When I'm not working on residential projects, I do lots of work with public space. It's one area that needs more attention. As more people learn about my efforts in this realm, I get questions about how to start and complete a project like this. To help as many people as possible, I've started to create a booklet called the Citizen's Guide to Renovating Public Space. Keep reading to learn more.
We need better parks, streets and habitats throughout the entire fabric of our neighborhoods, towns, cities and less traveled spaces. There's been many projects that focus almost completely on urban areas...that is, places within cities that improve green spaces or increase the value of the urbanscape for people. Usually, these projects are about walkers and cyclists. And why wouldn't cities do that? Dense downtowns are good for business and residents alike, but cities aren't the only places people live, or even want to live. We have large suburbs and rural areas that need to be more place-based, more about people than not about people.
And that's why I started creating the Citizen's Guide to Renovating Public Spaces. I call it that because of some specific principles that have guide me during several projects in less "city" places and more suburban places. I also call it that because of a bunch of things I've learned along the way. Below are five principles I've developed for the guide after both success and failure in making public spaces awesome.
Guiding Principles to Renovating Public Spaces
There's a lot to unpack within these 5 things and lots I can write about why I chose those items and other a ton of others. I'll try to keep writing about this topic here to add more detail. Hopefully, I'll have the entire guide finished soon too.
Guiding Principles to Renovating Public Spaces
- Always couple placemaking with green infrastructure
- Materials can be off-the-shelf
- Community-based process from hand tools to crowdsource fundraising
- Focus on making people’s lives and nature more enjoyable
- In the end, people love being outdoors
There's a lot to unpack within these 5 things and lots I can write about why I chose those items and other a ton of others. I'll try to keep writing about this topic here to add more detail. Hopefully, I'll have the entire guide finished soon too.
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