allowed for every 7-day period. Men working in construction and manufacturing commonly live in dormitories notoriously known for overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, while women performing

domestic services are required to reside in their employers’ homes under watchful eyes. The private living spaces of these migrant workers, when evaluated against international human rights standards, are bleak. On average, 12 men are housed in dormitory rooms measuring no more than 25 square meters, below the internationallyrecognized 20-square meter minimum floor area per person for developed countries, as determined by the UN Population Division. It is therefore ever more important that public spaces in Singapore are democratic and offer migrant workers a place to express themselves freely in unmediated interaction. To create and plan for such spaces, however, would first require an evaluation of existing public spaces. Planners, sociologists, and ethnographers have often turned to William Holly Whyte’s social observation matrix and methodology to do this, however, existing methods unfortunately fail to relate directly to characteristics and attributes of democracy. In order to marry the existing method to the key issue at hand, a ‘democratic public space checklist’ indicated by social observations has been crafted for this research.

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THE CHECKLIST Each criterion is checked against one or more While political philosophers place an abstract points of social observation, intercept survey emphasis on the democracy of public spheres finding, or statute. For example, in order for a with no spatial dimensions, geographers and studied public space to meet CRITERION A: urbanists are increasingly offering a conception “Allows for unmediated interaction,” social of democratic public space that is more greatly observation and intercept survey findings would rooted in physical place and culture. In such have to point to large user group sizes, a mix of cases, democratic public spaces have been occurring activities, and described as those that MAKING SPACE a high level of perceived cultivate tolerance, FOR DEMOCRACY comfort and safety in the encourage convergence, space – all characteristics allow for critical ENCOURAGES CONVERGENCE that would indicate that debate, and increase criterion Allows for unmediated interaction the space allows for mutual acceptance. Comfort and safety level, group size, unmediated interaction. mix of activities criterion Lacks coercion Hence, the ‘democratic Presence of police, comfort and Based on social public space checklist’ safety level observations of two is based on concepts criterion Allows for discourse to check powers Presence of police, surveillance public spaces in uncovered in a literature cameras, statutory laws Singapore – Dunlop review of democratic CULTIVATES TOLERANCE Street (by the site of theory, and although not criterion Engages a wide variety of cultural practices the 2013 riots in Little all of the criteria in the Country of origin, ethnicity, India) and the Tanjong checklist were developed culture-specific activity criterion Creates opportunities for social communion Katong Complex (in for physical realms, they and shared experiences the neighborhood of can easily be adapted to Countries of origin, ethnicities, activity: talking, eating, length of stay in Singapore Geylang) – an evaluation tangible public spaces. criterion Cultivates forbearance of the level of democracy As such, the selection of Country of origin, education level, in Singaporean public criteria should holistically gender, age spaces was conducted. evaluate democracy INCREASE DISPOSITION Observations and in any public space. in-depth studies of criterion Allows for insurgence Outlier activities, ownership these spaces, both Inspired by Sherry predominantly used by Arnstein’s ladder of criterion Allows for critical debate to seek consensus or mutual enjoyment migrants from India, citizen participation, Activity: talking, group size <1, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the checklist is also education level, ownership and Bengal, showed categorized by various tiers that they fell short of of democracy, progressing meeting the checklist requirements, and if to higher orders of democratic pursuit, beginning this is any indication of other public spaces with simple and rational criteria that encourage in the country, there is still much that needs convergence of individuals and leading to to be done in order to achieve a sense of more abstract criteria that can positively alter democratic use of public spaces in Singapore. an individual’s disposition towards others.

CHECKLIST

D E

G H

Both sites showed a good mix of activities being engaged in large groups of users, as well as high levels of perceived safety and comfort, indicating a level of unmediated interaction (Criterion A) and an absence of coercion (Criterion B). However, the ability to engage in a discourse to check powers within the public spaces is still very difficult to achieve given the placement of prominent surveillance cameras by the police. This, combined with strict regulations under a Public Order Act barring “any procession or demonstration that supports or opposes views or actions of any person, group of persons, or government,” necessarily excludes any activity that checks power from occurring in these spaces. It also necessarily excludes public spaces in Singapore from ever meeting Criteria C or H - “Allows for discourse to check power” and “Allows for critical debate to seek consensus and mutual enjoyment.” Unfortunately, given the isolation of nationalities within each public space, there is also an evident lack of diversity in users that prevents any engagement of a wide variety of cultural practices (Criterion D). The clustering of migrants from similar home countries resembles the ethnic succession theory of Michael J. White, which claims that ethnic and racial groups entering a new country or city tend to live together. Instead, in Singapore, migrants congregate in public spaces together, as their housing arrangements are restricted by Work Permit conditions. The scarcity of local Singaporeans using either Dunlop Street or the Tanjong Katong Complex highlights a key issue facing the state of democracy in public spaces – segregation. Although the issue of segregation has increasingly become prominent in research migrant work housing, no one has yet raised the issue in the context of public spaces. These findings therefore call for policies and plans that can reduce the segregation of migrant workers in the public realm in order to be able to cultivate forbearance (Criterion F), create opportunities for critical debate (Criterion H) amongst a wide variety of community members – both local and foreign (Criterion D) – and allow users to check the powers of the state and its authorities (Criterion C). In order to do this, Jeffrey Hou, Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at University of Washington, suggests democratizing the planning process completely.

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POST-THESIS DEVELOPMENTS In July 2016, the Urban Redevelopment Authority implemented an installation on a vacant piece of land close to Dunlop Street in Little India. A winning entry from a public space design competition inspired by trees in the precinct was then implemented on Hindoo Road to provide shade and create a comfortable public space for those working, visiting, and living in the area. While the public planning process and the added attention being paid to the site of the 2013 riots by authorities was admirable, the actual execution was worrying. The ‘public space,’ beautifully designed to combine historical and cultural aspects of the area, was unfortunately enclosed by a 2-meter high metal fence,

resulting in an image of caged animals enclosured for those walking past and looking in. Furthermore, signs reminding users of Public Order Act and Liquor Control Bill restrictions were plastered along the fencing, preventing social communion and insurgent activities from occurring altogether. In fact, the ‘public space’ appeared as a physical manifestation of coercion. While there is some advancement being made in democratizing the planning process to create democratic public spaces in Singapore, it is clear that migrant workers are still not a loud or strong enough influence. There is much more that needs to be done in order to ensure that this group, no matter how transient, is able to influence and affect the planning of the cities they continue to occupy.

THE URBAN PLACEMAKING AND MANAGEMENT PROGRAM AT PRATT INSTITUTE In the past 10–12 years there has been a paradigm shift in thinking about planning and urban design, from a primary focus on buildings to a focus on the spaces between buildings —“public space.” Rather than allowing these spaces to be formed as an afterthought of building design, Placemaking sees the creation of successful public spaces as the starting point, which in turn dictates the siting and design of other components of the urban fabric. Placemaking approaches public space from a people perspective —based on community needs and programming. It incorporates a wide variety of professional and technical skills such as community building, economics, sustainability, management, urban design, and landscape design. “Placemakers” need to understand the role that each of these disciplines plays in creating and maintaining successful public spaces and be able to manage the process of placemaking. Case studies of successful public spaces demonstrate the importance of placemaking in supporting successful communities and in the livability and health of a city. The program is ideal for students with professionally oriented undergraduate education, professional degrees, or professional experience in architecture, engineering, environmental, landscape design, urban planning and related studies. Students are immersed in the core skills of analysis, conceptual design, and management of the public realm in cities. The 40-credit program equips students to

qualify for employment in a range of institutional, governmental, nonprofit, and private-sector settings. Students gain a broad theo-retical knowledge of the historical, political, and social frameworks with which to conceptualize the public realm, while developing skills to analyze urban space and understand the relationship of public space to public policy and private development. Through studios and internships, students gain further practical understanding of the planning and design of public space, including management and the integration of the principles of sustainability into public-space development. The core knowledge and skill-base of placemaking as a discipline, are delivered over four semesters through a combination of lectures, seminars, case studies, and studio-based exercises. Students pursue a curriculum of study structured by four academic knowledge streams: Design and Infrastructure; Economics; Planning and Policy; and Management. The program offers flexibility to students to develop advanced knowledge and skills through electives in three areas of focus, each corresponding to an area of employment for placemakers: _Community-Based Design _Parks, Open Space, and Green Infrastructure _Transportation and Main Street Management Graduates are equipped to effectively analyze, manage, and influence the complex process of public-realm design and management.

An approach to the creation and management of public space from a people perspective, based pl ce dialogu s on community needs and programming

Place Dialogues 2018

Articles inside

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

ASSESSING PARK CONSERVANCY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS: BEST PRACTICES

EDITOR'S LETTER

LEARNING FROM LITTLE DAMASCUS: A COMMUNITY - LED MODEL OF PUBLIC SPACE IN GREATER CAIRO’S DESERT CITIES

WHY DO WE NEED A DIALOGUE ABOUT “PLACE”?

Making Sense of Place