Elsewhere I had posted Paul Steinke's CitySpace piece on development along the transit routes. I will repost it here because it will get lost in a mixed Septa rant.

As you all find them, post your good finds here. No need to embellish or argue (or we can), I'm interested in seeing how many good ideas from around the country we can find.

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

From Fred Kent, executive director of PPS:

The Power of Ten
Why Great Places are more than the sum of their parts.

by Fred Kent

Earlier this year we were asked by Mimi Gates, the director of the Seattle Art Museum, to review plans for a new wing of the building. PPS Vice-President Kathy Madden and I were touring the Museum grounds with a group of local citizens, brainstorming how best to generate public activity around the building. Ideas were flying, and gradually we developed a vision for a series of focal points on the grounds and inside its lobby that presented varied public uses.

As we got deeper into our discussion, someone asked, "How many separate focal points do you need to make it successful?"

The entrance to the Seattle Art Museum represents an opportunity to create a focal point for public activity...
At PPS, we usually don't talk in terms of numbers, so I had to give the matter some thought. I wanted to offer a challenging answer, but not something that would feel completely out of reach. "Ten," I said. "But we can't just plop down ten pieces of sculpture and say that's enough. We also need ten things to do at each focal point."

That got everyone thinking about what makes great places great. It's really a matter of offering a variety of things to do in one spot -- whose quality as a place then becomes more than the sum of its parts. A park is good. A park with a fountain, playground, and popcorn vendor is better. A library across the street is even better, more so if they feature storytelling hours for kids and exhibits on local history. If there's a sidewalk café nearby, a bus stop, a bike trail, and an ice cream parlor, then you have what most people would consider a great place.

What if downtown Seattle had ten places as good as the one proposed for the Art Museum? The area would then have a critical mass -- a series of destinations where tourists and residents alike could become immersed in the city for days at a time.

...and if we created ten places in downtown Seattle as good as the revitalized Art Museum, then it would be a great district.
Taking the next step, what if the city of Seattle could boast ten such neighborhoods? Then every resident would have access to outstanding public spaces within walking distance of their own homes. That's the sort of goal we should set for all cities if we are serious about enhancing and revitalizing urban life.

I think we can go further still. How? Apply the "Power of Ten" on a regional scale by linking towns and cities together, with major public spaces and mixed-use neighborhoods serving as connections. That could be the basis for a new paradigm of regional development that sweeps away the destructive pattern of more freeways, big box stores, and cookie-cutter subdivisions. Indeed, it's the strategy that PPS and our local partners have promoted in the San Mateo Peninsula south of San Francisco, where seven cities are using redesigned streets and transit centers to link their downtowns together.

This idea gives people something tangible to strive for -- it helps them visualize what it takes to make their town or city great.
For a few months now, we've been calling this concept the Power of Ten (indebted to the classic short film, "Powers of 10," by Charles and Ray Eames), but there's no reason to get fixated on a particular number. Whether you're talking about places in a given neighborhood, or great neighborhoods within a city, "Ten" refers generally to the ultimate goals of variety and choice. When we talk about the "Power of Ten," we're stressing the fact that we should always think of how Placemaking can be accomplished at different scales.

To build our cities around places, as explored in this issue's feature story, it's not enough to have a single use dominate a particular place -- you need a diverse array of activities for people. It's not enough to have just one great place in a neighborhood -- you need a number of them to create a truly lively town. It's not enough to have one superior neighborhood in a city -- you need to provide people all over town with close-to-home opportunities to take pleasure in public life. And it's not enough to have one livable city or town in a region -- you need a collection of interesting communities.

Greenwich Village compensates for a lack of outstanding individual public spaces with its abundance of street-level attractions.
One of the chief values of using the Power of Ten as a framework for thinking about place is its flexibility. Take the neighborhood where our office is located, Greenwich Village. There may not be ten great public spaces within its boundaries, or even five. But it makes up for this deficiency with a vibrant streetlife and hundreds of small cafes, bars, restaurants, theaters, and small shops enlivening the neighborhood. Likewise, we're sure there are towns too small to possess ten or even three distinct neighborhoods, but which succeed as places nonetheless thanks to a plethora of healthy and lively public spaces. You can bend the principles behind the Power of Ten, as long as you preserve the spirit.

This is an idea that gets people excited. Everywhere we bring up the Power of Ten, local citizens become more motivated and energized to turn their places around. We think it's because this idea gives people something tangible to strive for -- it helps them visualize what it takes to make their town or city great. As we promote a broader mission for placemaking with our Great Cities Initiative, the Power of Ten is our way of reminding our clients, our readers, and ourselves that by starting efforts at the smallest scale, you can steadily accomplish big changes.

http://www.pps.org/info/newsletter/n...vember2004_ten

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

Rounding out the square Managers want a Pioneer Courthouse Square for all seasons
Saturday, October 16, 2004
SPENCER HEINZ

As Pioneer Courthouse Square enters its 21st autumn as Portland's "living room," the square's leaders are looking at how to strengthen its link to the downtown area in all seasons.

"We know we're good, but there's got to be ways to make it better," says Jennifer Polver, the square's executive director. "We're trying to think of ways to continue to animate the space."

Within these talks, changes are afoot.

The square recently increased its security guard coverage to 24 hours a day.

Starbucks Coffee Co., which anchors the square's northwest corner, hopes to create more outside seating and walk-up service.

Citing declining industry sales of travel books, Powell's Books plans to close its longtime Powell's Travel Store on the square by Jan. 31. Polver says that the square seeks another tenant for that essential southeast-corner space.

And a proposal to open a wintertime ice rink -- a plan that once generated more than $4 million in pledges -- has largely fallen out of discussions while the square's management broadens its approach. Polver says it sees skating as only one possible part of a mix of many options for energizing the square in wintertime.

As a guide for such broader considerations, the square's nonprofit board is using a report titled "A Vision for a Year-Round Square."

Written after a series of Portland workshops by the New York-based Project for Public Spaces, the report praises the square as one of the best urban public squares in the nation. The project's September newsletter adds more praise, listing Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square as one of "six truly outstanding parks" that the world can learn from.

The report notes the opportunity to improve relatively unused or uncomfortable spaces within the square. Some study participants called the square's transit stations "clean and well maintained, but cold, brutal spaces," and the square's Sixth Avenue sidewalk "kind of a wasteland."

The project had invited local participants to rate the square's corners and interior spaces according to "accessibility," "sociability," "comfort and image" and "activities and uses."

People approaching the square should become aware of it at least a block away, the report says, calling for closer ties to surrounding streets and stores. If people see the edges as part of the entire square, it would feel larger and have a greater impact on downtown.

The report makes no mention of an ice rink, an idea that had divided business leaders, but it does list skating and snowboarding demonstrations as part of a mix of wintertime options worthy of thought.

Polver noted that various businesses had promised money only toward that specific, "unique vision" for an ice rink. Although so far ideas for other attractions have come without any such pledges, Polver says businesses seem to be enthusiastic about the new emphasis on a broad mix of wintertime uses.

"It's not about a single activity," Polver says. "Everybody wants what's best for the community."

The report says that "all really successful public spaces consist of a series of smaller places" and that each needs to function on its own for the entire space to work well. The study suggests developing several smaller, all-season places to attract a range of cultures, ages and interests.

To improve the square's Sixth Avenue side, the report suggests possibilities such as adding decorative plantings, tables and chairs, a farmer's market, seasonal carts for ice cream and roasted chestnuts, and a moveable information kiosk.

Pact of partnerships

Pioneer Courthouse Square functions through a mix of formal and informal partnerships, coordinated through the five-person staff of the nonprofit Pioneer Courthouse Square Inc. and governed by a 31-person board of trustees.

Equipped with food carts, a bus-ticket counter, public information desk and specialized services for the square's daily cleanings, the square is programmed for daily events in ways not always noticeable to the casual passer-by. About a dozen workers, Polver estimates, are on the square at any one time. Before she became the square's executive director a couple of years ago, Polver had no sense of the complexity of trying to keep it spotless.

"Whadaya mean? Just get a hose," she recalls thinking. "I had no idea of the intricacy."

Keeping things programmed helps deal with public health and safety and the square's "livability" -- constant issues for any open space.

"It is an enormously complicated place," says Rosie Sizer, who was Portland Police Bureau Central Precinct commander before transferring to Southeast Precinct this summer. "It is almost as diverse as Portland gets, and it's all occupying one single block."

Lower-level crimes

Lt. Bill Haunsperger, of the Portland Police Bureau's transit police division, says the crimes in and around the square tend to be of the lower-level, chronic types that characterize a downtown. Panhandling is not illegal unless it becomes aggressive, he says, and the square is not the source of many such calls. He says he does not see crimes particular to this park that are not elsewhere in downtown.

"The square doesn't just stand alone," he says. "It's kind of a focal point for the downtown."

Portland's square is a great park, according to the New York project's current newsletter, because of the square's integration with mass transit, its "sophisticated management team" and its steady income from a broad mix of tenants and sponsors. The square offers about 300 programmed events a year -- from concerts, movies and symphonies to fund-raisers and cultural festivals.

"We gauge our success," Polver says, "on how diverse we are."

Spencer Heinz: 503-221-8072; spencerheinz@news.oregonian.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/orego...8244288440.xml

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

What If We Built Our Cities Around Places?

PPS announces its new Great Cities Initiative, which applies the principles of Placemaking to entire cities.


One of the joys for all of us working at PPS is learning from people all around the world about how they'd like to make their communities better. No two answers are the same, but listen long enough and the degree to which people share similar desires is remarkable. "Downtown would be a better place if I felt comfortable walking there," is a common sentiment. Or we'll often hear someone tell us, "There should be a place close to home where I can take my kids to play." Though the specifics vary, a steady current runs beneath the surface of what people say. It's the same desire for shared, public places that has shaped human settlements since the first cities were built.

Small steps to enliven streets, parks, and other public spaces are the building blocks of a thriving city.

The architect and author Christopher Alexander coined a phrase (and authored a book by the same name), "The Timeless Way of Building," that touches on these common yearnings and how people have intuitively used them to build congenial places to live. The process of building cities today has become so institutionalized, however, that people seldom have an outlet to put their intuition to use anymore. At PPS, we believe this timeless way of building can be reinvigorated, and we offer a common-sense way to do it: by empowering people to initiate improvements to their local neighborhoods place by place. These small steps to enliven streets, parks, and other public spaces are the building blocks of a thriving city.


Volunteerism is a sure sign that a neighborhood is heading in the right direction.
That is the idea at the heart of PPS's newly launched Great Cities Initiative (more on that below). The vitality of any city depends on citizen action such as neighborhood groups reclaiming their local parks and small businesses recharging commercial streets. Many times, communities need just a little nudge in the right direction to set this process of revitalization in motion. And in a short time, the entire neighborhood has undergone a turnaround as residents take comfort and pride in their public spaces.

What sort of "nudge" are we talking about? Imagine, for example, a neighborhood park bordered on one side by a commercial street and on another by a public library. These urban elements work together to form a single place, yet in a typical city that area would likely be managed by a number of public entities, each operating independently of the others. Instead of a unified approach to improving the place, we likely end up with atomized spheres of influence. The Department of Transportation promotes fast traffic on the roadway with little concern for pedestrians, park users, or patrons of local businesses. Park officials don't factor in library patrons or local shoppers when programming activities. You wind up with a park without popular activities, a street where people don't feel comfortable walking to the park or library, and local institutions cut off from the surrounding neighborhood.

But if we look upon these elements as interrelated components of a single place, we create more opportunities for local people to collaborate and jointly create a vision of what's best for the community. How can the street, park, library, and businesses support and strengthen each other? What do business owners, library employees, and nearby residents envision for the area? By simply observing and listening to the people who live or work or play in the area, the solution to what the place needs will become apparent.

Every day, PPS puts these ideas into practice in the cities, towns, and regions where we work. In order for this approach, which we call "Placemaking," to be effective, we've found that professional planners, designers, and engineers first need to move beyond the habit of looking at and shaping cities through the lens of single goals or professional disciplines. Only by adopting a more holistic view can we say goodbye to streets dominated by traffic, parks little-used by local residents, and public institutions and redevelopment projects isolated from local communities.

Fortunately, there is a new wave of interdisciplinary collaboration that adopts a more cooperative approach to knit neighborhoods together, and it brings real economic and social benefits to cities. Parks departments are partnering with transportation officials to create greenways and other transportation networks for pedestrians and bicyclists. Transportation agencies are teaming up with economic development organizations to bring housing, businesses, and a sense of vitality back to downtown streets. And community development groups are investing in parks, plazas, and other public spaces with the goal of reviving urban neighborhoods.

Placemaking succeeds at this larger scale precisely because it encourages everyone to think small.

Innovative partnerships are central to PPS's mission of shaping cities using a multi-disciplinary, place-based approach. In California's populous San Mateo Peninsula, a string of diverse communities south of San Francisco, we guided a collaborative effort between transit authorities and economic development agencies to create active, walkable downtowns. Plans for housing and mixed use development were integrated with transit stations in seven towns to foster bustling street life and boost light-rail ridership.

In Tucson, Arizona, the once-vibrant retail and cultural district is now struggling to draw people. PPS is working in partnership with the landscape architecture firm Wheat Scharf Associates, the transportation planning firm Transcore, David Tryba Architects, the City of Tucson, and Tucson DOT to help revitalize downtown by growing places around existing assets, such as historic theaters, a bus transfer center, a landmark hotel, and a restored train depot. The city's historic commercial corridor, Congress Street, will be the spine of the district, connecting the places to each other and to adjacent downtown institutions.

Placemaking is not just an urban idea. Small towns are adopting this innovative approach, too, as seen in the region around Littleton, New Hampshire. Business and community groups there partnered with the state Department of Transportation, enlisting PPS to use traffic calming experiments as a way to enhance the quality and popularity of downtown. Several other towns in the region conducted their own workshops and experiments after watching the results.

New partnerships are forming around Placemaking because it is a powerful movement that comes directly from people's concern about their lives. Now, what if we took this emerging spirit of partnership a step further? To revitalize our cities through the process of making better places, we need even more collaboration--not just between disciplines but also between professionals and the communities they serve. Imagine interdisciplinary teams--park planners, traffic engineers, economic development experts--working together with local residents to realize a vision for the key places in their communities. Strategically implemented throughout the neighborhoods of a city, the cumulative effect of such a program would be enormous.

That's the crux of the Great Cities Initiative, PPS's new program that applies our 29 years of experience in improving transportation, parks, public markets and buildings to the wider mission of creating livelier neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions. Expanding our program areas is a significant step for PPS, but we have been building toward this moment for a long time.

As we've taken on more citywide and regional projects like those in San Mateo County, Tucson, and New Hampshire, we've found that our Placemaking process succeeds at this larger scale precisely because it encourages everyone to think small. Starting at the scale of an individual place allows a broad range of stakeholders to become involved and make meaningful contributions to the process. And by carefully selecting which places to improve with an eye towards maximizing their impact in the community, the effects resonate throughout the city or region. The Great Cities Initiative capitalizes on this phenomenon, expanding our Placemaking techniques into a comprehensive yet flexible process cities can use to improve themselves, place by place, neighborhood by neighborhood.

The prototype for our Great Cities Initiative was pioneered in Omaha, where PPS helped community and economic development organizations create an ambitious strategy to tap the potential of parks and public spaces to revive urban neighborhoods. Following a PPS-led "How to Turn a Place Around" workshop for 123 people, our local partner, the nonprofit Lively Omaha, deputized 22 volunteers to help groups of local residents conduct PPS's Place Performance Evaluation Game (Place Game for short) in specific spots around the city. The Place Game synthesizes observation techniques and interview skills into a short, user-friendly exercise that people can use to understand the good and bad qualities of a place, and suggest both short- and-long term improvements. The volunteers led 23 of these Placemaking sessions in the first year alone, working with community and civic groups to show how particular places can be improved.

The efforts underway in Omaha illustrate the core principle of the Great Cities Initiative--that instead of approaching the city through the lens of a complex, heavy-handed one-size-fits-all master plan, we should view it as an agglomeration of neighborhoods, each of which contains key places that can have a substantial impact in improving quality of life. These important community places can be identified by conducting a comprehensive Public Space Assessment, similar to the City Commentaries PPS has written for Paris, London, Barcelona, and soon New York. Teams of citizens aided by professionals can then evaluate how well these public spaces work according to more specific measures, using the Place Game to identify opportunities for short- and long-term improvements (see step-by-step process in sidebar).

The Great Cities Initiative provides a unique framework for professionals from different disciplines to collaborate effectively and for citizens to take part in creating the neighborhoods they desire.
We believe this approach makes a profound impact on communities because its small-scale emphasis naturally leads to collaboration and community involvement. Breaking down the mission of city revitalization into manageable chunks enables citizens to become engaged without feeling overwhelmed. The inertia common to large-scale projects is overcome first by implementing small yet visible changes that can be accomplished without great expense, like the successful traffic-calming experiments in New Hampshire. Strategically carried out throughout a city, these short-term experiments create credibility and enthusiasm for long-term improvements to come.

The time is ripe for a bold idea like the Great Cities Initiative. As we've seen, towns and cities are already forging ahead with innovative partnerships and a sharpened focus on how to involve local communities in the process of revitalization. The Great Cities Initiative is the next step, providing a unique framework for professionals from different disciplines to collaborate effectively and for citizens to take part in creating the neighborhoods they really desire. Applied throughout a city or region, PPS's Placemaking techniques can bring immense positive change to neighborhoods and public spaces, creating the kind of vital public life and community energy that has always been the most compelling reason people choose to live in cities.

To discuss implementing the Great Cities Initiative in your town, city, or region, call Ethan Kent at (212) 620 5660 or e-mail ekent@pps.org.

http://www.pps.org/info/newsletter/n...er2004_feature

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

Which Direction for Our Parks?

Recent trends show a strong new focus on parks as public places that enhance almost everything about their communities. At the same time, interest grows in parks that have been designed as aesthetic objects. Which represents the future?

By Kathy Madden and Benjamin Fried

It is becoming widely apparent that Americans have rediscovered the value of public life, and that parks are at the core of this newfound appreciation. For proof, consider the heated debate over whether the Great Lawn in New York's Central Park should have been used for a rally following the August 29 protest march at the Republican Convention. The debate revolved around basic questions like, "Who is the park for?" and "Was the park originally designed to accommodate large groups on its lawns?" What went unnoticed in the discussion was the common bond that united both those who saw the park as a forum for public expression and those who sought to protect the park's landscape from overuse--namely, the fierce sense of ownership each side felt for this public space.

This kind of passion for places that foster public life grows stronger each year. Cities all over the world are revitalizing old parks, restoring historic squares, and redeveloping industrial waterfronts into lively new waterfront walkways. Citizens everywhere are working to create places where people feel they belong and where they can connect with others.

But sprucing up parks, and even building new ones, is no guarantee of having better parks. As communities strive to meet the burgeoning demand for quality public spaces, the most important question to consider is this: Are we great creating parks that people are enthusiastic about using? Or are we settling for mediocre parks that just minimally meet people's needs?


How to create great new parks (and make old parks better)

To create parks that people love, we need to understand how public places actually function--to observe what attracts people to certain spots and repels them from others. And it is just as important, in terms of both design and management, to capitalize on the assets of the particular place where the park will be built, so that the strengths of the community become the strengths of the park.

That's where PPS and the placemaking approach fit in. When the ideas for improving a park originate from the people who know it best--the residents and workers who use it daily--the result is a vision that is in tune with the needs and desires of the public. PPS elicits these ideas and translates them into a visual representation (see concept drawing below) that landscape architects, horticulturalists, event planners, and other professionals can use as a blueprint for their work. This process works best when there is intricate cooperation between public officials, park supervisors, planners and other design professionals, management teams, and dedicated citizens. Fortunately, as public enthusiasm for parks grows, we are seeing more and more inspiring examples of how these parties can work together to create great places.

One of the most striking examples is taking shape in Detroit, where PPS led the visioning process for Campus Martius Park, a new public space in the heart of downtown slated to open this fall. Located in Detroit's historic center, at the intersection of five major streets, Campus Martius Park is the anchor of an ambitious redevelopment effort intended to bring in new businesses, housing, and street activity. "We're dubbing it Detroit's Town Square," said Robert Gregory, Executive Director of Detroit 300. "It's meant to be a major economic catalyst for revitalizing downtown."

The initiative for Campus Martius Park came from then-Mayor Dennis Archer's Office and the Detroit 300 Conservancy, a citizens group that brought in PPS to engage local stakeholders in the project. The result was a sweeping vision for Campus Martius as one of the world's best public spaces--with a variety of destinations within the park, innovative programming, easy pedestrian access, and strong connections to surrounding neighborhoods and public transit. The design, by Indiana-based Rundell Ernstberger Associates, molded this vision into reality. At the same time the park was being planned, a comprehensive management plan was developed, which will be carried out by Detroit 300. This hand-in-hand coordination of design and management will help Campus Martius make a seamless transition from plans on a drafting table to a real place of grass, walkways and trees that invites people to enjoy themselves.

A similar place-based approach, focused on improving public spaces to meet community needs, is also being used to revitalize ailing inner city parks. Seattle is turning its attention to Occidental Park, a place that few people choose to visit even though it occupies a square block in the heart of downtown's historic Pioneer Square district. City officials, including Mayor Greg Nickles, have recognized that the park has untapped potential to serve as the anchor of a dynamic neighborhood.

This spring, PPS led workshops in Seattle to evaluate the park and develop short- and long-term strategies for improvement. City officials, eager to show residents that changes were afoot, acted quickly upon PPS's recommendations to implement a series of experiments in the park over the summer. From small additions like chess and other games to large productions like outdoor movies and musical performances, the huge variety of experiments helped officials see which times of day and which activities were most effective.

The major events, including the "First Thursday" art market and a festival called "Discover the Klondike" that celebrated an 1897 gold rush, delivered a large boost in visitors. The adjacent Grand Central Bakery noticed the difference, attributing an increase in their sales to the new programming in the park. Now, the Parks Department is determining ways to market Occidental Park's activities, such as identifying particular days of the week with specific events.

An important lesson coming from all these examples is that parks must constantly evolve to continue serving their communities.
Citizens in some cities seek to make already successful parks even better. Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon (see Six Parks to Learn From) is a case in point. Beloved by residents of Portland since its creation in 1984 on the former site of a parking garage, the square remains remarkably well-managed, with over 300 events per year. Yet the City and the park's management entity, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Inc. (PCS), continue to pinpoint the park's weak spots and turn them around. The park's management has set a goal of boosting use in the winter and during Portland's frequent rainy weather. PPS convened workshops this spring to evaluate Pioneer Square's potential in all types of weather and seasons, and identified a set of relatively small scale changes that could increase its usability year-round.

An important lesson coming from all these examples is that parks must constantly evolve to continue serving their communities. The flow of ideas about how to make a great public place shouldn't cease once the park is built, or even when the management plan is in place. As more park districts and management entities operate under the belief that re-evaluation should be an ongoing process, we will see a new pattern of parks continually getting better and better serving community needs. This is gradually replacing the depressing and all-too familiar pattern of parks steadily declining until they are in drastic need of repair and revitalization.


What happens when new parks fail--and why

So far we've looked at three parks in Detroit, Seattle, and Portland that point to laudable trends:

1) A recognition that parks are economic catalysts;

2) An understanding that utilizing community assets and analyzing user patterns are important tools in guiding design;

3) A new spirit of cooperation between the various professions that create and oversee parks; and

4) Efforts aimed at making sure successful parks continue to evolve.

We at PPS believe these developments indicate a broad upswell of support for the idea that parks must first of all be great public places. Yet as much as we welcome these new developments, we are concerned about another trend on the horizon that imperils progress in the field: the rise of new parks that value an almost fetishistic emphasis on design far more than how these spaces will meet people's needs.


International media buzz and architectural awards create the false impression that these places represent design excellence.

Many newer parks, especially in Europe, appear to have been guided by the belief that design alone can produce a great place. Parc André Citröen in Paris and Parc Diagonal del Mar in Barcelona (see Five Parks that Need a Turnaround) both share an unhealthy, single-minded focus on the aesthetic dimension of their landscapes.

With a little analysis, these new parks could have achieved their aesthetic ambitions and functioned as welcoming places for people. But their perfect geometries and symbolic landscapes were apparently translated from plan to reality without much thought as to how people actually use public spaces. As a result, places meant to be edgy and exciting quickly become predictable and monotonous. When parks are designed as objects to behold rather than places that provide a variety of experience, park users find their options narrowed to essentially gazing at artistic flourishes. The "repeat business" of such places is small, and cities receive only a fraction of the economic and social benefits that would have accrued from truly great places.

Yet these parks are well-received, and even bestowed with honors, among influential designers, critics and authorities on parks. International media buzz and architectural awards create the false impression that these places represent design excellence, when in fact they are simply a newer, flashier version of the mediocre public spaces we know all too well. Will cities in Europe and North America continue to be seduced by this superficial style of park design? Or will they embrace the emerging "placemaking" approach that results in parks that please the local communities and visitors who find that their attraction does not fade after the first visit. That is the crucial choice about parks and public space that we face today.

http://www.pps.org/info/newsletter/s...2004_park_news

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

bump.

Seeing the Parkway shine like it did for the Live 8 show, and as a neighborhood resident for the last couple years, I wanted to point out some ideas the City Planning Commission has developed for some of the little park areas between the Parkway and City Hall -> http://www.philaplanning.org/ .

I don't see anything specifically focused on Logan Circle, however. That is a shame, b/c Logan Circle has been ranked 5th in the U.S. for the most under-performing parks relative to their potential -> http://www.pps.org/gps/one?public_place_id=758# . I sure hope someone in the City or Fairmount Park Commission is focusing on the circle itself. It has a tremendous potential.

For starters, the city did itself a huge favor by protecting Logan Circle from the Live 8 throngs. At last year's July 4th event, in contrast, my wife and I and some friends watched the fireworks from inside Logan Circle, and it made me so angry to see the children and adults trampling the flowers which had been so painstakingly planted and nurtured.

Note to city: don't take down the fence until after the July 4th concert. The throngs trample all flowers and destroy the flower beds with abondon, for some reason, maybe b/c they are so focused on the fireworks overhead, they don't care about what they're stepping on below their feet.

Some other ideas I have for Logan Circle include fencing it with a decorative iron 5 ft fence, and locking it down around mid-night. This way it can't be used as a homeless Motel-6, and turn into a waste-ridden mess-hole until crews clean it up daily.

Final idea which may be corny -> how about yellow bricks like the Wizard of Oz? The area is a natural for it, at least on 3 sides of the square. Starting from the NE corner and going counter-clockwise, all these institutions deal with children or families -> Family Court, Central Library, Franklin Institute, Academy of Natural Sciences. Not fitting the mould would be the Cathedral, Four Seasons, and Moore College of Art. Still, if the brickwork were nice and well maintained, it would be a big improvement and help draw children and families into the circle. Plus it would solve the problem of nasty puddles and wet spots after rain storms, which don't go away for some time (maybe they need to install a French drain when/if they make an improvement to the paths).