Public Space

Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing was “an attack on public space,” writes architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. But that doesn’t mean we should respond by closing off the sidewalks and streets the bombers targeted.

April 19, 2013 - Los Angeles Times

Ethan Kent, Enrique Penalosa, and Jonathan Crush offer contrasting perspectives on the effect of informal street vending on public spaces.

April 2, 2013 - Next City

With new bike paths, regional trails, and renovated parks, Cleveland is catering to bikes and pedestrians, says Steven Litt. He explains how this "car town" is "undergoing a revolution in attitudes toward public space, city streets and walkability."

March 11, 2013 - The Plain Dealer

LAX, the LA River, Pershing Square; the list of Los Angeles' under-performing public spaces could sadly continue for a while. As the city votes for its next mayor, Christopher Hawthorne offers some "some straightforward ideas" about how to fix them.

March 4, 2013 - Los Angeles Times

These are heady times for public space advocates. At long last the promotion of streets, sidewalks, parks and playgrounds has become part of the eminent design and development dialogue, and with it hopefully the recognition of the needs and rights of the user. This certainly is the situation in California where the approval of parklets, and other smaller scaled, vest pocket, public projects are being hotly pursued, and in other cities where the noble if not naive Occupy movement raised the profile and purpose of public space.

October 17, 2012 - Sam Hall Kaplan

It wasn't Angelenos' supposed love of the artificial and exaggerated that brought crowds of people to the city's streets to see Endeavour's slow crawl across town, but an appreciation for authentic spectacle and the pleasures of public space.

October 16, 2012 - Los Angeles Times

On the one-year anniversary of the beginning of Occupy Wall Street, Richard Sennett looks at the movement's legacy with regards to rethinking public space.

September 17, 2012 - The Nation

By better integrating the natural and built environments, while enforcing standards of livability, Copenhagen seeks to transform its Saint Kjeld’s neighborhood into "a showcase area for climate adaptation technology," reports Damian Holmes.

August 30, 2012 - World Landscape Architecture

As the number of completed parklets in San Francisco nears three dozen, after debuting only two years ago, "the latest trend in urban placemaking" has entered the planning mainstream without losing its grassroots origins.

July 16, 2012 - San Francisco Chronicle

Nate Berg muses over the shifting boundary between public and private, as technology follows us from the Internet into the physical world.

May 4, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Days before the American Planning Association's national convention, CicLAvia's Aaron Paley describes the event's origins and evolution and explains how an open streets event in Los Angeles can transform one's sense of public space and the city.

April 14, 2012 - The Planning Report

Over the last two decades the city of San Francisco has systematically removed its public benches to fight homelessness. Now citizens are clamoring for their return.

January 30, 2012 - The New York Times

Parklets are a new urban trend spreading to cities all over the world. It's an idea born in San Francisco, and the San Francisco Chronicle's John King takes a tour of each of the city's new mini-parks

January 1, 2012 - San Francisco Chronicle

New street furniture is being installed in Toronto, but locals are already sick of it. They're called "information pillars" and are supposed to offer helpful directions and info to pedestrians, but critics complain that they're mostly advertisements.

December 30, 2011 - The Globe and Mail

Five years after Gilberto Kassab, the mayor of São Paulo, Brazil passed the "Clean City Law", banning all visual pollution around the city, both citizens and businesses are thankful.

December 28, 2011 - GOOD Magazine

Leon Neyfakh of The Boston Globe examines the unexpectedly cohesive political roots of the controversial civic symbol.

December 20, 2011 - The Boston Globe

The plan to create a floating public space along the Thames is a great idea, writes critic Rowan Moore, but the proposed London River Park will suffer from its private ownership and management.

November 14, 2011 - The Guardian U.K.

In an another nuance of the ownership laws that govern New York's parks and plazas, the modernist masterpiece Lever House will close today to keep its plaza privately public.

October 31, 2011 - The New York Times

Poet Jon Cotner uses fleeting snippets of conversation in public spaces as the basis for his poetry. Caitlin Blanchfield took a walk with Cotner to talk about his process.

October 18, 2011 - Urban Omnibus

From the Walklet in SF to Transparent Churches in the Netherlands, Allison Arieff argues that "temporary space remains a sharp tool in the urban revitalization kit." Sheer creativity notwithstanding, what makes these spaces so successful?

September 16, 2011 - The Atlantic