Placemaking
Connecting Detroit Neighborhoods With Better Streets and Public Spaces
Can safer streets and livelier public spaces help knit Detroit back together?
July 16, 2014
A 12-Block Shared Space Neighborhood Rises Along the Potomac
Earlier this month, Streetsblog went on a streak about "shared space" -- the idea that some streets can work better when, instead of using curbs and traffic signals to separate users, pedestrians get priority using subtle but effective visual cues. We interviewed a key shared space messenger, Ben Hamilton-Baillie; we showed off built examples in Pittsburgh and Batavia, Illinois; and we discussed the potential of shared space to transform the narrow streets of New York City's Financial District.
July 14, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: How Does This Podcast Make You Feel?
This week, Jeff Wood and I get indignant about Miami-Dade County's misuse of transit funds for roads, and we speculate about why -- with the current success of pedestrian projects like Times Square -- old-style pedestrian malls are still going belly-up. And then we peek behind the curtain at an exciting new frontier for urban planning: connecting urban form with the feelings they inspire.
February 12, 2014
MIT Study: Benefits of Placemaking Go Deeper Than Better Places
For two Sundays every summer, a three-mile loop between downtown Fargo, North Dakota and nearby Moorhead, Minnesota is transformed. The open streets event StreetsAlive draws between 6,000 and 8,000 people -- on bikes, sneakers and rollerblades -- into the space that is normally occupied by cars.
November 1, 2013