Public Space
New York’s Mayor Adams Will Create a ‘Public Realm Czar’
The new public space czar would become the central node to oversee the different agencies that affect all public realm policies and projects, including the departments of Transportation, Parks, and Sanitation.
December 16, 2022
Opinion: Cities Need Covered Outdoor Dining Year-Round!
Let's open the door to innovative ideas and solutions to re-social and redefine how we share public space safely (and save the restaurant industry).
November 4, 2022
Talking Headways Podcast: The Energy of Ancient Cities
What can ancient cities tell us about contemporary urbanism? An anthropologist explores some themes.
September 8, 2022
Talking Headways Podcast: Bus Stop Transformations
This week, Kim Cella of Citizens for Modern Transit and Sheila Holm of AARP discuss how they are transforming transit stops in St. Louis by involving the community, engaging transit operators, and bringing life to grey spaces.
August 25, 2022
Talking Headways Podcast: Asphalt Art!
How communities can use paint as an effective and relatively low-cost strategy to activate their streets.
August 11, 2022
OPINION: We Can Have Nice Things … Once We Get Rid of King Car
Europe has great public places. A walk or bike ride from Borough Hall to City Hall across an auto-free Brooklyn Bridge would equal any of them.
June 8, 2022
Lightfoot banning unaccompanied teens from Millennium Park is the wrong public safety approach
Instead of shutting youth out of public spaces, we need to be designing more public spaces around them, and investing in resources that will help them thrive.
May 16, 2022
Talking Headways Podcast: The 15 Minute Church
We chat with Travis Norvell, minister at Judson Memorial Baptist Church in Minneapolis and author of "Church on the Move," about the future of church parking lots and how cars have changed communities.
April 28, 2022
No Minimum Parking Requirements? No Problem for Fayetteville, Ark.
In 2015, the city council of Fayetteville, Arkansas, adopted a radical but simple idea: do away with minimum parking mandates and let businesses decide how much parking they need. How did that work out?
February 25, 2022
Op-Ed, Part II: Conversion to EVs is a Once-in-a-Century Chance to Fix Many Car Culture Problems
Electrifying cars is the right thing to do, but excessive number of cars, oversized vehicles, and use of the curb for private auto storage remain crucial deficiencies of the city government’s automotive infrastructure in New York.
January 6, 2022