Management and capacity building to realize and maintain better public places

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note the first sense is edited. I had written that PPS was founded by William H. Whyte, but I misremembered the actual chain of events. It is discussed in the article "Pride of Place,"
which was published in Governing Magazine in 2005. (Which is a great article worthy of reading and re-reading.)
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Project for Public Spaces is an organization founded by Fred Kent, who became interested in the quality of public spaces after working for William H. Whyte, the former editor of Fortune Magazine who became interested in urban revitalization and tapped Jane Jacobs to write a piece, "Downtowns are for People" that led to her writing the classic Death and Life of Great American Places.

PPS figured out in the early 1980s that management was key to the revitalization of public spaces, such as Bryant Park, that had been overrun by disorder. Management and programming--providing lots of reasons for people to come to and frequent public spaces--is key to the successful revitalization and ongoing success of public places.

They came up with the public-private partnership model, out of a recognition that many places needed more attention and capacity than a typical government agency was capable of providing. Although, they (like the Main Street program) got a lesson in this from the City of Corning, New York, which in the 1960s figured out that if they wanted their downtown commercial district to remain competitive with privately owned and managed shopping malls opening up in their region, that they would have to buckle down and hire a "downtown manager" as well, and they did so, creating the model for both the Main Street program and business improvement districts, which are other examples of public-private partnerships in local communities.

New York City is also the hotbed of public-private partnerships managing local parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park, and the 32nd Street and Times Square Business Improvement Districts manage parks in their geographic service areas as well (such as Madison Square Park, and other parks along Broadway).

This comes to mind when reading John King's column, "S.F. needs to create permanent public spaces," in the San Francisco Chronicle, about the parklet project there that is getting a lot of attention. King warns that to scale the project up--from 5 to 25 parks--a lot more civic and organizational capacity is necessary for the spaces to stay used and not turn into some other still derelict thing. (Sort of like demolishing a vacant building. One "problem" is corrected, seemingly as there is no longer a vacant building. But then, the problem becomes, what do you do with and how do you maintain vacant lots?)

PPS's placemaking resources are a good place to start for building local capacity, but right now there is no real system for integrating everyday people into this kind of programming in DC.

I think about this in terms of the "local parks" in my neighborhood. In the context of the local Main Street program (for Takoma) I suggested coming up with a common public space plan for a number of triangle parks, including the problematic park at 4th and Blair, which is a flashpoint for what some people call loitering as well as persistent public drinking, and larger parks, such as the combined Coolidge and Takoma recreation centers, four blocks of park on 3rd Street NW behind Coolidge High School, from Sheridan to Whittier.

Just today I was thinking about how aggravating it is that they don't have recycling at the park, and how during team playing seasons, thousands of bottles and cans are discard there, only to end up in the waste stream (I pick up recyclables and put them in recycling bins as I walk along the park), but how there isn't really a system to engage residents in dealing with the parks in their neighborhoods.

There is a great opportunity to change things, but it would require a complete sea change in how parks and recreation spaces are perceived in the city.

Instead of a merry go round of political appointees to serve as the director of the DC Parks and Recreation Department, it would be great if one of the nation's leading parks practitioners or planners would be tapped for the position in the soon-to-be elected Gray Administration.

In the short run, the PPS "How to Turn A Place Around" guidebook/workshop is a good model for creating awareness and building capacity amongst citizens.

I used to encourage DC government employees to go to the workshop, but they could never get approval. Instead, I think we should do the program here every year, as a training exercise for DC Government employees and citizens, while focused each year on a particular neighborhood and project.